More Thanks!

Today, the officially designated day for thankfulness, is the easiest holiday for me. Even when it was all about food (either what I would eat or what I would not eat), the day was generally fun and easy. That's because I've always felt myself to be unusually blessed; and gratitude comes easily for me, flowing naturally like rain drops into almost all days of the year.

This year, added to all my other blessings, is the blessing of not being obsessed with eating, especially with consuming my binge foods. It is a miracle, pure and simple, one I never dreamed could happen in my life. For this amazing blessing, I thank:

Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, author of Holy Hunger

my dear, understanding, supportive husband

my OA group

Liz, my OA sponsor

Julie, another sponsor and dear sister-in-law

Liz and LL, bestest long-time friends

Christi, Lunnette, Christy, Leah

PJ, Anne, Karen, Jules, Cammy, Dees

Bobbi, Carol-Ann, Carol, Susan, Lois, Sabine

Blogger

LR

the founders of AA

and

God

Me and Chocolate

I've known about my addictive relationship to chocolate for a long time. Here's the story of when I realized and admitted it for the first time.

It is spring of 1996. I'm in the habit of getting two chocolate fixes a day. I don't keep it in the house, because actually that's impossible. Whatever I have, I immediately eat. So I go out to get my fixes. I run a bead shop in my studio, open by appointment. Today I have a morning customer and one in the afternoon. Between them, I plan to go buy myself a treat (always it's chocolate, although I use the word treat rather than naming it).

Morning customer comes late and stays late. Afternoon customer comes early. They overlap. No treat. I am fidgeting and irritable. I want Ms. Afternoon to leave. I don't care how many beads she'd like to buy; I want her gone. I'm short with her, nearly rude. Finally she goes.

I race to my car and am driving away mere seconds after she leaves. I drive to the closest grocery store. I rush to the bakery/deli to see what they have. OK... triple-layer, double-chocolate cake! I tell the clerk I need a big piece because two of us are splitting it. She puts it in a to-go box. I grab a fork and a napkin and bee-line to my car. In my car, I slink down and eat the whole piece of cake. Two minutes and it's gone. I've gobbled it.

I realize I didn't taste it after the first bite. I feel remorse. Remorse for being rude to my customers. Remorse for telling a lie to the clerk about splitting the piece of cake. Remorse for hiding in my car. Remorse for continuing to abuse my body.

It dawns on me, sitting dejected in my car, that I am a chocolate addict, exhibiting all of the behaviors of an alcoholic only about chocolate rather than alcohol. In that moment, I realize chocolate had a grip on me that makes me feel crazy and that I can not control my intake. I decide on a course of abstinence.

Well, that lasted for about 3 years. Then I started sneaking chocolate once in a while when I was in town. Once in a while soon became a daily fix. Then twice a day. WAKE UP! OK, back to abstinence for a few more years.

Then I decided I would have chocolate only one time a year... on my birthday. Didn't work... One time became the first of many times and the fixes ruled me once again. Quit again. Fell off the wagon one more time, binged repeatedly, lied, hid the stuff, sneaked around eating it in my car.

Always during periods of chocolate abstinence, I continued to crave it... big time! I thought about it every day. I spent hours in the grocery store looking for chocolate substitutes. I tried every type of lemon dessert there is... cookies, ice cream, cake, pie, cheesecake and tarts. I tried peanut-butter cookies and raspberry bars. I tried butter pecan ice cream and apple fritters. You name it. I tried it. Always I wanted and craved chocolate... tried to find a substitute... something else to give me that same buzz.

I never found it. And I never binged as badly on the substitutes, rarely had to get two fixes a day like with chocolate. But I did binge some. My craving for chocolate was incessant and nagging.

On April 3rd, 2010, I finished reading Holy Hunger by Margaret Bullitt-Jonas and realized fully and without a doubt that I am a compulsive overeater and that I can not control my eating and binging by myself. On April 7th, 2010, I attended my first meeting of Overeaters Anonymous and sensed I had finally found help.

I've been on a sensible food plan and abstinent (with one slip) from all chocolate, cookies, cake, pie, cheesecake, ice cream, candy and pastries ever since then. My body is slowly changing... when I started I wore a snug size 18 jeans. Now I'm wearing size 12. My mind is changing a lot. I don't feel crazy anymore. I'm learning to feel my feelings. I'm starting to work the 12-step program and feeling positive about the progress I'm making.

One of the most interesting things in my OA experience so far is about chocolate. Since being abstinent about chocolate AND other binge foods, I no longer crave chocolate or even think about it much. If very good quality chocolate is right in front of me, I might find myself thinking it smells really good. But then I move away from it both physically and mentally. I'm not looking for a substitute. It's hold on me is finally breaking. One day at a time, I am becoming a sober person!

