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.
