It’s everyone’s favorite – flow. Video gamers know it. People who are super-into their craft know it. Athletes know it. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi did the research and thinking that defined the condition, and described it as a state that “occur[s] if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” You’re solving problems, one right after another, at the level of challenge that’s perfect for you – you know exactly what to do, but it takes all your concentration to do it. You don’t notice you’re hungry. You don’t notice you have to pee. Your focus is total. You are working to your fullest human potential – using all of your mighty brain, all of your faculties and consciousness laser-focused. In what seems like the blink of an eye, hours have passed. You would be in that state all day if you could.

I love flow, knew it and loved it even before I knew it had a name. I get into flow at work all the time. I’ve had soul-deadening jobs where the minutes went by like hours and time lost all meaning. At my current job, I get in flow and stay there for large portions of the day, several days a week when things are busy. Even though it’s work, and it’s hard, it’s also more gratifying than anything I do for myself (better than watching TV, even better than meditation, and you know I love meditation). I leave states of flow on a high that’s better than any chemical ever was. 

Addiction is so anti-flow. And I knew this. But still, when I’ve been addicted, I’ve been subject to forces that undermine flow so easily, it’s a wonder I was ever able to step into flow at all. When you’re addicted, you might have a few moments of getting absorbed in something, but you are soon pulled back to thoughts about your next fix. 

Smoking is particularly insidious this way. Cigarettes are so anti-flow. You can’t get your head into much of anything if you have to stop every 1-2 hours to go outside and smoke. When you’re not smoking, you’re thinking about when you can smoke again – even if you do get absorbed in a project, it’s still always kind of there. In my drinking days, on many days, I was so focused on when I could clock out and go drink that I was barely there for my work, much less getting transported by the total absorption of my attention. 

People have flow experiences that aren’t the result of work, but I don’t know much about that; even when I’ve had minimum wage jobs, doing work for its own reward is the flowiest state I know. When I’m writing for work, I get lost for hours. When I’m writing this blog, somehow, the minutes crawl by. I suppose trying to get the contours of my mind expressed right seems more effortful than the quick answers I have for work writing – it’s a tougher level of challenge. 

But I know that, in my addiction, I never would have given those many happy hours of flow to my work. I definitely know I wouldn’t be giving the many difficult hours to this blog. When I quit drinking, I didn’t have a thought in my head that I would want to write about ideas and put them out into the world. Again, I didn’t quit drinking to start a blog. I had to quit drinking, then discovered that there was someone drowning in that ocean of liquor that wanted to write about ideas.   

In Beyond Boredom and Anxiety, Csikszentmihalyi wrote, “There is no reason to believe any longer that only irrelevant ‘play’ can be enjoyed, while the serious business of life must be borne as a burdensome cross. Once we realize that the boundaries between work and play are artificial, we can take matters in hand and begin the difficult task of making life more liveable.” In addiction, I thought only the play of getting loaded brought joy into my life. In sobriety, I have discovered that most of life is joyful, even work, even when it’s hard, sometimes especially when it’s hard. My calling in life used to be pleasure. As a less-addicted person, I find so much more purpose in flow. The less addicted we are, the more flow is available to us.