This has been an emotionally rocky month for me. I've really had this persistent malaise for most of may and it's been tough. But today, the only day that matters, I'm doing ok. Despite the fact it's a holiday Monday here in Canada (Victoria Day), I got up at the usual time and phoned my food buddy. We rarely talk about anything earthshaking, just how's your food, but it's one of those regular aspects of my OA program that I've come to rely on. It just keeps me closer to good habits, and keeps me fairly honest about my food. Nothing earth shattering, just a new, healthier habit that helps with my sanity.
Amazingly, although I've felt like utter crap some days, I haven't binged over it and I've got almost 2 months with no binge. So that's great. But if I'm going to log some serious sanity time with the food, I need to do some more footwork. Today, my mood is such that it seems possible. I've had a great week, and I think it has everything to do with the healthy relationships I've formed with the people I've met at OA. I went on my first ever organized hike with a group because of my sponsor yesterday. 10 km, which at times felt like it was 10 k straight up and then 10 k down... my toes is sore today, but we did it! Which reminds me.... I've got to phone an OA buddy. My sponsor and this woman helped me move 3 cubic yards of topsoil I had delivered this week and we're going to repeat the favour for another OA friend who's been ill and unable to work in her garden.
Ok, I've got to go, but I just wanted to check in. Later today I'll post some more. I need to do some writing about long term abstinence. I think it's needed... Today, I've got some access to joy in my heart. What a gift.
6.5.08
This Too, However Weird, Will Pass
I need one of those countdown keychains, like the ones I saw in a Greenwich Village tchotche shop which count down the days until we are finally rid of Dubya, except I could use mine to predict when whatever snit I'm laboring under will end. Like Whateverthehellthatwas I had for the last 2 weeks: I thought I was depressed, but then I started noticing definite physical symptoms: my asthma ticked up, I was light headed and my stomach was dipsydo-ing and when I exercised I felt like I had concrete blocks tied to my shoes. Even worse, I couldn't run for long before having to find a bathroom! Embarrassing and inconvenient. Finally I just took a couple days off from the running and didn't do much except read novels. Whatever it was would just have to pass.
But I still wondered if all the symptoms were psychological in origin. Then today, BFF, my travelmate for the NYC trip two weeks ago phoned and said, "I don't know what's wrong with me, I'm just exhausted and my throat is kinda sore and I keep thinking I should be doing stuff, but everything just seems so hard right now!" DING DING DING! Ha! It's not me, it's a virus!
This week is much better, almost night versus day better. Happier, more active, running again, food is very good. Hopefully I can keep more of a long-term perspective the next time something like this happens.
But I still wondered if all the symptoms were psychological in origin. Then today, BFF, my travelmate for the NYC trip two weeks ago phoned and said, "I don't know what's wrong with me, I'm just exhausted and my throat is kinda sore and I keep thinking I should be doing stuff, but everything just seems so hard right now!" DING DING DING! Ha! It's not me, it's a virus!
This week is much better, almost night versus day better. Happier, more active, running again, food is very good. Hopefully I can keep more of a long-term perspective the next time something like this happens.
4.5.08
Suddenly, Light at the End of the Tunnel
Well, it took almost another week, but I think I'm finally out of my funk. I started coming up for air on Friday, yesterday was a normal good day, and today I feel pretty good!
It seemed to be touch and go there for a while. The food really started calling loudly. I think it was late Thursday night and I felt like I was just a hair's breadth away from a binge. There was a bagel, the last one of the dozen I lugged back from NYC, and it was calling, no actually, it was bellowing my name. I tried to remember why it is I don't binge anymore, and was coming up with nothing. Logic had left town. My prehensile Lizard Brain was completely in control. Somehow, out of the fog I managed to remember how bad I would feel the next morning. But I really wanted that bagel. But then I thought, ya know, if you pray, really give it over to God, the obsession will be lifted. So, I said a very quick prayer. I'm not sure it even had words. It was more like a thought of "OK, God, it's in your court. Take it!" And suddenly it was almost as if I had swallowed the obsession. It was gone that quickly. Lifted, bada boom bada bing! I felt great. I fixed a cup of decaf chocolate spice chai (my new favorite) and then went to bed.
I have had that miracle happen before, but not often in my five plus years working an Overeaters Anonymous program. Maybe ten times at the most. More often my food choices are more quotidian, not as strong or alarming, ie, will I have an extra piece of potato, or should I have pizza this week, and should I have another piece, that sort of thing. But it's those really strong urges to binge where I really feel like I am being kneecapped by my disease, actually it's more like being forced to my knees, because that's the position I need to get out of it.
After all, five years ago it was my inability to go more than 3 days without a good binge that forced me to seriously attempt OA for a second time after a few meetings that I had half-heartedly attempted. That and my therapist throwing up her hands, metaphorically. I think it was her desperation that really threw me for a loop. I was used to my own, but here was a gutsy smart woman who I had worked with for two years and really respected, telling me that beyond residential treatment, she didn't know what else to do.
