Internet Withdrawal Is Real: A True (Sort Of) Story
- Bill Travis
- Aug 4
- 2 min read
Yesterday started like any other productive day. I was up at 6 a.m., ready to get moving. But when I opened my laptop and saw nothing but that dreaded spinning wheel, I knew something was wrong.
The Cox app confirmed my worst fear: internet outage. A local area issue, they said. Not to worry — it should be back up by 10:00 a.m.
Early Signs of Internet Withdrawal
Fine, I thought. I’ll use the downtime wisely. No internet? I’ll do what people used to do before the web ran our lives. You know — take out the trash, change a light bulb, change furnace filters. Productive things.
By 9:00 a.m., I decided to make the most of it and go practice pool. There’s always the community clubhouse, so I packed up and headed over…
Only to find Sunday church services in full swing in the adjoining hall.
Now, the walls between that hall and the billiards room are about as thin as a cue stick. I could have practiced — but there’s something sacrilegious about breaking balls while someone’s reading scripture next door. I didn’t want to be the subject of complaints or cost the community a future rental.
So, back home I went.
Checked the app again: new update — now it says 2:00 p.m.
Full-Blown Internet Withdrawal Symptoms Set In
This is when the real internet withdrawal symptoms started kicking in:
Pacing the floor
Re-checking the modem every 15 minutes
Hovering near my modem like it owed me something
Irrational irritation at anything unrelated
Brief daydreams about dial-up just to have something
Nothing to edit. Nothing to post. No blog to write. No video to review. My AI assistant? Offline. My cloud backups? Inaccessible. My heartbeat? Elevated.
And keep in mind — I’m not the hotheaded type. I’ve landed planes on three continents in all kinds of inclement weather, calmly dealt with obnoxious passengers and hours of turbulence. But this was testing me.
Internet Recovery (and a Return to Sanity)
Just when I thought I’d be reduced to writing blog drafts on napkins and Morse-coding my memoir into a table lamp, the miracle happened.
Around 12:00 noon, the signal returned.
It felt like coming up for air after a deep dive. Email, AI Assistant, website dashboard — everything sprang back to life. I was breathing normally again!
The Internet Withdrawal Moral of the Story
Modern life runs on an invisible current of connection. And when that line gets cut — even for a few hours — it’s surprising how fast the symptoms set in.
Internet withdrawal is real.
But thankfully, so is recovery. How do you feel when your internet goes out? For more stories about the internet, or yesterday's technology (or lack of) head over to the Blog-general post area.
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