Out of the Depths...

Seeking a subject for today's post, I opened Holy Hunger to a random page and found this:

Just as I learned that the urge to eat was usually the signal of a feeling that needed to be explored, I also learned that the urge to eat was a signal to pray.... When I confess that I'm powerless, I recognize that I've come to the limits of what I know how to do. I face the fact that my autonomous willpower is unable by itself to stop me from overeating. Out of the depths of this powerlessness bursts a cry for help, a willingness to reach out for a relationship with some trustworthy Other that has the power to save me.

This quote involves two related subjects... higher power and prayer... both somewhat new and difficult for me. I am not accustomed to prayer and I have never had much faith that any higher power might exist, let alone want or be able to save or help me.

I wrote about faith a while back, here. One of the comments on that post resonates with me today. Pam commented: "...I wish I knew the path to faith...perhaps it might start by being thankful. Maybe by acknowledging God's part in all that is wonderful in my life, I can begin to place my trust and even my faith in God. "

This is a very good suggestion for me, because I tend to get all puffy and prideful about how well I am doing with abstinence and following my food plan. With humility, I accept the support of my husband, the help found in writing this journal, the suggestions of my readers, the grace of my OA group, the caring ear of my walking partner, the insights found in Holy Hunger and some higher power who surrounded me with all this good energy at exactly the right time. Gratefully, I thank the Universe for this.

One Little Problem

As yet I don't have an OA sponsor. Saturday will be my fourth meeting, so I'm still quite the newbie. The group is very small and everyone in it seems to have been doing this for a long time. I hope to get a sense of who might be a willing and appropriate sponsor for me soon because right now I feel a bit adrift, rudderless.

For example, my food plan... It seems easy and straight forward. Three meals a day, only what will fit on one plate or one bowl, nothing between meals and no snacks. From Holy Hunger, I get the idea that making a plan and sticking to it is an important recovery tool. It seems that commitment and keeping one's promise to oneself is just as important as what and how much one eats.

So here is my one little problem... meal preparation. I am accustomed to tasting... OK, I admit it... more than tasting... one might say nibbling as I prepare meals. Oh, a wee dried cranberry rolled off the plate onto the breadboard. Pop! It goes in my mouth. Cutting the meat off of the bones? Here's a little tidbit... Pop! Into my mouth with it. Cutting up avocado? Naturally it gets on my fingers. Pop! They go right into my mouth.

Technically, this is breaking my commitment unless I change my food plan to allow a bit of tasting/nibbling/finger-licking during meal preparation. I've been debating with myself about this for three days. Shall I change the plan? Or shall I make a commitment and stick to it about not tasting as I go? Will I be setting myself up for failure if I commit to being strict about this?

I need some practical guidance from a sponsor.

Abstinence from my binge foods is going really well. I was tempted yesterday several times. We live on a remote island. It's a big deal... a whole, long, day-trip... to go to the mainland to shop at places like Costco and supermarkets. So the first temptation was the drive-thru where I always used to get coffee and a delicious, home-made berry scone. Yesterday, it was coffee only for me! The second place was Costco, where I used to graze through all the food-sample demos. No samples touched my lips! The third was a supermarket with a fantastic bakery, where I was accustomed to picking out one or more delicacies to devour in the car. Walked right by the bakery counter without stopping! Oh it called to me, sang its siren song... but I lowered my eyes and walked on by!

So all-in-all, guess I'll give myself a pat on the back and grateful thanks to the universe, despite the meal-prep nibbles.

Change the Question

Here is an old dialog between me and the seductive voices of compulsion promising comfort and happiness:

Me ~ feeling bored and not wanting to tackle anything on my to-do list.

Voices ~ "Here, we'll take care of you. You don't need to be feeling bored and down. Let's just comfort ourselves with a little treat in town, shall we? We need to go to the grocery store for milk anyway. Let's just see if we can find something to make us feel better."

M ~ "I don't really need to go to town. It can wait until tomorrow.

V ~ "Well, yes, sure it can. But why not do it now and get it over with. Besides, we deserve a treat. What shall we have?"

M ~ "My pants are getting much too tight. I really shouldn't eat any more sweets."

V ~ "Well we can find something with nuts or something that's delicious but not so sweet."

M ~ "No, I really don't think so. Not this time."

V ~ "It'll be OK, just this once. And we'll feel much better."

M ~ "But I really shouldn't."

V ~ "Never mind about that. It's no big deal. We'll get something reasonable..."

The argument would go on like that for a long time, until at some point I would just give up and know that I would buy a bag of candy coated peanuts and eat all of them in the car on the way home, even as I was telling myself I could save some for tomorrow or to share with my husband. And now, stuffed, uncomfortable, shamed and regretful, where was the happiness pledged by the voices? Definitely not as promised.