Anyway, I can see now that Thursday night I intuitively performed the first three steps of the 12 step programme:
1)I realized that I was powerless over my craving, it was driving me nuts, aka my life is unmanageable.
2) I understood that the only hope of not throwing that bagel in the nuker and digging out the butter was to appeal to some power outside of my normal field of reference. In this case I called on God, whatever God is (still have no idea, not sure it's even important to be splitting hairs at this point - whatever it is, it's worked better than my own best efforts in the past. Three university degrees hadn't done it, I had regained gained over fifty pounds with my last cum laude.
3) I made a decision to say ask God to take my obsession.
And it was immediately gone. Before I even said anything resembling a formal prayer or supplication, I stopped salivating. A light went on, there would be no bingeing tonight. It was if my freezer had suddenly been transported to Outer Mongolia.
I still don't know exactly what happened, and will it happen next time? I don't know. I can't speak to the future, and I shouldn't. Living in the future and the past just makes me miserable anyway. So, here I am. Alive, and awed, and ready to fight another day. Something which has been reinforced is the knowledge that I need to regularly re-commit to the first three steps of the programme, they are the very basis of my recovery.
I still feel that pull back to old habits, sometimes the change feels tentative even after all these years. I guess my neural pathways may take longer to change. Or as a doctor specializing in addiction told me, he believes that the old ones never leave. They may weaken, but they are still there, dormant, waiting.
Brr. Sounds pessimistic, doesn't it? Maybe, maybe not. Vigilance may be the price I pay for liberty.
It seemed to be touch and go there for a while. The food really started calling loudly. I think it was late Thursday night and I felt like I was just a hair's breadth away from a binge. There was a bagel, the last one of the dozen I lugged back from NYC, and it was calling, no actually, it was bellowing my name. I tried to remember why it is I don't binge anymore, and was coming up with nothing. Logic had left town. My prehensile Lizard Brain was completely in control. Somehow, out of the fog I managed to remember how bad I would feel the next morning. But I really wanted that bagel. But then I thought, ya know, if you pray, really give it over to God, the obsession will be lifted. So, I said a very quick prayer. I'm not sure it even had words. It was more like a thought of "OK, God, it's in your court. Take it!" And suddenly it was almost as if I had swallowed the obsession. It was gone that quickly. Lifted, bada boom bada bing! I felt great. I fixed a cup of decaf chocolate spice chai (my new favorite) and then went to bed.
I have had that miracle happen before, but not often in my five plus years working an Overeaters Anonymous program. Maybe ten times at the most. More often my food choices are more quotidian, not as strong or alarming, ie, will I have an extra piece of potato, or should I have pizza this week, and should I have another piece, that sort of thing. But it's those really strong urges to binge where I really feel like I am being kneecapped by my disease, actually it's more like being forced to my knees, because that's the position I need to get out of it.
After all, five years ago it was my inability to go more than 3 days without a good binge that forced me to seriously attempt OA for a second time after a few meetings that I had half-heartedly attempted. That and my therapist throwing up her hands, metaphorically. I think it was her desperation that really threw me for a loop. I was used to my own, but here was a gutsy smart woman who I had worked with for two years and really respected, telling me that beyond residential treatment, she didn't know what else to do.
Anyway, I can see now that Thursday night I intuitively performed the first three steps of the 12 step programme:
1)I realized that I was powerless over my craving, it was driving me nuts, aka my life is unmanageable.
2) I understood that the only hope of not throwing that bagel in the nuker and digging out the butter was to appeal to some power outside of my normal field of reference. In this case I called on God, whatever God is (still have no idea, not sure it's even important to be splitting hairs at this point - whatever it is, it's worked better than my own best efforts in the past. Three university degrees hadn't done it, I had regained gained over fifty pounds with my last cum laude.
3) I made a decision to say ask God to take my obsession.
And it was immediately gone. Before I even said anything resembling a formal prayer or supplication, I stopped salivating. A light went on, there would be no bingeing tonight. It was if my freezer had suddenly been transported to Outer Mongolia.
I still don't know exactly what happened, and will it happen next time? I don't know. I can't speak to the future, and I shouldn't. Living in the future and the past just makes me miserable anyway. So, here I am. Alive, and awed, and ready to fight another day. Something which has been reinforced is the knowledge that I need to regularly re-commit to the first three steps of the programme, they are the very basis of my recovery.
I still feel that pull back to old habits, sometimes the change feels tentative even after all these years. I guess my neural pathways may take longer to change. Or as a doctor specializing in addiction told me, he believes that the old ones never leave. They may weaken, but they are still there, dormant, waiting.
Brr. Sounds pessimistic, doesn't it? Maybe, maybe not. Vigilance may be the price I pay for liberty.
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