It was about 4am on a Tuesday. My wife was sleep next to me and Doughboy my 3yr old English Bulldog was under the bed snoring like a grown man.... or maybe that was my wife snoring instead of Doughboy... in any event I was the only soul awake in my house. Of course it was the off season or I would have been in bed by 10pm to rest my body for those grueling Wednesday practices we have during the season. This wasn't in season so here it is 4:45am by this point and I had just completed a scroll of every person that graduated from Lindbergh High years 2001-2003! Every single person, adding this one, not adding that one I mean it was like a fine tooth comb I went through these pages. Kids that I didn't even talk to in school but I remembered their face so something compelled me to add them. If it wasn't for Facebook I wouldn't have known half of their names but they were going in my friends list if I had anything to say about it. By 8am the sun had come up, the snoring was slowing down, and I was still on my computer eyes bloodshot red from staring at the screen for the past 10 hours. As I walked to the bathroom to brush my teeth for "bedtime" I glanced up in the mirror only to find I didn't recognize the man staring back at me. He was weak, he looked tired, he looked over all strung out. That is when I knew the dreaded Facebook addition started! From then on I would find myself checking my page before meetings, then it was after meetings, but before I knew it I was checking my page DURING meetings! I knew that I couldn't be the only strung out Facebooker but I was too ashamed to come forward. I needed that fix... I had to see how many of my friend requests were garnered that day, or how many people responded to a status update for the day. I was joining groups that made no sense for me to be. I accepted every person who wanted to be my friend, denying no one the joy of being addicted just as I was. The instant chat was worst, I would stay logged on to wait until firends went from idle to available to bombard them with messages. The hungry was never quite the feeling recieved like from the first time I logged on, but they say say us addicts are always chasing that first high even if it kills us. This was a feeling I thought can only come from Blackplanet but I was wrong! Blackplanet was a gateway drug compared to this, and don't get me started on Myspace> Yeah they had a good run but Facebook's product was far superior. Myspace instant chat was primeative at best and how many times could I hear T-Pain on a friends page before the song gets to be like getting a root canal with no pain killing medicine! As all addicts do, I hit rock bottom and knew it was time for a change. Facebook would be my downfall if I didn't stop being and coward and break my "need" for this awesome form of social networking. I decided that day to delete my Facebook app without rating it for future down loaders(I didn't want to contribute to the future addictions of the masses)and vowed to quit cold turkey. The first day was the hardest. Every so often I would find myself scratching my arms as I wondered the status updates of my peers. Visions of Pookie from New Jack City telling Ice-T that it just keep"calling me and calling me" clouded my brain. Was this who I had become??? Was I that dependent on this site that I couldn't resist it?? It had been all of 2 hours since the deactivation of my page and I was folding like a bad poker hand! Then it came to me...."JD" the voice said, " There's always Twitter!" The voice was right... Twitter, the lesser of two evils. I'm proud to say that I blog to you today Facebook free with no relapses and I can thank @JasonDavis43 for the power to put those dark days behind me.
