“I will be at my goal weight by spring.”

“I will fit into that outfit I wore in 7th grade by June.”

“I will only eat fruits and vegetables until I am the size I want to be.”

“I will exercise for an hour every day, no matter what.”

This year, once again, I am happy to announce that I will not be making ANY dieting resolutions!  YAY!  What a GIFT!!  By the same token, I DO think that the end of the year is a great time to reflect upon the year that has ended and come up with some attainable goals for the year that’s about to begin.  After doing so, I have come up with my top 3 non-resolutions:

“I will finally finish the children’s book I have been dragging my feet about and attempt to get it published.”

“I will try to be friendlier to people I don’t know.  Every time I do that, I feel better about myself, and I increase the likelihood that I will have the opportunity to spread The Good News (be that about Christianity or The 12 Steps).”

“I will take better care of myself physically by drinking more water, eating less salt, and exercising three times per week.”

I must admit, writing that last one hurt a bit.  I still tend to associated self-care with punishment.  But I am determined to “act as if” I don’t believe that anymore in 2013, especially since I have finally come to understand (at least intellectually) that this is not the truth.  I would guess that unless someone has experienced first-hand the horrible sense of self-loathing that I had growing-up, this idea would seem absurd.  But it is honestly the way I felt.  And I continue to work on letting this “lie I was living” go completely, on a daily basis, through working the 12 Steps.

Wishing all of my readers a happy, healthy, and peaceful 2013.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

ABSTINENCE  IS  A  CHOICE,  NOT  A  PUNISHMENT ! ! !

As both a child and a young adult, I always wanted to EFFORTLESSLY be good at sports, to NATURALLY have a small appetite, to ACCIDENTALLY be thin, to AUTOMATICALLY be self-confident.  But all these were difficult for me.  And that made me feel different.  I truly believed I was the only one who had to work at these things.  So naturally I always felt like I was being punished for being different, or for having to work hard at them.  Of course none of this was true.  Sure, we all know a couple of people who can eat whatever they want and not gain weight, or that one person who has an innate athletic gift right out of the womb,…but those are the rare exceptions.  The majority of us have to put in real time and effort in order to reap the rewards of life.  It took me a long time to figure that out, but I finally got it.

Today abstinence is a privilege, a gift, and a decision, NOT a chore, a curse, or a burden.  Knowing and understanding that difference deep down inside my core allows me to make the decision to feel empowered rather than victimized, and to choose to live “a life of sane and happy usefulness” that would have otherwise never been mine.

That pretty-much summed-up the unrealistic idea I had of what my life would be like if I could just get to (and stay at) that “magical” number on the scale.

Of course, there are some real things that would be great about getting to my ideal weight.  First on the list would have to be the health benefits, of course (although these mattered to me very little when I was in the throws of my disease).  Being able to buy clothes in a “normal” store would also be nice!  (Although I must say I have experienced a little of that lately!  Yeah!)   And since I love the water and sunbathing, I would love, love, LOVE to experience what it is to walk around on the beach in a bathing suit without having one single self-conscious thought enter my mind (it doesn’t even have to be a bikini!  I’m not greedy!)  Now THAT would truly be a dream come true!

But all the rest of that crap about the fame and fortune?  It is just that…crap.  I don’t know where the idea that “thinness = the perfect life” originally came from, but once it had me, it wouldn’t let me go.

Reminds me of a Bruce Springsteen song called “Backstreets” – –

“…trying to learn how to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be.

Well after all this time to find we’re just like all the rest…”  

In other words, it has taken me all this time (in program) just to figure out that no matter WHAT size I am (or what kind of “hero” I think I have to be), I am “just another bozo on the bus!”  There are ALWAYS going to be issues to resolve, people to confront, deadlines to be met, bills to be paid, legs to be shaved,…no matter WHAT I look like!  That’s called LIFE!!  No one said it was going to be easy, but having a program (and more importantly, a Higher Power) to help me (and YOU) through it all is the ONLY thing that can make WHATEVER is going on BETTER!

REALITY CHECK:

It’s not about the weight! 

It’s about finally growing-up and accepting “life on life’s terms!”

First of all, because this drug-o-mine is “legal.”  I am not doing anything against the law when I eat too much or when I purchase my binge foods.  Look at all the people out there who are driving drunk and buying and using illegal drugs.  This is FOOD we’re talking about here!  What’s the big DEAL?!

Second, when I eat too much, I am not hurting anyone besides myself.  It’s not like I eat too much and then get in my car and drive erratically.  In fact, as a person who could not stop eating in her car, I’d have to say that my driving skills actually improved because I was forced to figure out how to maneuver the steering wheel with one hand, hold a sloppy Big Mac in the other, and balance a coffee shake between my legs, all while simultaneously watching traffic and obsessively making sure that none of the other drivers around me actually witnessed me putting anything into my mouth!  If that’s not “skill,” I don’t know WHAT is!

Third, I have lots of stress in my life and no other outlet.  I was always “the good girl.”  The “designated driver.”   I feel like I was always following so many rules – – I never drank alcohol, I never tried drugs, I never got high or drunk, I never even smoked a cigarette!  Doesn’t that make me entitled to at least ONE outlet for my stress?!

Fourth, it’s a cheap high.  I can go to The Dollar Store and get my fix for under $10/day, so if you have to have a drug habit, this one at least won’t break the bank!  It’s not like I was spending the mortgage money on food or anything!

Fifth,  everyone else does it!  I see skinny people all the time who can eat whatever they want, whenever they want it, and LOOK at them!  Why should I have to live my life any differently than THEY do?!

