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WARNING

Recent authoritative reports suggest SQUARE DANCING may be habit forming. The following information should be reviewed with great consideration.

Signs of square dancing addiction:

  • Dancing 3 or more times per week. Two is borderline, based on how it impacts biopsychosocioeconosexualspiritually on your life.
  • Planning to ask 800 of your favorite partners over for a dance.
  • Attendance of more than ten fly-ins/conventions in a 12 month period.
  • Trying to change dances, i.e. from square to round or line.
  • Blacking out during a tip, as in getting in a position and not knowing how you got there.
  • Dancing on bleeding sore feet. Dancing in any pain.
  • Promising yourself or another person to sit this tip out, and dancing it anyway.
  • Dancing in inappropriate places or situations, i.e. airports, gas stations, etc.
  • Recruiting others into the "fold." (Although research suggests that square dancers cannot be "recruited," but that they are born that way.)
  • Agreeing to dance in a square with only 7 people.
  • Dancing in a square with only 4 people.
  • Dancing Advanced at 0800.
  • Wanting to go to Miami or Las Vegas in mid-summer to dance.
  • Friends or family tell you that you dance too much.
  • Wondering yourself if you dance too much.
  • Feeling like the only fun left is square dancing.
  • Dancing with dolls at home.

After identifying any signs of addictive behavior you may have, be aware of the following symptoms of withdrawal reported in a recent survey:

  • Craving a square.
  • Bloody sore feet.
  • Dazed and hung-over feeling in the morning after a dance.
  • Trying to "scoot back" or "swing thru" in your sleep.
  • Using square dance jargon in nonsensical ways; i.e., "Let's 'swing thru' the ice cream parlor and 'spin the top' with strawberries."
  • Calls, like voices, reverberating in your head.
  • Recalling, in detail, specific routines or sequences of calls.
  • Calling the local Square Dance Center for details of tonight's dance.
  • And a recent quote overheard by a Club President, "When I doze off, I think I am twirling someone out... that I am still square dancing."

Addiction to SQUARE DANCING is a serious matter. You may think this is something you can just "pass thru," well, you are "wrong (way thar)." This addiction will "slip" up on you without warning.

A "slide thru" group discussion on "tips" to break the addiction and "recycle" some old habits will be "called" for. In the mean time, enjoy dancing, don't stop, don't slow down, and keep coming back.

It works.

Shaire Alotte


For more information, write to:

Square Dancer Recovery Program
c/o The Wilde Bunch
PO Box 40393
Albuquerque, NM 87196-0393