This American Life - 256: Living Without (2004)

Broadcast on: 09 Jan 2004

Recently I was talking to this guy who told me how years ago because of medical condition, he had to give up beer He'd only been a casual beer drinker before this. He never really given beer much thought But now that he couldn't have a beer He was thinking of beer all the time He had a fantasy that went like this He goes into a bar and He orders a beer That was the whole thing. It's hard giving things up

Walter was three and It was time for him to give up the pacifier The pacifier was impairing his speech and so it was time to give it up and his mom and dad weaned him from it slowly First he could only use the pacifier upstairs Then only upstairs in his room Then only upstairs in his room in the bed though Enforcement on the whole bed thing was actually kind of spotty Anyway, finally came the big day Walter announced he was ready to get rid of the pacifier And he threw it into the trash himself And everybody clapped and everybody hugged him and then they drove to a toy store And they got him some special presents a toy treehouse a teddy bear And that first night when it was time to sleep Walter was brave. He was stoic. He went right to bed and Maybe I don't know five minutes passed Before he was out of the bedroom and downstairs crying I'm really sad. He said his mom and dad asked him if he wanted to play with his new toys for a while and he tried that and They went back to bed More sobbing an hour passes two hours It breaks his parents hearts Frankly if they still had had the pacifier in the house, they would have Caved and given it to him it was so upsetting, but he had thrown it into the trash at his grandparent's house It was gone and that night for the first time in his life Walter slept in his parents bed It was the only way that he could actually get to sleep The next night was a little easier next a little easier than that Anyway, after a couple of days Walter announced the special request that he had for all the grown-ups in his life Grandma's grandpa's uncles and aunts the lady next door He wanted to hear their stories about when they gave up their pacifiers. I Told us to a friend of mine who gave up drinking a decade ago How this little boy Walter wanted to hear these stories, and she said man, that's just like AA Though the problem for Walter, of course, was that No adult really remembers Giving up their own pacifier. It's just too long ago, right? So everybody either talked about giving up other stuff that they did remember like giving up their blankets as little kids One auntie offered to talk to him about how she quit smoking, but she was warned off that Or they just made up stories dramatic stories about Giving up their pacifiers to tell Walter It's comforting to hear other people's stories of kicking the habit It's just comforting at any age it it makes it feel like it's possible And so this week We bring you four stories of people giving things up living without some of them voluntarily some not WB easy Chicago. It's a American life distributed by public radio international on our glass act one of our program today Do you hear what I hear in that act one man one teenage daughter and many many fish?

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