Whatever it takes

Until it is not about the food

Almost two weeks now of abstinent eating. Doing okay with it. Even letting go of some of the crazy about losing weight. (Am I skinny yet? I've been on my food plan for 13 days! Why aren't my pants loose already?) Trying to surrender the crazy along with the control over the food.

My hard drive in my work laptop died yesterday. It just wouldn't boot up. Now I have it back with a new hard drive, most of my old data and missing all the non-standard apps I use daily. I was just getting Office 2007 customized to be usable and now I have to start over. I was on XP and got to skip Vista entirely, so that is good, but everything is so foreign on this OS. What does this have to do with OA? Everything. This is life. Not a huge dramatic issue, but it could be if I was in the food. I could be weeping and wailing to everyone. Okay I did mention it, but it was hard not to when I was without a computer for 6 hours and had to borrow people's machines to check my email during that time. And I'm writing about it here. So it is a big deal, but I think I'm making a normal person big deal, not crazy lady big deal. 

The other thing that is related to my program is that I was really afraid that an action of mine had killed it*. I wanted to hide what I had done. I wanted to protect myself from blame for ruining a laptop. I wanted to stay in bed and pretend the world was not going on without me. But I didn't, I got up and got to work and talked with the local tech support and confessed my crime. She said she didn't think I had caused it; the laptop model I have is old and all of them are starting to have hard drive and other hardware issues. I'm so glad I confessed! I left a message about it for my sponsor on the drive in and realized how badly I wanted to keep it a secret. This is the type of thing I eventually eat over and never see the connection. 

I have way too many of these petty secrets. I lug around a ton of guilt and shame from four decades of living. How many of those are misplaced? The biggest revelation for me in OA is how many things I'm wrong about. Everywhere I turn I've made faulty assumptions or been taught lies. The more I talk with other OAs the clearer the wrongheadedness becomes.

* I used canned air to clean the keyboard for the first time. The buttons were getting crunchy. I must have tipped the can because I froze some of the keys. They got frosty. It was right over the hard drive. The PC was on all day after that, but next time I turned on it couldn't boot.

I'm powerless and my life is unmanageable.

I continue to act on my will and the results are always painful. For a while I was relieved of the obsession with food and I took it for granted. I've been slipping sugar into my meals and thought I was getting away with it. Nope. Of course I wasn't. There is a direct correlation between the food I put in my mouth and the actions I take. It goes both ways and the equation is always the same: poor food choices lead to poor life choices, poor life choices lead to poor food choices.  So around I go again.

I've been eating the corn bread with honey butter that comes with some of the entries at one of my regular lunch places. First time it came I was surprised and decided to eat it anyway. Now I'm struggling not to ask for seconds. This has lead to escalating damages: more honey butter, sampled sweet bread, sugar-free instant pudding (one box equals one serving right?), 1 fortune cookie, and snacking all weekend.

Last night I ordered Chinese take-out right after my meeting. This is a known bad thing even if I don't have explicitly sweet foods. I eat too much and it leads me to more food later. Last night I ate two fortune cookies and used three packets of sweet sour sauce. Then I stayed up until 3am surfing the internet. I could not stop it even as I watched the time tick by. I managed to get to work on time today, but am tired and craving sugar.

Also, I intended to eat a Girl Scout cookie at my sister's last night before the meeting. I saw them open and scattered on the kitchen table. I planned to go to the bathroom and then pick up a cookie (or two) as I left. While in the bathroom I debated if this was really such a bad plan while part of my brain was already plotting a trip to Dairy Queen. Luckily my sis came into the kitchen while I was doing my business. I was disappointed and relieved.

So of course, there are about 20 boxes of Girl Scout cookies on my manager's desk to be handed out. He will put some out on the table to share like he always does. I once asked him not to do it. He listened to me for a day.

So I pray for the willingness and ability to follow HPs will not mine. Mine just brings me misery. I also pray that someday this lesson will sink into my soul and I'll stop reenacting it.

P.S. Thank you to everyone who has left me encouraging comments! They mean a lot to me. I have not responded to each one as I feel I ought to. I feel more guilty about it the longer I wait. It's not you, it's me. Thank you for taking the time to share with me.

Availed us nothing

Will there ever be a time when I’m not fucking up? I’ve been in the sugar again. Not horrifying spectacular binges where I’m sick to my stomach and can feel my heart pounding, no I’ve kept my dignity. Ha! That is one of the many lies I tell myself. Unfortunately, my “moderate” sugar binging has the same devastating results. The next day I’m exhausted, fuzzy-headed and unable to wake up and go to work. Then I sleep all day. I’ve called in sick three days in the last two weeks. My allergies are bad, but they ain’t that bad.

