My first garbage-picking memory starts out nice enough.  Every Saturday night my family would gather downstairs to watch a show or movie and mom would make pigs-in-a-blanket.  That tradition is one of my happiest childhood memories.  Unfortunately, it is also intertwined with the early stages of my eating disorder.  That is the part I will be focusing on here…

I can remember lots of obsession related to this particular group of food memories.  It would start with being fixated on when the food would be ready to eat.  I would watch the clock…

tick…tick…tick…

…get the condiments out…

tick…tick…tick…

…and the plates…

tick…tick…tick…

…and the napkins…

tick…tick…tick…

…and the drinks…

tick…tick…tick…

Truth be told, I was being TOO helpful.  It was not in my nature to be that useful.  “Selfish motives” were the thing powering me at that time.  When “the dogs” were finally taken out of the oven, I would choose the largest one, never giving a single thought to the possibility that someone else might be as hungry as I supposedly was.  Then I risked burning the roof right out of my mouth by biting into one of the steaming “pigs” while everyone else had the sense to wait for theirs to cool.  Before I knew it I was on my second one and already mourning the fact that I wanted a third but couldn’t have it for fear of looking like the thing I was eating.  All the while I ate, I was silently plotting a way to get more.

I knew that the leftover dogs would be sitting in a the pan on the stove until we were finished watching tv.  If I pretended to go to the bathroom, I could make a pit-stop in the kitchen and eat another one before I rejoined the family.  Sometimes I would wimp-out, especially if there was only one or two left, thinking that would be too obvious.  But luckily for me, I come from an Italian family where food shortages are a rarity.  Most times there were as many as four or five left, so I was easily able to convince myself that no one would notice if one more was missing.  That usually held me for a while, and then I could focus on the show and enjoy the time with my family…

Until…

…after the show it would be time to clean-up.  I would watch helplessly as my mother dumped the rest of the uneaten dogs into the trash, then I would hold my breath and wait to see if anything got thrown on top of them.  If they remained “clean” on the top, as they usually did, I knew that I had all the makings of an early morning snack.  I swear that knowing this would wake me up the next morning hours earlier than usual.

At about 5 a.m., barely allowing myself time to pee, I would silently race to the kitchen trash container and grab the room-temp dogs.  I knew that by that time the dough would be rubbery on the outside and gummy on the inside, but I didn’t care.  I didn’t even put anything on them.  That would be too messy, since I wouldn’t be using a plate.  Besides, I didn’t have time for luxuries like that!  I was in a race against time!  What if my parents heard me?!   I would gobble the dogs, one in each fist, while standing in the hallway entry so that I could keep an eye on my parents’ bedroom door.  If one of them DID wake up (and it happened!), I would dash back to the trash can and throw them back in.  I’m sure they would know what was going on, but no one ever said anything to me about it.  But not to worry…I beat myself good and hard after every time I did it.

Years passed, my disease progressed, and my gorging was completely out-of-control.  I was buying bags and boxes of stuff I swore I wouldn’t finish, but I’d ALWAYS finish them!  Finally I got desperate enough to try a new way to stop myself.  I would get rid of whatever food I had started to eat (but didn’t want to finish) by burying it at the bottom of the trash – only to dig it out hours later.  I can’t tell you the humiliation of wiping coffee grinds off a bag of smashed chips or of eating out of a container of half-melted ice cream – –  because I “had to.”  Later-on I figured-out that unless I removed whatever type of food I was sick of bingeing-on from its packaging and mixed it with the trash that was already in the can, there was always going to be that possibility of me going back-in for more.  Of course, there were the times when I would try to fool myself by not disposing of “the goods” properly, knowing full well what I planned to do later on.  I’d play the whole horrible game with myself, only to end-up eating every last bit of what I didn’t want to be eating in the first place, no matter WHERE I put it!!

To live this way, day after day, week after week, year after year,…was pure torture.  I always felt helpless, like there was no way out, and ashamed that I couldn’t stop myself.  But today my life is completely different.  All the obsession and compulsion that I had surrounding food has been removed!

The same can happen for you!

I say,…

“O-A…

IS the way!”

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.

. . . 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.

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!”

Do you know how that makes you feel – – to look into that closet, day after day, week after week, month after month…and see all the things you CAN’T wear?!  Talk about self-sabotage!!

One of the best pieces of advice I have ever heard about this “condition” was to do a closet clean-out and only keep things in there that you have worn in the past 12 months.  WOW!  What a novel idea that was for me!  I have always had a fear of clothes shopping (that’s another post for another day), so it’s not like I had tons of clothes to start with.  But once I finally decided to go through the clothes I did have, I was shocked to find that I hardly had ANYTHING to wear!  I mean, even though I had several things in my current size, the TRUTH of the matter is that I had only been wearing the same 3 shirts and 3 pairs of pants for months!  The other items that fit were things that I didn’t even LIKE!  In a way, it was like the overflow of wrong-sized clothing allowed me to ignore the fact that I was out of clothes and needed to buy some more, simply as a means of taking care of myself!  (Is it me, or is there a hidden meaning in that “overflow” being a distraction/excuse for not dealing with the real problem – – like food used to be?)

