Up until last year, I would still periodically torture myself by trying to get off my medicine.  I would secretly wean myself down to a very low dose,.. not even telling the doctor who was prescribing it… until it was too late.  Then I would start having the anxiety attacks again, and thinking I was going to die in my sleep, and obsessing about death and dying, and I’d get heart palpitations to the point of forcing me to the emergency room (where they always told me “it’s just anxiety”) – – and then I would have to wait several weeks for the higher dose to kick-in.  And I would always vow that I’d never try to go off it again…until a few months later.  (Now that I think about it, isn’t that the same way I always handled my food problem?)

It has literally taken me DECADES to finally come to terms with the fact that there are just some people, like me, who need anti-depressants – – the same way a diabetic needs insulin.  I am talking about people who use it correctly, here, under close medical supervision.  Over the years, I have been told by many doctors and psychologists that there is nothing to be ashamed of  – – that I have a chemical imbalance that is probably hereditary.

So imagine my shock several months back at hearing someone at a meeting telling the group that being on anti-depressants is the same as being “on drugs,” and that people who take them while in program are “not really clean.”

Are you KIDDING me?!

I had all I could do not to jump up and scream at this person.

First of all, no one should be speaking “at” the group.  In program we are taught to share our OWN experience, and to NOT assume that what is right for us is right for others.  But aside from that, it is COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE for someone in program to make general statements about the taking of ANY type of medications!  Talk about being presumptuous, self-centered, and SELFISH!!  Suppose there was someone in the audience who was suicidal?!  Who is only still alive thanks to this type of medicine?  Maybe they are only able to get to a meeting BECAUSE they are on it!  And maybe their newly-found abstinence or sobriety is the only positive thing in their life right now!  Who has the right to take that away from ANYone?!  EsPECially from someone in such a fragile mental state?!  That important point aside, this doesn’t even begin to address the issue of anyone in the audience (like myself) who may already be battling their own inner demons with respect to this matter.  What good does it do these people to be told that they are failures?!  Clearly this is something people need to resolve FOR THEMSELVES!

Moral of the story?  DO NOT let others in program become a substitute for your doctor, your intuition, or your God!  Listen to God, listen to your body, and listen to the advice of more than one medical professional.

IMPORTANT!!!! 12-Step meetings are NEVER the place to get your medical advice! 

Now I had to call him back.

When I worked with him in the past, I had no choice but to put up with his bad attitude.  Now that I had my own company, I could pick and choose who I worked with.  The problem was, at that particular time, we desperately needed the money.  My husband and I weighed-out the pros and cons and decided that it was best if we didn’t take the account (assuming that he wanted to hire us – – I still hadn’t even talked to him).  We felt good about having made this decision, thinking it was right for us.

If the story ended there, it would have had a happy ending.

Throughout the process of starting and running our own business, we have learned that there are so many things that go into success that have little or nothing at all to do with money.  Choosing to only work with people we like and respect is a big one for us.  But at that time, we let this idea go to our heads and we started feeling very superiuor about it.

“Well, I guess I’d better give him a call and tell him the bad news,” I laughed sarcastically.

“I wish I could see the look on that smug face of his when you tell him we are not interested,” my husband added.

“Me, too,” I said as I dialed his number.  “Wait…let me get out my most condescending voice…”  I then proceeded to imitate the guy perfectly.  I had to cut my comedic act short when I heard the guy pick-up the phone.

We had barely exchanged greetings and his voice was already grating on me.  I wanted to get to my point so I quickly asked if he remembered working with me several years earlier.  There was a brief silence, and then,… “I’ll have to call you back.”

Click.

He “dumped” me before I had a chance to “dump” him!  I didn’t even get a chance to say ANYthing!  I was PISSED!  I told my husband what happened and he laughed it off, but I was still angry!  Then, that still small voice said:

“Is this really the way you want to be acting?  You’re in program now.”

It wasn’t a judgemental voice, but a gentle one, pointing our the obvious and reminding me of what I was trying to do by not working with this person in the first place:

…to live a life of sane and happy usefulness.

Doesn’t mean I want to do it, though.

At first I looked at my beloved pink packets (the yellow ones make me physically sick and the blue ones just scare me) as what I “deserve” – – the same way I used to look at all foods I wanted to eat – – as if eating them was a reward for good behavior.  At that time, I was consuming about 15 packets a day.

About a year into my food plan, I started to look at those packets as “treats” – – something to give myself a little pick-me-up.  I could finally recognize that they were not the best choice, but that they did help me stay on track by satisfying the need we all have for sweet-tasting foods.  In an odd way, this was growth for me, because it was acknowledging that it was OKAY for me to like sweet things and that, even though I may not have the “perfect” food plan,” I had made one that it was do-able, which, for me, was the most important part.  At this point I was down to about 10 packets per day.