Am I sick and tired enough to do whatever it takes? I had a good meeting last night and a good therapy session yesterday. I intend to go back to my Sunday meeting this week. I haven’t shown up there in months.

I want all the things I had when I was sober. I feel gross and ashamed of myself. I want the recovery back but I don’t want to work hard for it. So nothing new there, other than I have a better idea of what is required for long-term abstinence than I did first time around. It takes daily work. It takes discipline to do all the things I find difficult. I have to call OA people every day. I need to be in regular contact with my sponsor. I need to sponsor others, I need to do service and attend meetings. I need to do daily inventory and meditation. Some of these things are easy for me. Some feel impossible. All are required. I need to act as-if, especially when I least want to.

I don’t know that I have the energy to do it, but I know I’m not going to feel any better if I keep turning to the food instead of my HP. It isn’t going to get any easier by waiting. There is no burning bush, just a series of choices, one after another. Fuck.

Still stagnant

Sigh.

It has been really hard for me to work my program lately. I still go to meetings and take calls. I even make calls. I've called my sponsor more in the last few weeks than I have for a long time. I'm just not feeling it.

I feel irritated by fellow OAers who don't stay consistent in meeting attendance. So many regulars aren't showing up anymore. It's frustrating. I really don't want to carry the key or lead meetings every week. I don't like being the only sponsor at a meeting. I much prefer my Sunday meeting where there are often 12 people and 9 are sponsors. I've grown impatient with those who haven't moved forward in their programs. There are so many people who are afraid to sponsor because they don't feel good enough. Nobody would ever sponsor if that were the criteria.

So what's going on that I want to take everybody's inventory but my own? I haven't moving in step 9 for months. Sure I do living amends all the time, just did some today. But I need to find someone I worked for 21 years ago and I don't really want to put in the time and effort.

Also still farting around with food plan changes. My food got a bit loosey-goosey for a bit there. I've been losing and gaining the same two pounds for months now. My food is clean this week and that feels better.

I talked my attitude over with my sponsor. She says I'm totally normal and this is a normal phase in my program. It feels good to be average. I resent like hell that the same effort I put in for the last few years isn't enough to keep me abstinent now, but it is awesome that I'm just an average compulsive overeater and this this too shall pass. I just have to keep showing up and working to the best of my ability each day.

Ugh. I read an article on becoming an early morning person instead of a night owl. I think I need to implement the steps. The main changes would be getting up at the same time even on weekends (Yuck!) and on awakening go outside for a 30 minute walk (What? Yuck, yuck, yuck!) There are a few other things, but those are the two that would be the biggest changes. I say I want to get to work on time consistently and become reliable. I'm I willing to actually make the changes that would make that happen?

Stay tuned...

It's about the food until it isn't about the food...

...until it's about the food again.

This comic has had me chuckling for a while now. It's called Stove Ownership:

I went through a bacon phase, an onion ring phase*, stove-top popcorn, Stove-top Stuffing, Jiffy mix corn bread, biscuits from a can, and soup. Soup was definitely the healthiest cooking phase I went through. It was the zero-point soup from WW. I finally learned my uppermost garlic tolerance in my weekly soup-making ritual. There are probably others I just cannot recall.

I'm teetering on the edge of a new cooking phase in my life. My food plan needs to change and I'm resisting like I'm a newbie. I know I need to reduce my main dish portions and increase the veggies. I. Do. Not. Want. To. Surrender? Tosh! Not me, I can do this on my own! (Donning my cape and saucy mask, cue hero music.)

Logically I know the only way to change my eating to be loving and where it needs to be is to surrender to HP. Emotionally I'm three, six and 13 years-old. No! You suck and I hate you! It just feels impossible and I'm going to have to change my eating in a radical way that hasn't had to happen since I went to three meals a day with nothing in-between. Scary.

I need to talk with my sponsor more and I'm running from that too. What goes into my mouth isn't different than what it's been for a while. The difference is that I feel guilty that I'm still eating my enormous portions. My sponsor says abstinence is guilt-free eating. That is not what I'm doing right now. Poor me, poor me, pour me a big sugary Coke.

*Ugh, flashback to crazy attic apartment where everything stunk of grease when I experimented mightily with homemade onion rings in my electric wok. I feel queasy thinking of it.

Cover it with choc'late and a miracle or two

My name is Dodi and I'm a compulsive overeater.

Oh yes indeed I am. Before I promised not to research thyroid issues anymore I read that there are four types of thyroid cancer and the one of them is really bad with no treatment. My first thought after, "I'm dying" was "If I'm dying can I eat sugar again?" Seriously.