More hurtful to me were the two large bins of “skinny clothes” that I kept at the bottom of my closet.  Over the years, I moved them from apartment to apartment, from house to house, always hoping that some day I would magically fit back into these clothes that I only wore for about SIX MINUTES in my twenties!  I finally realized how unhealthy this whole thing was and went through all of the items.  Half of them were totally out-dated (although, have you seen some of the fashions lately?  Lookin’ pretty Cyndi Lauper-ish, if you ask me!) and most of the rest I didn’t really care about so I donated them to charity.  I did, however, allow myself to keep three things I really liked.  I folded them neatly and tucked them into a corner on the top shelf.

By the way – – if I ever DO get to my goal weight, don’t you think that I’d like to go buy some nice NEW clothes?!  Insanity at every turn!!

Nowadays my closet is still not full, but at least everything in it fits me.  When I get some extra cash, one of my goals for this year is to go out, by myself, and do at least a couple days’-worth of serious clothes shopping – – I am talking about the kind where you actually try things on and spend a good amount of time going to different stores in search of the perfect fit.  I don’t think I have ever done that in my entire life.  But today I am actually looking forward to it.  And that new attitude is all thanks to OA and my awesome Higher Power!

QUESTION OF THE DAY:  What’s in YOUR closet?!

Today my life is completely different, and it is all thanks to this program.  Much of that change came-about even before I worked the steps.  Just being around fellow recovering addicts had a positive impact on me.  It made me more comfortable in my own skin and it gave me the confidence to tell myself that I am just as important and worthy of gas-pumping as the next person!  That was a big revelation to me (as crazy as it sounds).

So even if you have not yet mustered-up the motivation to get crackin’ on those 12 life-changing steps, just keep coming!  Little by little, a new outlook will begin to sink-in to your psyche, and before you know it, you are going to WANT to change…for the better!

The summer after 11th grade, as I swam in the backyard pool, my mind was swimming with visions of a thin senior year.  As was my custom, I vowed some time during the last week of school to stick to a strict diet of carrot sticks and water for the entire summer and return to school 3 months later magically transformed into a raving beauty.  But it would all be to no avail once week two of summer vacation arrived.  However, what made The Great Summer Diet Attempt of 1984 so different from all the others was the new low I hit in binge-control (or lack-there-of).

I started-off with the usual enthusiasm.  (Back then, I was young and foolish, not yet jaded by four decades of unsuccessful weight-loss attempts.  In my forties, I barely had the energy left to put-up a fight at all.)  I was going to only eat 800 calories per day.  Where I came-up with that figure, I have no clue.  I started out doing it in a healthy way (or, I should say, in as healthy a way as an 800-calorie-per-day diet can be), by spreading out my food consumption evenly throughout the day.  I basically ate fruits, veges, and one thin tuna sandwich on wheat bread daily.  By the fourth day, that ice cream in the freezer was calling my name.  By the fifth, it was screaming at me.  By the sixth, I had the measuring cups out and came to the wise decision that I could eat 400 calories of “real food” and still have 400 calories left to “spend ” on ice cream.  Ingenious!

That brilliant plan lasted about two days.

7 days after I had started, the idea came to me that the ice cream would be much better if I added a half-cup of unsalted peanuts to it.  (Doesn’t that sound sickeningly like the guy in The Big Book who decides that a shot of whiskey would taste great in his milk?!)  Peanuts are healthy, I reasoned.  Especially unsalted ones.  Yes, they are high in calories, but I could just take off some more calories from my “healthy” food list and use them for that…so now I was eating a cup of ice cream, a half cup of peanuts and 3 fruits every day.

That lasted about 3 days.

Then the REAL insanity kicked-in.

For the next week I lived-off little else but ice cream and unsalted peanuts.  But here was the kicker! – – I did it one half-cup at a time!  I ACTUALLY went through the trouble of measuring-out the ice cream in one-half cup servings, even if I ate TEN of them, just so I could feel like I was in control and be able to write down the amounts and figure out the calories!  Needless to say, I barely left the house that entire time!  I felt like I was chained to the freezer!  (AND the calculator!)  Finally, after 2 weeks of white-knuckling it, I gave-up.  Whatever few pounds I had lost were re-gained within a week.  Then I spent the rest of the summer bingeing and then starving and basically managing to stay the same weight as when I started, but continuing to mentally abuse myself for not being able to lose all the weight I thought I needed to lose.

Not exactly the type of summer a sixteen-year-old should be having.

The plan called for exercising rigorously and following a strict food plan all week.  Then you were “rewarded” by having one day to eat whatever you wanted.  The problem was that my food-addicted mind interpreted this to mean that on that “free day,” I could eat as MUCH as I wanted.  Even though the book outlining this plan gave clear examples of eating “normal” amounts of fattening foods at each meal on that day, I somehow was able to filter out that crucial part of the plan and simply began to see Sunday as “My Pig-Out Day,” as I WAY too affectionately called it.  (I suppose that name alone should have alerted me to the danger that lay ahead, but all I could see was a license to eat.)

