My addiction knows no season.

Summer, winter…..day in, day out…..it is a veritable obsession. I don’t go one single day without using, and my substance of choice is always close at hand. I have some in every pocket of every coat I own, in my purse, in the cup holder in my van, and stashed throughout our house in various and sundry locations: a drawer in the kitchen, a drawer in the main floor bathroom, the nightstand next to my bed. I’ll use just about any variety I can get my hands on, but usually, I prefer it mostly plain.

My drug?

Lip balm.

For years, as many as I can remember, I’ve been addicted to lip balm. I am, I freely admit, what is probably considered a hard core user. To be clear, I’m not talking about a lipstick addiction; I’m not using it for any beauty-enhancing effect. In fact, I don’t particularly like lipstick much at all. It’s not as smooth and well, waxy, feeling as something like plain old Chapstick. And it really is all about the feel, because nothing makes my skin crawl like having dry lips. On those (rare) occasions when I have found myself feeling a bit chapped, yet am lip balm-less? All I can think about is WHERE CAN I GET SOME CHAPSTICK? In spite of owning a substantial number of tubes already, I am not above buying some, if that’s what I have to do to scratch that itch, and I’ve even resorted to borrowing some, though only from close personal friends or relatives, of course. If this could be considered ‘hitting rock-bottom,’ then I’ve been there many times.

Admittedly, though, hitting rock-bottom rarely happens to me, and here is why. Once when Noel was at Sam’s Club, he came across a mega-pack of Chapstick. There must have been over 20 tubes of the stuff in one package. He brought it home for me, and I could not have been happier if he’d handed me a couple of tickets to Paris. (I guess this would make Noel an enabler??)

I tore into the package, and stashed my Chapstick in all the necessary places, so unless the tube has actually run out, I rarely find myself lip balm-less. And now I know where to go to get it, in bulk, when the well starts to run dry.

For literally years, my addiction and I have co-existed peacefully and without much thought or concern. Until yesterday.

I was looking around on the Dr. Oz website (for a recipe of all things! using endive! totally unrelated to lip balm!), when I saw a link that said “Are you a lip balm addict?” Well, of course I had to click on that.

It took me to a video clip from one of his shows where, in a nutshell, he profiled a girl who was a self-proclaimed lip balm addict and who tried to go one full day with using (she made it, but said she’d never do it again), and then, he explained why excessive use of lip balm is not good for your lips.

But of course. Doesn’t it just figure? I mean, what’s next? I already can’t eat Doritos and drink Diet Coke with wild abandon……and there is a limit to how much wine and cheese is considered ‘acceptable’……and now, I can’t even enjoy this one, tiny, thing in life that brings me, if not great joy, at least a small modicum of pleasure?? Is there no end to the deprivations one must endure in life??

I’d tell you to go watch the video to see the medical reason why he says the lip balm addiction is bad for you, but for some reason the video will not play now. I just watched it yesterday, and now, for some reason, it can’t be viewed. I’ll link to it here, just in case it is working again later, but in the meantime, I will instead give you a quick summary of what he said.

In a nutshell, lip balms – while soothing! – create a barrier on your lips that does not allow the dead skin cells to slough off as they should, and as a result, those dead layers of cells continue to build up on your lips. Breaking your lip balm addiction allows the skin on your lips to do what it’s supposed to do, which is slough off and regenerate, quickly and frequently.

Well, if that is true, then my lips ought to look a lot more like Angelina Jolie’s, what with all the layers that have likely built up on them by now.

This morning when I sat down to write this post, I did a Google search for “dr oz lip balm addiction,” intending, as I mentioned, to link to his video. While things didn’t work out so well with the Dr. Oz clip, I did, however find another very interesting site during my search: Lip Balm Anonymous.

I am not joking; it’s for real, and you can read all about it by clicking on the link. Surprising though it would seem, there is, in fact, an entire website devoted to lip balm addicts, including a Q&A section where people can write in and ask questions about their lip balm usage, and whether or not it is extreme enough to be classified as an “addiction.” (I did not, however, spend enough time there to find out if there is also an accompanying Twelve Step plan.)

??????

Addiction, in all its myriad forms, is a very serious matter, and I’m not making light of that itself. But really? Does lip balm addiction fall into the same category of other addictions in that it is something that needs to be ‘broken’? Is the world really taking lip balm usage this seriously?? The makers of Chapstick and Carmex should only be so lucky!

Whatever the case I, personally, won’t be jumping onto that particular wagon. I have worse vices in life that I should be concerned about than how much Chapstick I’m going through (ref: Doritos).

Hello, my name is Christy, and I am a Lip Balm Addict.

You know, the addict with the smoothest, softest lips in town.