People who need people

I am busy as I can be! My BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) program is killing me, and I’ve been told by those who seem to know that I have enrolled in the hardest one available. I’ve got only today to finish my homework for the week, and my daughter’s birthday dinner is tonight. I tried to stay up late last night and do as much as I could but wimped out by 10:30. Today, I was under pressure from two of the ladies in program (who have what I want) to go to the Wednesday Noon meeting 12 miles or 26 minutes from my house. I’ve never been to that meeting before, but I was avoiding it with prejudice. What a hassle! It’s not just an hour out of the day. It’s an hour sucked smack dab out of the middle of my day, when I’ve got a hundred things to do and none of them require that I listen to a bunch of ladies talk about their food problems for an hour at a place half an hour away from my house right at the time of day I should be eating my abstinent meal and tending to the business of not making myself crazy with overdue work and failing grades! (If you didn’t read that last sentence with a growling scream in your voice you did it wrong. Try again.)

I went. (Now feel the silent, humiliated eye-roll.)

Sure enough, there were no dudes at this meeting but me, and the girls all talked about how their shared group text chain is one of the things that helps them the most. Oh, heck no!! I’m not having any part of a group text chain. Let me off that merry-go-round right now! I’m a night shift nurse, and don’t need to be reminded to mute my phone every morning before I go to bed just so I can sleep through the incessant chimes from these day-dwellers’ feel-good messages and memes.

Just about the time I was feeling like I couldn’t use anything in the room, someone read the line from the Big Book that addresses the drinker who would not follow along:

“If he thinks he can do the job in some other way, or prefers some other spiritual approach, encourage him to follow his own conscience. …Let it go at that” (AA, p 95, emphasis mine).

Oh, crap! I’m the addict who won’t follow along with those in recovery! I’m the one thinking I’ve got a better way, a shortcut, something without all the bells and whistles that come with a newcomer’s program. Part of me believes that I can do this on my own or in an advanced pattern, without all the tools it took to build my recovery in the beginning. Dang it! I started to pay attention and let what was going on sink in. Something amazing happened — they started to make sense. 

While I was at this meeting and in the sharing that followed, I was both nurtured and encouraged by people who had gone through circumstances that were remarkably similar to mine. One chose a path that made me feel like I had permission to quit my demanding college program if it was to preserve something important like my sanity or marriage. Another let me rant about how unique my situation was, but kept assuring me God would let me know what His will is. It was encouraging to have someone speak those words over me even though I, myself, pray all the time for knowledge of God’s will for me and the power to carry it out.

The truth was I needed that meeting. I may be really behind schedule, especially now that I’ve added all this journaling to my distraction from homework, but I needed to take care of me, even if that meant taking a big bite out of what I thought was the productive part of my day. The ridiculous thing is, if I had bothered to accept what is in the literature, written by hundreds of successful people who came before me, I might have known that the tool of meetings is one cornerstone of a well built recovery structure.

“Together we get better!”

By the way, in case I disappointed anyone with the candor of my sick thinking … good! It’s my sick thinking that proves just how badly I need recovery. I’ve strung 16 days together after a one-night binge disrupted nine years of abstinence. That’s how serious this thing is.

White chip remorse or flag of surrender?

Wow, what an outpouring of support after I disclosed a recent relapse! Thank you! This experience reminded me how wide and far-reaching the fellowship of recovery is. I’m blessed to be a part of such a sphere of caring people.

I’m recovering from my one-night binge by doing what worked for the nine years prior – reaching out for help to God and those around me who understand what it means to be powerless over food. I prayed for the willingness and ability to stop eating, picked up my plan of eating where I left off, charted it in my food journal, reached out to some friends in fellowship, and went to a meeting as soon as I could.

I have previously written about “white chip remorse” as something to avoid, but it was humiliating to pick one up Saturday morning. It was both encouraging and humbling to see the tears of those encircling me as they either sympathized for or empathized with me in that moment. It’s a good thing to be around those who hurt enough to care. If pain is the seed of passion, then we’ve got an orchard planted between the lot of us. Right? Rather than regretful remorse I find myself energized to do whatever it takes to survive this and come out better on the other side.

Today was another crazy day, with an upside-down sleep schedule, church, and more homework than I can normally do in a week, but I made it about others as much as I could, finished my homework by the deadline, and I didn’t overeat. That’s about all I could do today.

