Confessions of a Television-aholic

Television shows can be funny. They can be dramatic. They can be scary, thrilling, educational, romantic, historical, adventurous, and informational. They can be anything you want them to be, whether it's the romantic comedies we need to enhance our mood or the somber documentaries to give us purpose. It's by giving us role models that we look up to and emulate, that television shows have the power to define who we are and who we want to be. So each week, not a day goes by when we don't think about the cliffhanger that the last episode left off on as we eagerly anticipate the arrival of the next one. I am a recovering TV addict, and I'm going to tell you why.

It all started on a mid-September Sunday night while in the seventh grade that I became helplessly hooked to the endless cycle of great television. After watching my first episode of Survivor I couldn't stop thinking about my incredible anticipation for the next installment until finally 8:00, Thursday came and the process repeated itself. I realized that I couldn't wait an entire week for the episode of my show so I started watching Heroes on Mondays. Then it was Amazing Race on Sundays. And all of the sudden, by the end of seventh grade I had a list of at least seven different TV shows that I completely and utterly addicted to. It came to the point that I needed TV in order to turn my mind off, to simply forget about everything but the LCD screen I was staring at for mass amounts of time. It was bliss; like reading a book without doing the work of actually reading it and I savored every moment of it. But I kept wanting more. I couldn't watch just one episode of something, because every time it'd end on that dreadful cliff hanger I needed more. My hunger for television was never satisfied. For two years television practically defined me, until the day came that Heroes got cancelled. Then Survivor drastically changed. One by one almost all of my shows started to become boring and predictable, and that was the day that I realized what a waste of my life this all was. My epiphany happened, and I became a recovering addict. No I didn't go to therapy or triple-A meetings, but I purposefully started to cancel recording my shows, and then see how long I could go before I'd wind up watching them online and try and improve that number as each week went by. I became a success story and inspiration for TVaholics every where, and within weeks I had stopped watching everything but Amazing Race, which is something I really couldn't afford to give up.

Now, two years later, I still only watch the Amazing Race, Modern Family, and the occasional Grey's Anatomy.