After 2 years of abstinence, it finally started to dawn on me that “food equals fuel.”  Period.  It is not “good.”  It is not ” bad.”  It is not “a reward” or “a “punishment.”  It is not a comforter or something to use to get revenge on others (or myself).  It is simply the way I get the nutrients required for my body to work properly.  There is nothing EMOTIONAL about it!  I am not saying that I have this concept entirely down pat yet, but it is definitely starting to take shape.  I have since substituted agave nectar for many of my pink packets (I chose this sweetener because it supposedly has a low glycemic index) and for the past 4 months I have not noticed any difference in cravings.  I currently use 3 tablespoons per day, plus 3 pink packets.  Not perfection, but definitely progress!

Then, a couple weeks ago, I was at a convenience store and there was a sign for a sugar-free frozen drink made out of diet soda.  Hmmmm…

Had to try it.  I’m not gonna lie.  It was YUMMY!

Next day I had another.

Next day another.

That night I was sick.  Must be made of yellow packets.  Had to give it up.

Doesn’t mean I wanted to, though.

…and the battle continues….

Through the process of doing The 12 Steps, I was horrified to learn that my main character defect was self-centeredness.  At first I really didn’t get it, even though the “evidence” was right there in front of me, in my own handwriting.  But how could I, who literally suffered for years from poor self-esteem, be self-centered?!  Didn’t that mean that I thought I was great and only did things to make myself happy?  Wasn’t I always going out of my way to make sure I wasn’t hurting anyone else’s feelings or doing anything that would lead to any type of confrontation?  How could that possibly be self-centered?!

Well, it took a while for it to really sink-in, but by the time I finished the turn-arounds on my 4th Step, I came to the conclusion that there are actually two parts to the definition of self-centeredness, at least in the way that it relates to my warped personality.

The first part has to do with the plain fact that “I Was Always On My Mind.”  I was always, always, ALWAYS thinking about myself, what I was doing, what I was going to do, what I did,…  That ALONE was exhausting!.  But here’s the REAL key – – even though I was constantly putting myself down and thinking of myself in a negative way, I was STILL focused on myself!  I STILL had no mental space for what was going on with OTHERS!  I was self-absorbed with how “bad” I was.

The second part was that I made whatever was going around me (including the actions of others) all about ME!  What I believed others were thinking about me, what others might be saying about me, how I looked to them, what kind of criticism I was going to get,…  I would read all kinds of things into what people were doing, like thinking that people were doing things to purposely hurt ME, rather than acting for themselves with motives that had NOTHING to do with me!  I saw everything in terms of being against me, because of me, or about me.

To top it all off, it was at about this same time that I slowly began to realize that even during those occasional times when I WAS thinking of others, it was usually with MY best interest in mind!  So even my “good intentions” turned out to be based on selfish motives!

Apparently, for decades I had been The Center Of The Universe, but this was the first time I was seeing it!  I suddenly could relate to my dogs really well – – the way they think that people coming over, bags of groceries being brought into the house, snowstorms,…are all things that happen for them, and for them alone.  But I digress…

Back to my original metaphor…

At first I was amazed at how easily I took to this blog-writing thing.  You might even say I was obsessed with it for a while there.  But like a good addict, I tend to get overly-involved with projects in the beginning and then trail off and leave things unfinished.  So I think I shocked even myself when I continued writing after all these posts.  But then I thought about it.  And here’s what I figured-out…

The reason why I continue to maintain an interest in writing this blog is because it is all about my favorite subject: ME!!  I would have never in a million years thought that I would write something so selfish-sounding as that (especially on the Internet!), but it is the truth!  Analysing myself, my thoughts, and my motives comes so naturally to me because I have been inside my own head for over 40 years!  Being self-centered in this way is my default.  I am comfortable here.

I must say that it has been quite the humbling experience to recognize just how self-centered I have been and how that has effected, not only me and my self-concept, but my relationships with others, including the way others perceive me, the way they interact with me, and the path that our interactions take.  I find all of it quite interesting, oftentimes painful, but, at the same time, very hopeful.  If I had never been through this process, I would have never realized any of this, and if I didn’t know there was a problem, there would have been no hope of it ever getting fixed.  Now I CAN get out of my own head (at times) and at least make an attempt to help others, like with this blog.  Yes, there is a lot of “me” going on here, but maybe this is one of those times when we can “see” God taking a character defect and turning it into something that can actually help other people.

