Taking it day by day

I've always heard that the first step in overcoming an addiction is admittance. You've seen the scenes in countless movies where people at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings stand up and say, "Hi, my name is *whatever* and I am an alcoholic." There are support groups for all kinds of addictions from drug abuse, porn, etc... I mean, pick your vice. Well, I'm here to admit that I am recovering from an addiction myself.

Hi, my name is Kandice, and I am a recovering acryl-holic. My addiction began in late October 2008 when I got a full set of acrylic nails in anticipation of Sean's graduation from WOC school and his weekend visit to NC. It seemed simple enough; I'd had sets of acrylic nails before a half dozen times and each time I'd had them taken off due to the lack of funds and time to keep them up.

But something about this set was different. I started going to get a fill-in every two weeks, as is standard with acrylic nails, and the weeks turned into months. Thanks to my enabler Sean, who became my husband in the early stages of this addiction, I had the money to keep getting my nails done on a regular schedule. I mean, the money he gave me was to pay my rent and to buy myself some food, but eating dry cereal straight out of the box was an easy way to ensure that my nails would still be done twice a month. I told myself and everyone else that getting my nails done was a way for me to chill out and de-stress once a fortnight: I was student teaching at the time, so the fill-ins actually did give me about an hour of mental health time (c'mon teachers, you know what I'm talking about) every other week.

Since the move to Alabama, I haven't been teaching. Hell, I've been unemployed more than I've been employed in the last 11 months! Yet I'd still been getting regular fill-ins. There was a time that - due to extenuating circumstances - I had to go three weeks without getting my fix and I went nuts. My addiction was taking over! Anyway, a few weeks ago, Melissa (the manicurist who's been working on me for the past few months at my favorite salon) suggested taking the acrylic set off and just putting a gel polish over my nails since I like to keep them short and the constant cut-downs were causing my nails to split from the acrylic. I said yeah, I'll give it ago, and I'm proud to say that I've been acrylic free for two weeks.

Now, unfortunately, the gel nail polish can't stand up to the torture I put my fingers through at work (I mean, filing is crucial!) and my tissue-paper thin nails are always breaking and tearing. I haven't been able to maintain that beautiful square shape and, quite honestly, they look haggard-ass. It was so hard not to have a beautiful acrylic set put back on after that first week, and now I have to go to the salon every week to keep this polish looking decent. But, as "they" say, the road to recovery is long and it gets a little easier everyday.

Lord help me if I actually ever have a serious addiction.