Hopefully you have recognized the sarcasm in all this.

“Back in the day,” I really believed every word of all of these statements.  But after having been through the 12 Steps, I have to ask myself…

When I said “I deserve this,” what exactly  was I saying that I deserved?

When I used to binge, I would feel horrible.  Mostly guilty and ashamed, to be more precise.  I was never the type of overeater who enjoyed food.  For all the time and effort and energy that went into my compulsion to overeat, I never took any pleasure in it.  And, let’s be honest: All the above statements were nothing more than excuses to stay in my addiction.  Whether or not my drug of choice is legal, it doesn’t change the fact that I was using it to destroy me AND my relationships with those around me.  Anyone (your inner-most self included!) who tells you that food addiction doesn’t have an adverse effect on those around you is lying to you.  And maybe I never spent the mortgage, but there were times when I spent the utility money!   And when was I EVER satisfied with the AMOUNTS that thin, normal eaters ate?

I always felt, even from a very young age, that bingeing was something that I was doing against my will – – like something beyond my control was shoving the food down my throat.  (I don’t know if all compulsive overeaters feel this way, but I did.)  And yet, the obsession would be so strong that I would always get to the the point (especially in the later stages of my addiction) where I knew that the only way to be rid of it would be to give-in to it.  This is how I went from “obsession” to “compulsion.”  The “thought” of eating would become the “action” of shoveling food in my face as fast as I could, as if I were trying to hurry-up and get it over with so I could go on with my life, pretending that there was nothing wrong.  But then it would happen a few hours later, and a few hours later, and a few hours later,…

Even at my worst, I always sensed that the very thing I wanted “permission” to do was the very thing that was destroying me, no matter HOW I rationalized it. The real irony is that now, looking back on all these “reasonings” I came-up with, I actually WAS giving myself what I thought I deserved.  Deep down inside I really thought that I was such a bad person that I deserved to live that way – – to constantly be punishing myself for not living-up to my own impossible standards by abusing myself with food.  Even though I was never consciously suicidal (I think my fear of death was the only thing that kept me from that abyss), I believe that my self-hatred had become so deeply ingrained in me that it was taking over my behaviors with the intent of killing me, one compulsive bite at a time.

The good news in all this?  Thanks to my continual pursuit of a closer relationship with my Higher Power, I have been freed from the bondage of this horrible addiction and am finally able to see that this new life of abstinence and serenity is what I (and all of us) REALLY deserve!

“I am a bad person because I cannot control what I eat.”  This was probably the biggest, deepest, and worst lie of them all.  Food addiction is a disease, not a moral issue.  I had heard this many times throughout my years in program, but I did not grasp it at a gut level until I did Step 4.  If you have been telling yourself this lie for decades the way I had been, it can take a long time for it to sink-in.  But the sooner you can recognize this belief for the lie that it truly is, the sooner you will feel better about yourself.  A lot better.

“OA won’t work for me.”  Because I had tried and failed on so many diet / exercise plans over the years, just the thought of yet another one made me feel depressed.  I had begun to notice that as I got older, each attempt got harder.  What sacred me even more was that, over time, my urge to fight was also slipping away.  Not surprisingly, when I first came into OA, I was sure it wouldn’t work for me.  But I have since found-out that this line of thinking is really a form of self-centeredness.  Negative, yes, but self-centered nonetheless.  To think that I am that unique – – that my addiction is so much worse than anyone else’s, that a program that has helped millions can’t possibly work for me, that I won’t be able to do what so many others have done before me,…these are all different ways of saying that I think that somehow I am a “better” addict than everyone else.  Sorry, but that is not the case at all.  “I am just another bozo on the bus,” as they say.  It works for other addicts, so it will work for me, IF I work it.  I don’t have to analyze it, figure-it-out, or even understand it.  I just have to DO it!  And the same goes for YOU!

“I can’t let anyone know how much I eat / want to eat / think about food.”  I spent most of my life hiding the amount of time, money, effort, and thought that went into my food addiction.  For me, coming to the realization that ‘by keeping it all secret I was only making it worse’ was a relief.  In fact, not only would exposing all of this help me, but in OA I learn that sharing my experience is the only real way that I have of helping others.  In that way, one of my greatest fears has become one of my greatest assets.  Only a Higher Power could be involved in a transformation like that!

“My life will be perfect when I am the ‘right’ weight.”  This one is another biggy.  Sometimes I can still sense it lurking in the back on my mind, but at least now I know it isn’t true.  But for years it was the sole focus of my life.  Everything about me – the way I walked, the way I talked, the way I related to others, the way I planned my life – all of it revolved around me getting to that time in the future when I would look and weigh the way I wanted because then I would have confidence, sex-appeal, charisma, fame, fortune,…  My expectations of what I would get out of being thin far exceeded the reality of it, but since I could never seem to get there, I could keep telling myself that my lack in all these areas was due to my weight.  Over time, without realizing it, I actually wound-up creating the perfect excuse that I would use to give-up on huge sections of my life.

“My food addiction has ruined my life.”  This one is the greatest irony of all.  It took a while, but I have finally come to realize that, had I not been a food addict, I never would have gone to OA.  And had I never gone to OA, I would have never found my Higher Power.  And had I never found my Higher Power, I would not be experiencing the joy and peace of freedom from, not only my addiction, but from that empty feeling that is the result of living a non-spiritual life.  Nowadays I can genuinely say that I am grateful for being a compulsive overeater.