My addiction to word puzzles began with newspaper crosswords. A college friend got me hooked. He boasted that he used a pen.
A pen! Nice guy, but clearly a crossword snob. As a neophyte, I wasn’t familiar with the short, obscure words that puzzle makers use to annoy beginners, words such as nene (goose), joey (young marsupial), soba (Japanese noodle) and so forth.
Crosswords became my passion. I was voracious. I took long bathroom breaks at work. I kept my puzzle mania from my wife, who thought they were a waste of time.
Just when I had mastered crosswords, cellphones came along, offering a wide variety of different word puzzles. Always in search of new challenges, I downloaded 14 apps. Now I was doing 14 new puzzles a day. My college friend fell into the puzzle app quicksand too, and we began texting our results to each other every day. Soon our texting duo expanded to five puzzle aficionados. Many were impressed by my ability. For me, it became partly an ego thing.
I realized that my passion for word puzzles had gone from passion to obsession to addiction when I began to stay awake in bed at 2 a.m. with my cell on, searching my brain for a word that had eluded me all day. I told my wife that I had insomnia and was reading to get to sleep. When my bogus insomnia continued, she wore a sleep mask because the light from my cell kept her awake.
One night, she looked over my shoulder and saw what I was really doing. “You’re doing puzzles?” she exclaimed. I nodded sheepishly. “Why do you love puzzles so much?” My feeble reply was that puzzles would increase my vocabulary.
Gradually, word puzzles started to affect other aspects of my life. A year before, my wife had bought expensive tickets to “The Magic Flute.” I love opera, but during the performance, my eyes watched the stage while my mind was concentrated on trying to recall a seven-letter word for “Arizona state flower.” When I got it, I almost reflexively shouted, “Saguaro!” during the second act but managed to control myself.
Worst of all, I was alienating my daughters. Instead of doing what fathers are meant to do when their children visit, I sat in a corner glued to my cell. Did I go to the beach with them? No, the sun would darken my cell phone screen. In restaurants, I would spend 15 minutes in a restroom stall.
At first, my daughters — both adults — thought I was participating in virtual work meetings on my cell (which to them was acceptable) until my wife informed them that I was actually doing word puzzles. The kids were outraged. Dad’s doing puzzles? Now, as I finished the one I’d been struggling through, my family shot me dirty looks and hurled disparaging remarks.
Moments later, they confronted me in a sort of impromptu intervention. I was being thoughtless, they said. It was clear, they added, that puzzles were more important to me than they were, For the first time since the start of my puzzle obsession, I felt ashamed.
Incurring the wrath of my family finally made me give up puzzles. By then, I knew I had a serious addiction problem. I deleted my puzzle apps.
The real puzzle was this: How had I become such an idiot?
I did suffer some withdrawal symptoms — frustration, anxiety, crankiness. Could I quit for good? How would my fellow puzzle enthusiasts react if I left the group? Could I live without the daily ego massage and that euphoric feeling I experienced whenever I completed a puzzle? On the other hand, my family was the single most important part of my life.
Only one person in my puzzle group noticed I had quit our daily competition — my old college friend.
It took a month to wean to two puzzles a week. A challenge, but I’m proud to say that, except for one crossword a week, I am word puzzle-free. Or, as a crossword clue might say, ‘I’m on the_________.’
John Blumenthal, an author and former magazine editor, has also written for Salon and Huffington Post.
The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds. See our guidelines.
The views and opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Chicago Sun-Times or any of its affiliates.
Send letters to letters@suntimes.com.