Margaret Bullitt-Jonas writes about this type of self-conversation in her book Holy Hunger, and says this:

The argument would escalate rapidly, inexorably, until my mind was filled with the din. In effect, I'd be distracted from the grief, and the voice of sorrow would be silenced. The clamorous debate would absorb my attention, eclipse my awarness, extinguish every other concern, smother every nuance of feeling, until absolutely nothing mattered to me but the single question: Should I eat right now or not?

Re-reading that passage, my idea is to change the question, to be vigilant about Should I eat... questions and short-circuit them by asking some other question. Change the question. One possibility is to distract myself with a question on a totally different subject, such as: Which one thing on my to-do list can I get done right now? What were the names of all of my gradeschool teachers? What fabrics might I use for the next quilt I make? Another possibility is to seek awareness of the original feeling and explore it more deeply by asking such questions as: What might be underneath my feelings of boredom? What might be contributing to my feelings of boredom today?

Yes, it's day-14 of abstinence, yet periodically, the siren song of Should I eat... pops into my mind. Whenever this happens, I will notice it and change the question.

Thoughts on Being Me

Good day so far! I had lunch in town with a dear friend, with whom I've spent very little quality time in recent months. She's away a lot and the times we've had together have either been on the fly or with other people. It was great to sit and talk with her face to face, relaxed and unhurried.

After catching up a bit on travels and family news, we got on the subject of being me in a partnership or marriage... of being who I am rather than what I perceive he wants me to be. We've both experienced some difficulties in that department... maintaining identity and purpose, making decisions for the good of self, freedom of expression. A delicate balance that seems too often to get tipped in favor of the spouse... his identity, his purpose, his needs. It has to be a two-way deal, of course. We have to bend, of course. But what about when we are feeling that our very essence is lost?

Hey, I'm not on a pitty-pot here about my marriage. Hiding who I am, hiding my feelings, not expressing my needs goes way back to childhood years for me. And very early in life, I learned to sooth the me in hiding with sweets. A life-time pattern, it carried right into my late-in-life marriage. I don't need to assert myself or stand up for myself when I can run to the kitchen and slather peanut butter and jelly and butter on a couple of pieces of toast, do I?

Well no more. On the way home from our lunch, I started thinking about a passage in Holy Hunger, where the author, Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, wrote this in her journal:

...On that momentous morning, I leaped out of bed in a rage. I put on loud music... Sometimes music can startle me awake. Sometimes when the boat is becalmed and the sails hang limp, music can blow wind into my sails... I stood with my feet planted firmly on the ground and proclaimed one simple fact. I announced one basic truth: This is my life. My life belongs to me and to no one else. It is mine. I will face it, choose it, work with it. I will not live someone else's life; I will live my own.

Holy Hunger is such an important book for me right now!!! I love typing the passage above. It resonates and says it's OK to want to be me, to begin a discovery of who I am!

Buckets of Tums

Holy Hunger by Margaret Bullitt-Jonas is the catalyst that brought me, finally, to the realization that I am a compulsive overeater and that there is hope for recovery through the 12-step program of Overeaters Anonymous. Bless you, MBJ!

On page 81 she includes one of her journal entries. Here is a passage I underlined from that entry:

I'm plugged up with food. My legs are swollen. They ache when I walk. My cheeks are fat. My stomach bulges. I hate my body. I'm ashamed of what I've done to it so quickly, so ruthlessly. There is much despair within the greed.... Even as I stuffed myself, I knew it was hopeless. The cake would never fill me. Even if I loosened my belt and ate again until I bulged, still I'd be yearning for more. There is such despair in knowing this, even as I continue to eat... I am bloated, burping, uncomfortable. I skirt the grief.

I so relate. I've been there, done that and felt the shame/despair and skirted it. With every binge, even mild meal-time overeating, I'd get the most terrible indigestion and heart burn. Horrible! I'd gobble tums, take antacid tablets, and then more tums. Everyday, multiple tums. Good calcium source, I'd rationalize to myself. Yeah, like bones are my problem!

Today, day-10 of sobriety, I suddenly realize I haven't had a single tums in 9 days, not one! Not suffering indigestion and heart burn is definitely a benefit of not puting more in my tummy than my body needs!!!!

Oh, and by the way, I remained abstinent today at the restaurant. Gotta remember humility... getting too smug and thinking I can do this might start to look like the old diet days when I thought I could control my eating. My husband helped me by offering not to eat pancakes. My OA group helped by being there in my mind, their understanding and support surrounding me in some way I can hardly fathom.