At least,…that is my hope.

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.

. . . MY THIN EVIL TWIN ! ! !

She was NOT a nice person at all.  She had so much pent-up anger inside of her that it’s amazing she didn’t do any real damage in the short time she was around.  She did, however, manage to take out her frustrations on many people with her miserable attitude.  Most notably, she was a real jerk to guys she met in clubs – – as if they were the ones to blame for keeping her trapped in her prison of fat for all those years before.  If a guy asked her to dance, she would turn him down with a rude look or a sarcastic comment,…when only months earlier she would have given anything for any one of them to pay her some attention.  But that’s what she was so angry about!  Wasn’t she still the same exact person inside?!  Then why was everyone treating her so differently now?!  Obviously it was because of her weight!  How SHALLOW!!  And she resented this with every fiber of her being!  How DARE they think they could be so rude to her last year and then be so nice to her THIS year and think she would be OKAY with that!  Now she would show THEM!!  She made it her mission to try to make every single one of them feel the embarrassment and shame that she had felt every time she was the fattest girl in the joint.  No one would ask her to dance.  No one would even talk to her, even if they were all over her thin friends, and many times, she heard the cruel remarks.  So she felt she was owed this.

Of course, it never for a moment entered her vengeful mind that perhaps all this attention had more to do with her newly-found self-confidence which allowed her to dance like a normal person (rather than just sulk in the shadows), and to wear sexier clothes, and to put some extra time and effort into her hair and make-up.  Or that perhaps the club scene was not exactly the best place to meet a “nice guy” no matter WHAT size she was.

Or that…perhaps…SHE was the problem all along.

Ever since I lost 75 pounds over a year ago, I have been asked to speak at several meetings, even though I still have almost the same amount of weight to lose.  This has always made me uncomfortable.  On the one hand, I’d feel obligated to say “yes,” since I wanted to give back to the program and do service by sharing my experience, strength and hope with others.  On the other hand, I’d feel that I was not a good enough example of how the program works because I am not at my goal weight, even though I have been in and out of program for over twenty years.  What kind of message does THAT send?

Fortunately, through working the program, my sense of responsibility has finally begun to outweigh my pride, so now I try to accept all my invitations to speak.  But part of me would still feel like a hypocrite.  Even in recovery, I was still struggling with the idea that my worth is determined by the number on the scale.  And yet, didn’t I always get words of wisdom from people with good spiritual recovery who are not yet at their goal weight?  Of course I did!  But for some reason, I could not cut myself the same slack.

To get over those feelings of guilt and shame, I would always start off my “story” with an explanation about why I still have so much more weight to lose.  Something to let everyone know – that I know – that I am still fat.  And I did this every single time I was the speaker.

Until last week!

I didn’t even know the topic I was going to be sharing-on and had decided to leave it all up to my Higher Power to give me the words that the people listening needed to hear.  And guess what happened?  I FORGOT to mention my little “disclaimer” about my weight at ALL!  In fact, it was so far removed from my mind that I didn’t even realize that I forgot about it until AFTER the meeting was over!!  ME!!, the person who has been obsessing about her weight and how she looks to others for literally DECADES, actually FORGOT about her weight while talking in front of a group of people!! 

Now if that’s not a miracle, I don’t know WHAT is!!

The whole reason behind why I never buy raffle tickets (even to this day, unless I buy one and give it to someone else) has to do with my fear of being the center of attention.  You would think that as a true addict (a.k.a., the epitome of “self-will run riot”), I would LOVE to buy raffle tickets, under the false presumption that I am sure to win, since, after all, I am The Center Of The Universe.  However, the longer I am in program, the more fascinated I am by the strange “varieties” that are out there with respect to the make-up of the addict mind.

In general, I see two major categories of addicts.  You have your “arrogant addicts,” and then you have your “doormat addicts.”  But when you look at a specific addict, I believe that he or she falls somewhere between these two extremes on a continuum.  For the real irony is that BOTH groups are self-centered, varying in degree only.  The way I see it, the first group is “positively” self-absorbed while the second one is “negatively” self-absorbed.  Before this time around in program, I would have told you that I was neither of these.  Since I had no self-esteem what-so-ever, I “knew” that self-centeredness was not going to show-up on my character defect list.

WRONG!

