The Woes of A Book Addict

Any of you feel like you’re having a perpetual hangover? Not the kind of hangover you have the morning after you drink about a gazillion shots and embarrass yourself in front of everyone you know, everyone who knows you and everyone who didn’t know you until then, but a hangover where you just can’t. Stop. Thinking. About. This. Book.

It’s 4 in the morning, you’ve been reading since 8 last night. Your head’s pounding because of your lack of sleep, you have dark circles under your eyes, and you still need to go to work or school the next day. But sleep’s the last thing on your mind. All that’s on your mind is: How could the author make him die?! What’s going to happen next?!!? I NEED TO READ THE NEXT BOOK NOW. or What in the world?! Did that just really happen?? This author is a freaking GENIUS. 

Or something. And all you want to do is go on Youtube, on Goodreads, on WordPress, on Tumblr, on Pinterest, on Instagram, on Twitter, etc., to find what went through other people’s minds when they read the book. You need to find some other kindred spirit to share all your thoughts and feelings with. They’re clawing at your brain, fighting to be let out. You’re not going to sleep well (if you even sleep), and you’re not going to function well the next day; you’re never going to until you discuss it with someone. Even after that it’s still lurking in your mind, like some sort of insidious, dark mist curling around every inch of your cerebrum and somehow finding its way to take over your every thought. The only way to escape is to pick up your next book to devour.

And devour it you do, but the book’s not the prey. You are. And the cycle repeats.

I refer to this quote from William Feather:“Finishing a good book is like leaving a good friend.”

I’d agree, except it’s too simplified. There’s no mention of the adrenaline that rushes through you and refuses to let you go to rest. There’s no mention of the emptiness, the incompleteness you feel because it’s become a part of you, and to close the book is like letting go of that. There’s no mention of the need you get every few weeks or months to read it again, and again, and again. And of the need to pick something else up to cover up the loss, and how you self-destruct over and over again in a vicious, mercilessly unending cycle.

I’ve been……… dying. I can’t stop reading book after book, every day, all single sittings, usually in the middle of the night so I have a horribly wrecked body clock where I only go to sleep sometime between 3am to 6am, and I haven’t been exercising. This has been happening for the past 8 days. I know I should develop healthier habits, but damn it, I can’t stop.

Please tell me I’m not the only one this crazy.