Addiction

          A funny thing happened to me the other night while I was sleeping.  I woke up in the dark of the night and as my senses were hurriedly soaking up where, when, and why for my confused brain to process, my sense of touch found my clammy but warm thumb.  “Oh my God! Was I sucking my thumb?” When I answered myself, “No, I couldn’t have been; I am 31 years old,” I realized I had been sleeping with my left thumb clenched between my pointer and middle fingers and my entire hand had been shoved under my backside for safe keeping. The bed was warm enough to cause sweating especially in skin-on-skin situations such as my hand and thumb provided. It’s laughable now and even a bit embarrassing, but it is also interesting how powerful an old habit can be.  It has been over 15 years since I have worried about what my thumbs were up to in the middle of the night, but like they say- once an addict, always an addict.

          One of the most vivid memories relating to my thumbs was when I was about 9 years old and my family was visiting relatives in California. We were doing the whole California vacation complete with daily trips to the pool, a Yosemite trip, camping, and of course, trips to Disneyland and Magic Mountain. My uncle’s brother had a condo down in Los Angeles so we were staying there while visiting the famous Anaheim amusement parks. It was a crowded house with my parents, brother, Aunt Jan and Uncle Al and their two boys, Grandma H., and our gracious host, Uncle Paul, camping out in the two-bedroom unit.  Sleeping arrangements were carefully considered and everyone was happy except, apparently, for Grandma.

          I was minding my own business, quietly climbing up the stairs to get ready for bed, and Grandma and Auntie were in the second bedroom making the bed on the hide-away sleeper couch where Grandma and I were to be bunking up. As I neared the top of the stairs I heard my name from behind the partially closed door. Suffering like many people from the fear of being talked about behind my back and really wanting to know exactly what they were saying I quickly stole to the adjacent bathroom to eaves drop.

          “I don’t want to sleep with her. That girl is nine years old and she still sucks her thumb. It will keep me awake,” Grandma complained. That’s me, I thought.  Since I was the only girl in the house I couldn’t pretend that they were talking about anyone else. Plus, I knew I was destined to be Grandma’s sleeping buddy.

          “It’s not that bad. Most kids suck their thumbs. Be glad she doesn’t wet the bed,” hushed Auntie.

          My ears were ringing so loudly and my heart beating so rapidly I could not focus on what else they said, and I stood in the bathroom doorway for what felt like ages. My grandmother’s words were spinning round and round in my head; I was reeling.  My secret was out and my grandmother despised me for it! I felt sick to my stomach. Grandmothers are supposed to spoil you and love you no matter what. I was so upset by this notion that I wasn’t even happy that Auntie had come to my rescue; bed wetting is far worse. My world was tumbling down around me.  It was all I could do to close the bathroom door and brush my teeth. All the while I was imagining the horrors of what was going to happen when I fell asleep.

          When I went into the bedroom I showed no signs of having heard their conversation. I said goodnight and crawled into bed. As I lay curled on my side with my back to my grandmother I made sure that my thumbs were securely locked into my fists, my left fist crammed between my knees and my right fist hidden under my pillow. I alternately prayed that my thumbs would not betray me and cursed them for having started the habit in the first place.

          Sometime in the night I awoke to loud snoring and felt my childish rage swell inside me. How dare she complain about a little thumb sucking when she could wake the entire house with her snores?  I almost unleashed my thumbs and let the sucking commence, but in the end I covered my ears, too.  In the light of the morning I congratulated myself for having survived the night with no signs of any thumb sucking to be found. I was saved the added embarrassment of having proven Grandma right, but I still had the disturbing knowledge that other people knew about my little thumb trouble. I could not even make myself feel better by telling anyone that I hated the habit and despised myself, too. There was too much of a risk of enlightening people who actually did not know; that would be the epitome of needless embarrassing scenarios. I would just have to deal with my dirty little semi-secret on my own.

          I do not know what started my thumb sucking to begin with.  I pondered the question from time to time since it was possible that the answer to quitting lay in the past.  Did my addiction start in utero? Did it start later as a baby when I needed to soothe myself to sleep?  Did my parents find it endearing and encourage me?  Did my thumbs taste like chocolate as I remember my grandfather jokingly asking me?   The origin became less important over the years, enlightenment never occurring, as I focused on how to reach the end.     Somewhere between the beginning and that fateful night in L.A. I realized that I was a thumb sucker and that I wanted to quit. Cold turkey. No last night indulgences or one-more-before-the-end sucks. That’s when I started tucking my thumbs into my fists and hiding my hands under my pillow or palms-down beneath my butt while chanting, “I will not suck my thumb. I will not suck my thumb,” in my head while my lips mouthed the words. It probably looked like some sort of strange sleep ritual or meditation.  The result was that I stopped sucking on my right thumb. Well, I stopped sucking on only my right thumb. Now it could be either thumb at any time.  The problem was worse.

