I Forgive Myself for Being Human

I think sometimes I avoid writing here because I feel I need to be reporting on “how I’m doing,” which, in terms of consistent abstinence from overeating, is not so great. 

I have been coming to OA meetings since the end of September 2012, so two years and a month or so. Shouldn’t I be sailing smoothly in my abstinence thus far? I think so. But then I remind myself of the process it took for me to become abstinent from marijuana.

That process began in 2010 when I had to stop using in order to find a job, then once I acquired a job I decided to only allow myself to smoke pot every two months. And what I mean by “only smoking every two months” is that I would buy a bag of weed every two months and binge on it until it was gone.

At one point I managed longer than two months of marijuana-sobriety, and then finally a family situation (involving a family member’s addiction to synthetic marijuana to the point that she became a danger to her own child) scared me into sobriety. Even a few months after that scare, around Halloween 2012 I found myself in some situations where marijuana was being smoked and I participated. 

It was a process. Now at my two year sobriety mark from smoking pot I feel I’ve come a long way and feel strong enough to maintain my sobriety without too much trouble (though I know I will always be a pot addict and that I need to stay vigilant against the disease). But becoming sober was not at all like turning on a light switch. It was trial-and-error.

So why do I expect food abstinence to be any easier, especially considering that it’s so much more complicated of an addiction? With food abstinence, after all, half the battle is figuring out what “abstinence” is to begin with! And even then, we will be surrounded by our addictive substance on a daily basis. I do not have to be confronted with cheap, easily available marijuana when I drove down the highway or enter a grocery store. My co-workers do not hold marijuana potlucks. There are no holidays where people hand out marijuana to children, give marijuana to express their romantic love, or gather around the table with family to smoke a bong (unless, of course, you’re a very enthusiastic celebrator of the 420 Holiday, I suppose).

And of course, unlike with food addiction, we don’t need to smoke marijuana to stay alive. I need food, but I do not need the foods I am addicted to. But knowing which foods those are exactly, and then avoiding them when they’re all around? That is hard.

I do feel I’ve had some good insights lately regarding my food addiction. Reading about the science of sugar addiction has lead me to understand that I probably am a sugar addict. When I recently cut sugar out of my diet completely (which is difficult to do, by the way, because it’s in almost everything you eat, and simple carbs turn almost immediately into sugar when you eat them so those have to be avoided too as they trigger the brain’s reward system the same way sugar does) I stopped having cravings. In fact, I stopped being hungry most of the time (maybe more on that in a future post). 

I made it about a week without sugar, then slipped and then sprawled. Today is no sugar day one again. One day at a time. As many times as it takes.

12 Promises

I love the Twelve Promises. :) I have seen some of them fulfilled in small ways and look forward to the continued blessings of recovery. 

Forgiveness

For the majority of my life I held resentment towards my Aunt and Uncle for the emotional abuse I felt I received from them in my childhood. My mother died in a car accident when I was 11, at which point my aunt and uncle had become my and my sister's full-time guardians, although they had already had part-time guardianship of us for a few years before that due to my mother's severe bipolar disorder.

I'll keep the story short and simple, I feel loved by my aunt and uncle now, and a lot of healing has occurred. Much of my healing had to do with forgiveness.

I'm finding forgiveness to be a major spiritual gift of late as well in dealing with a hurtful situation with my former roommate who offered to foster my cat for me until I could find an apartment that would allow pets. Edgar the cat has been in my life for ten years now. Understandably my ex-roommate also has a bond with him, but I was shocked and made fearful by her statement that she felt entitled to keep him, and if not, that she thought she should keep him until I pay back a debt to her that I truthfully do owe (though her account of the total debt is quite inflated). The debt is something I had planned to start paying as soon as I got a full-time job that would allow me to do so, which I do have now (and that is also the reason I am finally in an apartment that allows pets). My ex-roommate seemed to feel I had shown no intentions so far of paying back the loan, and truthfully she is right--I should have made more effort to at least start paying her back a small amount here and there--and I admitted this to her. I offered multiple times to make written payment arrangements, but she insists as of the writing of this blog entry that she needs to keep Edgar until the loan is completely paid off.