I started trying to figure out if I would need to stay abstinent if there was no hope. I can see that if I have something that must be fought I absolutely have to maintain abstinence. I'm helpless in the food and could never do whatever needed doing. But if there was nothing I could do, could I indulge? I could just give up and slip back into a candy-coated oblivion.

My sponsor pointed out that OA has ruined bingeing for me. She said that I would never get that same relief from food again. I believe her. It had lost much of it's power in the months before I finally got abstinent. So that kind of sucks. I'm in the game now like it or not.

The ultrasound was quick. I almost started crying during the procedure. I'm frightened of the results and desperately wanted the technician to say that everything was fine. Of course she couldn't say a thing, but I tried anyway. I should hear the results sometime this week.

I've tried not to talk about it much. After my first panic and desire to scream it from the rooftops I settled down and have worked to not be a drama queen. Which, if you knew me from before program very different behavior for me. Sure I blogged it, but I'm not calling you to talk endlessly about how sick I could be and how awful it is...blah, blah blah.

Thank you everyone for your support. It means a lot to me.

99 and counting

I weighed in on Saturday and was happy to see four more pounds gone. I have now lost 99 pounds since coming to Overeaters Anonymous. The mind boogles.

I don’t think I wrote a post last time I weighed in. I wrote an email to my sponsor and then couldn’t bring myself to write about it again. I stayed the same last month. It was disappointing, but not surprising. As the weather grew colder and the days shorter my diet became unusually carb-rich and I played with the portion sizes. I felt like nothing would be enough so I choose the biggest, heaviest items from my typical rotation. This included ditching the salad I try to eat for a meal once a day. After weighing in the same last month I got a better balance going, hence the four pounds lost.

I’m quite excited by the number 99. Unless I go bat-shit-crazy I’ll be in the triple digits by New Years. I’m not sure what my goal weight is. I may never get to the ideal number for my height. I think I would be ecstatic to weigh around 160. I’m still way to far away from that and intend to follow a doctor’s advice when the time comes. So, if 160 is my ideal, I’m no longer morbidly obese. Obese, but not morbidly obese. Woo Hoo! It really depends on what calculations are used. Most web sites (of the six or so I just googled) say I should be 122 - 149 pounds.

I’m used to thinking of myself as “large framed” or “big-boned,” but I’m probably average. Before puberty and before I started gaining weight my mom made a big deal about buying me “slim” jeans. Since that was before I got hips I’m pretty sure I’m just plain old medium framed. Wouldn’t that be amazing? To be average and blend in with the crowd would be awesome. This brings me to program. Through the steps I’m learning humility. I no longer need to be the best or the worst. I can simply be and know that I am one of many, no better or worse than others. It will be nice when my body become average too.

I haven’t posted much at either of my blogs lately. I screwed up my brain chemistry getting the Halloween costumes ready in time and have been in relapse depression. The good news is that I recognized the symptoms quite early and sought help. Before OA I never recognized my depression until I hit rock bottom and then it was too hard to ask for help. This time I called to make an earlier appointment even though my regular visit was less than a week away. My Welbutrin dosage was increased and I should feel better as early as Wednesday.

I wish Dr. L would stop freaking me out about the potential side-effect of seizures. I’m also not fond of the strange sensations in my brain that occur during dosage changes. Like a headache, but unaffected by OTC remedies. I feel off balance, but just slightly and my head feels two sizes larger. But this is normal for me when Dr. L tweaks my meds. Unpleasant as it is, he seems to know what he’s doing so I’ll just turn that over.

Old enemy remembered

I wrote this today and submitted it to my intergroup newsletter, but wanted to share it here too:

I just had a wonderful reminder of my life before program. It is 3:48pm and I was in the lunch room making herbal tea. A man at the vending machine sighed loudly and said, “This machine is the bane of my existence.” I laughed and said that I no longer look directly at it. He put his money in and replied, “I just happened to walk by and I’m having a rough day.” I remembered the countless times I stood there choosing my own poison. Sometimes I felt shame because I was breaking a diet; mostly I was beyond shame or thinking and just looking for my next fix. I was tempted to share that I no longer eat between meals, so the machine isn't a problem for me anymore. I certainly would not choose to make a meal out of the few sugar-free selections offered. Instead I just smiled and walked away. I am grateful that I have no relationship with that vending machine today.

Freedom from bondage

Wednesday was my second abstinence anniversary. It was mostly a very good day. I’m proud of myself for not eating sweets for two years now. I’m proud that I have stuck to a plan of eating for so long. The plan has changed over time and I haven’t been perfect, but the consistency in my eating is miraculous.

