Michael Shames

San Diego Consumer

The Disconnected Addict

Online Or Else
By Michael Shames
Posted on Wed, Apr 12th, 2006
Last updated Wed, Apr 12th, 2006

My supply has been cut off. Not just mine. The supply for the entire hood has been cut off. It looks like it is going to be a long day. Perhaps more than a day. A few days? A week? Perhaps fear is getting the best of me, but I have a bad feeling about this.

I can’t remember the last time I had to go 24 hours without it. There was that 12-hour period a few months ago; it was hell. I felt disoriented and disconnected. I was hoping it was just a panic attack, but it was probably the onset of withdrawal. I tried to find some substitutes, but none of the conventional ones worked. Alcohol. A hot bath. Sex. None of them worked. Fortunately, it was only 12 hours.

Now I’m at the 16^th hour with no end in sight. The panic is creeping up again. But this time, I’m not only feeling fear, I’m also feeling anger. Anger at my supplier. Anger at myself. I look at myself in the mirror and I see an addict. It’s tough medicine, but I’ve got to admit that I’m a junkie. And my helplessness is as much my fault as the pusher's.

When I look back it seems so gradual. Ten years ago, I was a casual user. It was fun; it was new and different. A novelty, and nothing else. But the pressure at work and the scarcity of time pushed me into a dependence upon it. Frankly, I couldn’t function without it and still make it through a day. Too many people to deal with, decisions to be made, pressure situations that demanded I use it just in order to cope, let alone stay on top of things. I wasn’t alone – all of my peers were pushed the same way. What was initially just fun for all of us was now an integral part of our lives. A luxury was now a necessity.

So I sit here in front of my computer disconnected from my friends, from my family, from my workplace. I feel utterly and completely alone. And the frustrating part is that it makes me crave it even more.

I curse the day that I gave up my landline phone and went to an Internet phone. I curse the day that I decided to leave my cell phone at work so that I’d not use it during my off-work hours. I curse the day that my e-mail address replaced my phone number as my primary means of contact. I curse the fateful day that I bought that 1200 baud modem and plugged it into my first computer giving me my first taste of connectivity now called the Internet.

My supply is cut. They tell me that a blown power supply has killed my Time Warner cable connection. I’m left with no link to my outside world. I can’t get e-mail. I can’t blog. I can’t read the news. I can’t shop. I can’t track down that small piece of minutae that I need to complete most of my thoughts. I can’t check my on-line dictionary or follow the real-time play by play of the Padres game, or check the TV schedule (not that my TV is working) or the weather or the movie schedules or what the freeway traffic is like. I don’t dare venture out of my house without knowing the degree of rush hour gridlock that I’d face.

My repeated calls to the Time Warner technical support line is greeted with the same answer: “We don’t have an ETA on service re-establishment” On the last five calls, they’ve added: “Calling every hour won’t get the problem fixed any faster”

So I sit here in my virtual darkness. Like Napoleon on Elba and Mandela on Robben Island, I am isolated and miserable. My dependence upon the Internet is complete and no 12-Step treatment will cure me. I am an addict with no easy road to recovery. I rue that first day of connectivity. It was my salvation and now it is my curse. But I refuse to accept that my addiction is inexorable and eternal. I’m going to fight back.

Tomorrow morning, at the crack of dawn I’m going to have to venture out of my house. Without the real-time traffic report, without my cell phone and without Mapquest directions, I’m going to find a nearby mall. And I will muster up all of the inner strength that is left within me to buy a wireless modem that connects my computer to my cell phone provider. So next time Time Warner cuts me off, I’ll have a secondary connection source. And I’ll resubscribe to my wireline carrier and get a dial-up modem, so that even the wireless carrier can’t cut off my supply. Triple redundancy. That’s the only solution.

But first, I’m going to call customer service again. Maybe they’ve resumed service.

Michael Shames is the Executive Director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network, a San Diego-based consumer group and the author of the recently published "Secrets from the World's Greatest Consumer"; Essential Tools for the 21st Century Consumer. For more information about UCAN, check out www.ucan.org. The author can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

About the author: Michael Shames is the Executive Director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network, a San Diego-based consumer group and the author of "Secrets from the World's Greatest Consumer". The author can be reached at michael@ucan.org.
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Comments

Posted by Captain Scurvy	Fri, Apr 14th, 2006
With all the modern advances in biotechnology, especially here in San Diego, I'm sure someone is working on a pill to cure this particularly troublesome disease. Until then, deep breaths, Mr. Shames. It's all going to be okay.

Posted by Georgia wapnowski	Sun, May 7th, 2006
It is not easy to find bus services on this website.

(1)sandiego.com, Inc. invites comments in which readers can respond freely and anonymously if they wish. Comments submitted by readers will be rejected that are deemed by the editors to be damaging to the future of this web site.
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