In reading fourth step material online (the current step I'm on) I found some advice that when we are feeling resentful for someone it is very healing that we prayer *for* the other person. We pray that this person have all the joy and happiness that we want for ourselves. I've been doing a lot of prayer lately, not really sure how to react to my friend's evasive (she will only talk to me about this through email she says, and even then her response is 2-7 days in coming) and hurtful behavior.

I had made prayer for her once when I first read this advice online, and it helped somewhat, but I think I was still too stunned by the whole thing to really mean those kindnesses that I was prayerfully directing at her.

In the past two weeks I have felt almost non-stop the stress, worry, anger and resentment about this issue eating me from the inside out. I had just regained abstinence and my inability to handle my emotions and deal effectively with my resentments lead me to overeat.

Yesterday I decided to pray for my friend again. This time I felt almost a rosy, holy feeling, I felt aligned with the words I was speaking. I truly found compassion for her, was able to find forgiveness and let go of this pain and stress. I do not know what the future holds regarding my cat. She has been unresponsive for the past 4 days. I have not stopped wanting to have my Edgar back, but I have decided that I deserve more than to be living in fear, anger, paranoia, and resentment regarding the situation. I will continue to give this situation to God to the best of my ability, and seek God's will for a resolution.

Thoughts from Morning Commute: I Deserve More than What Food Can Do for Me

I deserve more than what food can do for me. On my commute this morning I was thinking a lot about how I've been consciously shifting toward a more positive perspective and how doing that has brought me to greater happiness. I was thinking that even though I have not been abstinent for much of this shift, my general movement towards greater happiness is making me stronger and more capable of being abstinent. 

Likewise, though perhaps I could be happy without abstinence, I know that I deserve more, much more, than what food could ever do for me.

Just as a side note, isn't that a beautiful image? #crowlove #crowmedicine ;)

Staying Inside My Body

"Today, I will keep my energy in my body. I will stay focused and within my boundaries. God, help me let go of my need to escape myself. Help me face my issues so I am comfortable living in my body."--from The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

Sometimes when I share on Twitter or other social media it makes me feel ill. I think it has to do with putting too much energy out there, something along the lines of what Melody Beattie talks about in her entry on "Owning Our Energy" from The Language of Letting Go.

She says, "our energy spills out of us on to whomever. Our energy is our energy [my emphasis]. Our feelings, thoughts, issues, love, sexuality; our mental, physical, spiritual, sexual, creative, and emotional energy is ours."

I don't intentionally try to invade others' boundaries with my energy. I just want to express myself and I think sometimes just the unintended consequence is that you can't just express yourself willy nilly without other people being affected by the energy you're putting out.

So, it's a fine line. How to express oneself
without overstepping others' boundaries, or your own?

Back, from outer space

         I have been thinking a lot lately about allowing for God's will to guide and direct me. OA recommends submitting one's own will, with the suggestion that personal willpower will not heal us. Sometimes that can be confusing, don't we need willpower to stop overeating?

I think it's good to admit confusion with OA principles (or with anything), but I do also know that in general when I'm worried or fearful I always feel better the more fully I am able to "give it to God." So it makes sense to give the fear that causes my overeating over to God.

When I overeat, it is out of fear and worry. Sometimes I eat because I'm happy, or seemingly that's why I'm eating, what I've realized is that I often run into fearfulness that I'll lose happiness. So even happy times cause great anxiety. I'm often waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Returning to this blog a little over a year later, I would like to focus more on the positive. I think when I began in OA it was important to me to feel like I was being honest about my shadows, acknowledging my compulsive behavior, looking my addiction square in the face.

And of course that is still important. But I also want to be honest about my strengths, my joys, about the progress I've had.

I am newly abstinent again. I've moved back to eastern Ky to be near my family, and that's been a great change. Partly due to OA, and additionally from getting back to my roots and my sense of rootedness, I'm happier at this point of my life than I've ever been. At the same time, even while continuing to become happier and better adjusted following a major depression in 2006, I haven't been abstinent for a long time.

Abstinence itself doesn't bring happiness. But I know, that as a fairly calm and contented person (these days! and believe much I'm much happier and more centered even than when I started this blog) that I deserve, in my contentedness, to be treating myself with good health and with the continued mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being that comes with abstinence and the freedom from the insanity of compulsive eating.