The Fine Line Between Passion and Addiction

My drug of choice? Rock climbing.

Ever feel a satisfying rush of reward while baking cookies or anticipating a gift? Dopamine is responsible for that. People get their dopamine from many different kinds of substances and activities. For example, running, sex, video games, cigarettes, or methamphetamine can all give you those rewarding hits of dopamine. But me? I got my dopamine from rock climbing.

Belay station selfie. Yosemite, CA

Rock climbing puts you in a state of deep focus where all that matters is the wall in front of you and how you might get to the next hold on the wall. The rest of the world melts away, and you’re left fully focused on the here and now.

The moment I first touched the candy-colored climbing holds at the rock gym, I knew I was hooked. I was fully engaged in solving a mind-body puzzle as I pulled my weight up neon green holds. I needed something to take my mind off a bad breakup, so I immediately signed up for a year-long membership.

Whenever I felt bad about my life, I would go rock climbing. I was socially awkward, but I made new friends at the climbing gym and went on road trips to climb together. My world opened up to new travel opportunities that were filled with closeness and laughter and lots and lots of touching rocks.

The social atmosphere of a bouldering competition

But when I couldn’t climb certain difficult grades or when I just wasn’t able to get out to the crag as often as I would like, I felt worthless.

Eventually, I quit my job to freelance and climb as often as I wanted. Most of my friends were also rock climbers, and I was off to a new adventure almost every weekend.

I’d come home from my climbing trips and start planning for the next one, often before I had even unpacked my gear.

Climbing was the dream. Until it couldn’t be.

A friend and I took an 18-day road trip from California to Wyoming where we climbed almost every day with no rest. The scenery was breathtaking, and we climbed ‘til we could climb no more.

Rock climbing in the Wasatch-Uintah mountains

Upon returning home, I couldn’t open my hands. After that trip, I developed multiple tendinopathy in both of my shoulders and lingering pain in my elbows. I realized I had gone much, much farther than my body had been ready for.

I lived in fear that I was missing out, but out of necessity, I stopped climbing. To pass the time while I was in recovery, I worked on my business and spent more time with my friends in town. My stumbling art business took off. I found myself in a loving, stable relationship. For once in quite some time, I found joy in the small things. I felt balanced.

“I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you’ve been given. To stop running from whatever you’re trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is.” —Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation

Without climbing to take me from one magical destination to the next, I was forced to deal with the life in front of me. Eventually, I recovered. I am now able to climb again, but I am much more aware of the price I pay when I’m chasing down dopamine.

Climbing can teach us about life, but should not become a replacement for life.

We learn valuable lessons about our lives on the rocks, but the struggles and triumphs we experience during a climb can never replace the highs and lows of intimate relationships, discovering our worth, or contributing to our communities.

I still rock climb often and love to push myself as far as I am willing. Many of my close friends are ones I’ve met at climbing gyms or wandering around a boulder field, but I also have rich and meaningful relationships with people who don’t climb.

Becoming more aware of how dopamine affects my brain has led me to have a deeper, more compassionate understanding of humanity, and accepting the life I have has made me a better person.