“Stunned” is a mild way of expressing how I felt when I found self-centeredness infiltrating most (if not all) of the resentments on my 4th Step inventory.  But when I took a long, hard look at myself and got really honest about my inner-most thoughts and motives, I had to admit that even in the midst of my self-hatred and my delusions of victimization, I was still focusing on myself!  I would make EVERYthing about me!  I may have done that in negative, self-judging, and self-pitying ways, but everything that happened around me always had ME and MY FEELINGS at their core!  So it is only now that I have come to understand that, even with some degree of recovery to my credit, I am just your typical addict who vacillates between “positive” and “negative” self-absorbtion, depending upon the circumstances.

So back to raffle tickets…  In this particular case, both types of addicts would assume they are going to win.  (The idea that someone ELSE might win doesn’t even enter our minds!)  But the “positive” addicts see winning as a good thing that they deserve, while the “negative” addicts see winning as a bad thing meant to make them look foolish.  So in the end, when it comes to raffle tickets, I am definitely a “negative” addict.

A few minutes after buying her raffle tickets, my friend won a prize.

“See?”  I said.  “Had I gone up there with you to buy a ticket, that would have been ME having to go up there!”

“The HORROR!” my friend laughed as she happily dove into her basket of trinkets.

I was shocked and disgusted.

For the first 15 minutes, I watched with the look of someone hypnotised by a car crash – it was just too horrible to look away.  Then my husband and I spent some time making rude comments about the people on the show – – things to the effect of “I would NEV-er!”  Sad to say, we were actually making fun of the woman and her blatant denial of how bad the situation was.

Then, halfway through the program, it hit me…

I was doing exactly the same thing with food.

All at once I could see that the way I was judging this woman was the EXACT SAME WAY I had always feared that people were judging me!  I had spent my entire life trying to “pretend” there was nothing wrong on the outside, while inside I was consumed by an obsession to binge AND hide my my 345-pound body (which is impossible, by the way!).  Suddenly it was crystal-clear to me that this hoarding-thing was a visual representation of what I had been doing to myself INSIDE my body.  The same way that she crammed her house with trash is the same way I crammed my body with trash!  The same way that she stopped caring about the up-keep of her house was the same way I stopped caring about the up-keep of my appearance.  Her external environment was a reflection of her internal addiction just as my physical appearance was a reflection of my eating disorder!

I am sure that the only reason why I was able to see this at all is because I am involved in a 12-Step Program.

It was very humbling.

Talk about “food for thought.”

Well, yesterday was the day.  In classic style, I did not eat or shower, and on the drive up, I tried to estimate what the number on the scale would be.  Since this was to be my second weigh-in on my newly revised (and minimized) food plan, I was feeling good.  Last time I had lost 3 more pounds, so, “according to my calculations,” I figured I had to lose at least that much.  Then I subtracted another pound just because I was feeling so “light,” and because that would make my grand total a cool 80 pounds!  HOORAY!!  Then I subtracted another pound for those two “are you losing more weight?” complements I got in the same week.  Hell, might as well make it TWO, one for each!  Surely I was shrinking fast.  By the time I pulled-up at the counselor’ office, I had successfully sold myself on the delusion that I had lost at LEAST 6 pounds.  IMAGINE!  I actually THOUGHT that all these incidents “added-up” to a physical number that would register on a scale!  No WONDER why that device always held such “weight” with respect to my self-esteem!  Too bad it was all pure LUNACY!

With empty pockets and shirtless, I stepped onto the scale.  I had only lost one pound!  ONE!  After all my SACRIFICING?!  Are you KIDDing me?!  I was really upset…for about ten minutes.  Luckily I usually have just about that much time alone in the waiting room before I get called-in to see my counselor.  Since this has happened many times in the past year, I have learned how to cope – by praying and focusing on the positives,…  But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed.

To me, this is the exact moment when all the program work I have been doing for the past six weeks really kicks-in.  If I have spent that time praying, meditating, spending time with God, going to lots of meetings, talking-out my feelings, and “doing the next right thing,” I am able to have enough sanity and clarity-of-thought to turn to my Higher Power and know that I will be able to get past this disappointment and move forward just like everyone else does.  However, if I have spent the past six weeks turning away from my Higher Power by getting wrapped-up in all the petty details of my life, giving-in to my negative ruminations (which is a form of mediation that hurts you rather than helps you), and isolating, then I am very shaky and run the risk of entertaining that most insidious question: why I am even bothering?  But I have come to realize that THAT RIGHT THERE IS the disease itself.  It is that gnawing feeling that keeps trying to convince me that all my hard work won’t pay off and that I will never be able to continue this for the rest of my life.   But in reality, I don’t HAVE to do ANYthing!  All I am doing is CHOOSING to do this ONE MORE DAY!  That’s IT!  That’s ALL I have to focus on!  TODAY I am going to be abstinent, and TODAY I am not going to worry about tomorrow!