Even as I write this, I can feel that sick part of my addiction that will always be alive to some degree in the back of my mind stirring and saying, “Oh, yeah!  Remember how in control you were?  That was a GREAT plan for you!  You were getting really thin and in shape…AND you could eat whatever you wanted!  Nothing like this unrealistic plan you’re on now!  You’ve only lost five pounds this year!  Lame!  If you go back on THAT plan, you’ll be thin by Memorial Day!”

Too bad none of that is true.  Not to mention the fact that I was a complete LOON through the entire 2 months I was on that diet!!   Here’s what happened:

Every Monday-Saturday morning I would get up early and follow the exercise routine I made for myself (using the book I mentioned earlier).  This included weight training as well as cardio.  Each day I would eat 6 moderate protein-packed “meals” (I put that word in quotes because calorie-wise I am sure they would be considered meals, but they felt more like snacks because the portions felt small to me.)  As with all my dieting attempts, I had little trouble staying the course Monday through Wednesday.  By Thursday I was bored.  By Friday I was ravenous.  By Saturday I was down-right deranged, thinking of little-else but the mounds of food that would be mine on Sunday morning.  I would have already been working-on the shopping list, secretly, in my mind, all week.

I think this was the only time I ever went on any type of weight-loss plan with my husband.  Of course, our favorite part was going shopping together on Saturday night for binge foods.  It became our date-night activity.  We would actually sit at the kitchen table together and write down all the restaurants we would hit the following day, make a junk food shopping list, and then off we’d go to the store like giddy school kids, loading our shopping cart with foods our moms used to tell us were not good for us.  That part was definately fun, in an immature, silly way.  When we got home, we’d even line-up all our treats on the counter and make jokes about who would get to what first (even though I already knew that he was nothing but an amateur, bless his heart.)  My husband is not a true food addict, and did not share in my passion for the supermarket “hunt” – – I could sense it.  But there were times he came close!  At the very least, for those few weeks he was definitely transformed into my eating buddy.

All Saturday night in bed I would toss and turn, knowing that these foods I had been craving all week were just a few feet away from me in the next room.  So close and yet so far!  It would take all the mental energy I had to keep myself from bounding out of bed and ripping into the bags at midnight.

Midnight.

The witching hour.

That was the time limit I gave myself.  “My Pig-out Day” officially went from midnight to midnight.  But I would force myself not to start eating until I was up for the day.  I was an old pro and knew that if I pigged-out and went back to bed, it would sour my stomach…and I had to keep it in top working condition if I was going to get-in all there was to get-in, if you know what I mean (wink, wink)!!  Sometimes I made it all the way ’til 6 a.m.  Usually, however, the latest I could hold-out ’til was 4 a.m.  (My non-addicted husband, on the other had, would wake-up at his regular time and have his usual cup of coffee, seemingly oblivious to the food-fest going-on around him.  In fact, he usually had no interest in any of our goodies until lunchtime.  (Told you he was an amateur!)

When it finally got to the point when I knew sleep was impossible, I would be out of bed like a kid on Christmas morning making a bee-line for the presents.  I didn’t want to wake-up my husband, so I would suddenly have to switch into slow-motion mode, so as not to rattle too much cellophane or crinkle too much plastic wrap.  Then I would bring whatever food I had been craving the most with me to the living room, turn on the TV, and dive-in.  I suppose that the first few bites were great, since I could supposedly eat without guilt…after all, hadn’t I earned it?  But all I seem to remember were the days of relentless obsession leading up to that moment, followed by the compulsion to keep eating, pretty-much non-stop, throughout the entire free-day.  Again, as I write this, there is a familiar longing that I feel deep inside myself, tugging at me to go back to doing all that kind of dysfunctional stuff I did with with food.  But if I am honest at the reality of what it was actually like, it was no fun at all.  I mainly remember a strange mixture of feeling insanely out-of-control and desperately ashamed at the same time.  But it was so enticing…so easy to believe that this lie – – that I had finally found a way to eat as much as I wanted while avoiding the consequences – – was true!.  But even while I was eating the very things I supposedly wanted, I never felt “good” about doing it.  In fact, I felt really bad about it.

By the time Sunday night rolled around, I had had it.   I was feeling bloated, strung-out on sugar, and at around 8 p.m., I’d started getting anxiety attacks while sitting on the toilet with severe bouts of constipation.  And yet, even while these distasteful “side effects” were taking place, my sick mind kept trying to figure out how I could get-in just one more bite of this, that or the other.  After all, it was going to be six long days before I would “get” to do this all over again.

What is that if not complete and utter insanity?!

Monday morning I would be dutifully back on the hamster wheel, still nursing a sugar hangover, but wondering what was so hard about this whole dieting thing.  This was easy!  I had absolutely no cravings for ANYthing!  It was a MIRACLE!  And there were even leftovers!  I would congratulate myself on how much willpower it took for that to happen while, at the same time, I would “forget” how physically sick I was just a few short hours earlier.  Just the mere mention of the foods I’d eaten on Sunday would make me nauseous…for a day or two.  But by Wednesday, that flimsy motivation would fade away, as it always did, and once again I would start to write a new shopping list…secretly…in my mind.

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!