Getting it out of your system?

I have been pondering an interesting piece of advice that our culture continually dispenses to us. Have you ever noticed that we are often instructed to get destructive, addictive & inappropriate behavior out of our systems, meaning to do it a bunch or practice it (usually at a time in life like while at college when we are old enough to make decisions for ourselves but still young enough to be forgiven for some misguided living).

Now I am not trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill, say that some experimentation is not a natural part of growth and discovery or suggest that everyone who follows this advice will wind up ruining their lives, BUT it does seem like folly to me to think that doing something in excess will result in getting it out of our systems!!!

Let's think about this logically...

Should we eat a ton of unhealthy food while we are still young and healthy and then plan to get healthier in our eating when we get older? The 27 year old friend of mine who had a heart attack last week would probably tell us that is a bad idea!!! This is what I am calling the "damage thought". To do something like this early on results in too much damage and takes a drastic toll on the quality of our entire lives (much sooner than we once thought).

Most of the usual things that apply when talking about this kind of living are centered around promiscuity and the use of drugs and alcohol (and many times these things are all part and parcel of the same experience). Certainly the damage thought applies here as well, but I but I think the "addiction thought" is even more compelling when thinking about these things. Since when did drinking a great deal or doing drugs or having lots of sex result in not wanting to do these things anymore? Now I know there are instances where this may be somewhat true, but 99% of the time the more we do these things the more we want to do them and thus become addicted! Why practice something to the point where we get past our fears, inhibitions and the initial "this is nasty" part of the habit?

Think of the headache and nasty taste in your mouth (for days) that accompanied smoking your first anything! Think of how your first drink of hard liquor felt and tasted? Even the first sexual experience of many people is not really a positive thing in many ways. My point is that many of these things exit for a reason. As a caution or warning or even just a sign that ought to make us think before continuing in the same direction.

Just be careful about doing something a great deal in order to get it out of your system! You just may discover, as I suspect, that it will accomplish the exact opposite of this initial intent!