          I would wake in the night and, finding my hands and thumbs free from their stowed away positions, check for stray saliva or the telltale teeth marks in the tops of either thumb. I was like a crime scene investigator working in the dim light of my room. Inevitably the proof would be found (nights of abstinence were frustratingly few and far between), and I would be consumed with shame and intense aggravation. What else could I do besides enclose my thumbs yet again in their finger prisons and hide them away beneath the bedclothes?  Eventually I would temporarily experience Nirvana when I thought that covering my hands with socks would solve all my problems. Of course, I was wrong and the enlightenment hastily turned to disappointment.  I would wake up the next morning and find the socks twisted in with the sheets, partial evidence that I had indulged myself in the night. Most likely there would be the stale thumb taste lingering in my mouth or the still-warm and moist offending digit resting nearby. Like so many wasted cigarette butts or empty bottles and dirty glasses. Evidence of the shame spiral.

During the waking hours I imagined the puppet shows that would ensue while I dreamt the night away oblivious to the performance.  It may have gone something like this, in slow motion and black and white of course: my mouth opening and shutting like a trap door, daring my thumbs to get too close. My left thumb trying to reach my lips but the sock getting in the way. As the left hand wrestles with the sock, my right hand creeps in from the side, the thumb frantically trying to find its way out of the tube. The left sees the right and shoves it aside, which exposes the right thumb. Now time moves in slow motion as the left hand is shocked into temporary inaction (fingers splayed up and out inside the cloth), and the right thumb finds its place in my mouth, which closes down and begins to suck. Realizing defeat, the left hand and thumb fold over and fall to the bed with a light thump. A small smile crosses my face and the scene ends.  I could have charged admission!

          Except that the thought of someone seeing me would give me the cold sweats and have me dreading things like sleepovers.  Spending the night with a bunch of girls was always fun, but it was like a nightmare trying to figure out how to sleep incognito, just in case I had to have a middle of the night thumb suck. What if my friends saw me?  It was a terrifying thought so I hardly slept because of the worry. It was the worst during my early teen years not because of frequency but because I was in Junior High. (Yes, my curse stayed with me even this far; my grandmother would have been just as mortified as I was. The incidents were, however, becoming more spaced out for various potential reasons.)  In the world of low self-esteem, peer pressure, fitting in with the popular crowd, silly sleepover games (like putting water on someone’s sleeping bag and telling her she wet the bed or putting a girl’s bra in the freezer), and crushes on the cutest boy, thumb sucking would have turned into a character bashing free-for-all the likes of which Olson Junior High never saw before.  Goodbye induction into the popular crowd and possible romance with the cutest boy and hello peer isolation, humiliation and sitting at the nerd table at lunch.  Never!

          As I struggled with my curse into Junior High it had me seriously concerned that I would never break the habit.  During this time of hormonal changes and independence I vowed that my habit would not follow me to young adulthood so I renewed me efforts to finish it for good, much like getting rid of babyish books or toys and embracing a new body and more freedom. The nightly chanting and frequent appendage checks certainly disrupted my sleep, but I slept more soundly in between those awakenings if I knew my thumbs were obeying me. Slowly but surely the habit was being kicked.  Relapses would occur, as the dried saliva around my thumb and mouth would prove, but I was willing it away.  To be completely honest my habit followed me into high school, but by then it was more of a worry that the once-in-a-great-while episodes would turn into a full-blown outbreak of thumb sucking frenzies.

          It would have been interesting to have followed my stress levels and nightly thumb capers. There was probably a pattern. High stress during the day followed by some serious sucking at night, which would lead to more stress the next day. I would worry myself sick with questions like: would I graduate high school with my thumb in my mouth?  Or major in thumb sucking in college? Or how could I hide it from my husband when I got married?  Or, even worse, are there support groups for people like me?              

Thumb sucking, like most addictions, can have ramifications far-reaching from the comforts of a private bedroom or house. Mental health instabilities aside, there were the physical consequences to contend with.  From a very early age I was the girl with the overly large front teeth that stuck out because I sucked my thumbs and was a chronic tongue-thruster, i.e., pushed at the backs of my teeth with my tongue. They weren’t quite buckteeth, but they were close. My other teeth were in no great shape either; they had all come in crooked. You can imagine why I suffered from low self-esteem and a fear of being picked on.  Thankfully my parents agreed that I needed to have my mouth all fixed-up, and they found an orthodontist. **Are there such things as suckingdontists?**  The retainers he fitted me with may have helped discourage sucking my thumbs; one of the types had dull spikes hanging down from the center to keep my tongue in the back of my mouth. It did not feel good to bring those down on an unsuspecting thumb.  By the middle of seventh grade my teeth were entirely cured even if my habit was not.  Incidentally, my new, big, bright smile did nothing to help me until I was much older.

          I find it highly amusing that my mind could have brought up such a series of events that I had been trying for many years to forget.  Perhaps it is because my husband and I are watching our 5-month old daughter soothe herself to sleep with the pacifier or sometimes her thumbs or fingers. Perhaps it was that my dreams had pushed me there; maybe I was dreaming about my grandma, junior high or even chocolate.  Regardless I laugh when I think of the face my husband would make if I ever asked him, “Honey, was I sucking my thumb last night?”