I’m committing to write more often. I don’t think I could write less. It had been the better part of a year since my last blog entry. Thank you for keeping up with me when I didn’t write and putting up with me when I do.

Day One – Again!

I relapsed last night with a binge at Mom and Dad’s house. My younger siblings were there and the house was in disarray, as everyone was packing Mom and Dad’s things for a sometime-in-the-near-future move out of state. I had eaten my planned prepared meal before arriving. Shortly after I got there, they ordered a “Family Feast” from one of the of the family favorite restaurants and ate it without me as usual. I, as usual, stayed nearby to be with family while they ate, but lingered a little too close to the buffet setup. 

I’m having a hard time with school, relationships, and work, and I only occasionally make it to my recovery meetings or to church for the sustaining fellowships I need. I heard myself say, “I hate my life” several times lately, and it’s mostly about school, but I must admit my parents’ advancing age, increased need, and now preparations to leave town are all piling up on me. 

Yesterday didn’t happen all at once. I gradually got to this place through weeks, if not months, of relaxing a little here and compromising there. I quit documenting and reporting my meals weeks ago, because every day looked so much the same. I bargained that since I basically eat the same thing every day, with substitutions here and there, there was really no point in documenting it. Nobody reads my report anyway. No one’s listening when I write. No one cares! I even forgot to pick up a nine-year chip when my day came around. My abstinence anniversary was May 11, and it came and went without any notice. Maybe I don’t even care. 

“Yesterday didn’t happen all at once. I gradually got to this place through weeks, if not months, of relaxing a little here and compromising there.”

My fourth meals became less and less planned after the food journal started to get neglected. I substituted on the the fly, and approximated measurements to suit the occasion. I bargained with myself and justified questionable choices, slipping in a little caution food here, and tiptoeing on the boundary between forbidden and provision. 

Then last night, in the name of fourth meal, I began to nibble at the food that wasn’t mine. First just a sample of this, then a whole piece of that, then a few of these, and before I knew it I was reaching into the bag (a forbidden food behavior) for portion after portion of sweet snacks that boast healthy statements on the package, but the second ingredient of which is sugar. Then it was on. I scavenged Mom and Dad’s kitchen and found packages of this and demolished three of them, washing them down with another compromise of caffeinated beverage at night. In a wild frenzy I even opened a candy dish. (They are everywhere at Mom’s house.) Inside was a mystery drop of some kind, but its color betrayed that it was candy. Before I even had a chance to pause, I popped one in my mouth. The flavor was that of shame, but I wasn’t done. I turned from the candy to the chair opposite my blind father, who would never notice me snacking on his cereal mix from the dish between us. I emptied it with impunity, crunching in shame, and swallowing hard to make the guilt go down. 

There was a bag of baked products on the kitchen counter, and I repeatedly visited that bag until there was only half a bag left when I finished. When caught at one of those items, my sister exclaimed, “Look, he’s stress eating!” The room was filled with shock, disbelief, judgment, and a little relief, as they seemed to recognize that I really am human even after nine years of food sobriety. My brother attempted to grab the morsel away from me, and I literally snatched it away and growled in protest like an animal defending its meal. 

On the way home, I sat in silence, recalling what I had done, and I caught myself attempting to hide the failure, and excuse it, saying surely no one needs to know. Surely I can just hide this in the string of empty days on my food journal. I suddenly became afraid that I might try to get away with this binge if it wasn’t more severe, so when I opened the door to my house, I made sure I could never excuse this as anything but a binge. I opened up the fridge and pantry and looked for anything I could add to the binge to cinch the qualification and make the binge worth the failure I was already wearing draped around my heart. I found it in the bottom of the refrigerator. One of my wife’s typical binge foods wasn’t yet gone. There was just enough to make me forever certain this was a full-on, no-doubt-about-it binge. I ate the rest of it. Oh, and the thing next to it just for good measure. I checked the clock. It was 2:00 am July 2nd. I washed it down with another soda and went to bed disgusted with myself. 

I awoke today like it was a dream, but I’m reminding myself it wasn’t. I ate my abstinent meal like nothing happened, but thanked God for the provision of my portion and asked that He make it enough. Enough. Dang it! This time, I’m not worried about not getting enough, I’m obviously worried about being enough. 

I have no spiritual nugget of wisdom to share in closing. I just wanted to document the end of a nine-year run, and to say to someone, if there is anyone listening, that I intend to be abstinent today for one more “day one.” I admitted I am powerless over food, and my life has again become unmanageable.