I’ve been thinking about how my life has changed. It has literally been years now since I’ve binge shopped. Small 24 hour pharmacy stores, like Walgreen’s, were my binge-food one-stop shops. They’re perfect for it. They carry all the major binge food groups. It is easy to get in and out quickly. They are open 24 hours a day. I rarely run into anyone I know there.

When I think about it I get a knot in my gut. I would pace from living room to kitchen while convincing myself I needed to go shopping and then deciding that I wouldn’t this time. Sometimes I would get dressed, then undress, then dress again and put my coat on, then sit down to watch TV. I would spend hours trying to resist the urge. Occasionally I succeeded, but mostly I ended up driving to Walgreen’s late at night, furious with myself. Once there I would always buy more candy, nuts, chips, beef jerky, ice cream, etc. than I intended to. Sometimes I bought some “necessity” that I had used as an excuse to go out. Usually I would buy enough food to eat myself sick that night, and still have plenty to start in again when I woke up.

Sometimes I miss the food items or the freedom to eat what I want, when I want it.  But I do not miss that restless misery. Thank you to everyone in the OA fellowship, I could not do it without you. My life keeps getting better the longer I work this program.

Four pounds less, Happy Birthday to me

I've lost four more pounds. I have now lost 93 pounds. I'm really happy about that. So far I haven't gotten freaky about how close to 100 pounds I am. Maybe I got that out of my system a few months ago, or it could hit me when I least expect it. For today, right now, I am content with myself exactly as I am.

Yesterday was my 38th birthday. It was a nice day. I didn't have any plans, but that was fine with me. I had no expectations for the day and so just relaxed and went with the flow. I read in the morning, went to my favorite eating hole for lunch, bought some thread for my new sewing machine and went to my sister's house. I hung out there for a bit, then took the gift certificate to Barnes & Noble they gave me and went shopping. I bought a globe, a laminated map of Illinois for the car, three CDs, and a sewing book. I love shopping with gift certificates. I'm getting more disciplined too, I only had to add $3.33 to complete the transaction. I used to spend at least 50% more than the gift amount.

Then I went back to my sister's house to swim and eat. She ordered pizza and salad. She put candles on the candle and they all sang Happy Birthday to me (the neighbors were over too). It was nice to have pizza out. I've been wanting it (yes, it is on my food plan), but I tend to over eat it. It's nice to have a portion, then not have any left overs. I did eat it rather fast though, because by the time it arrived I had 15 minutes to eat before I had to go home to catch my ride to a meeting.

Yes, I went to a meeting on my birthday. I haven't been to that meeting in over two years. A friend invited me to go with them and I accepted. It felt right to go. I'm so grateful for my life right now and it is all due to the program. The speaker was great and I saw a few people I knew. The topic was steps 8 & 9.

At first I was disappointed because I had just gone over step 8 on Sunday with my sponsor. It was good though, because it reminded me that I need to start making my step 9 amends now. I don't want to sit here at 9 for a year like I did for 8.

There are some amends that I thought I would not have to make that I do. There some amends I thought I would have to make that I don't. It's hard to think of the financial amends I owe. It is hard for me to let go of money. I can tell that I will feel better when they are done. I'm relieved I don't owe amends to my dad. I need to find a way to forgive him, but that is part of my self-amends. I am to write letters to my parents explaining what I needed to get from them that I did not. It is not to be given to them, it is for me to work through it.

I'm glad I got step eight done before my birthday. I feel clean. I was starting to beat myself up over my lack of forward progress. The speaker last night reminded me that it is after the ninth step that the obsession with food shall be lifted. My sponsor had reminded me that the promises are at the end of step nine, but I hadn't thought specifically about food.

I had some insanity yesterday at lunch about food. I had planned to get one of my usual meals at the cafe. Standing in line it felt like there would not be enough. I wanted more than one dish. I wanted a bit of everything. I tried to convince myself that having a pretzel roll on my birthday was acceptable, even though bread as a side is specifically not in my plan. I wanted to treat myself to excess food on my birthday. Knowing how crazy that is doesn't stop me. "Self-knowledge avails us nothing." I don't remember thinking of any specific tools, but I did order one of my usuals. I did however order extra chips. "It's my birthday, I can't have cake but I can eat extra potato chips." Not the worse thing in the world, but not sane either. I was, of course, stuffed when I finished. The portions were, as usual, big and filling.

I'm going to my usual Tuesday night meeting tonight. I'm looking forward to it. I think I should add in extra meetings occasionally, it adds some zest.