If ain't one thing, it's another ...

... as the hillbillies used to say back home.

My food is so completely out of control. I am powerless over my compulsive eating right now. I know, know, know I am not powerless over my choices, but I am really in a bad place when it comes to food.

I had begun attending Overeaters Anonymous meetings more than a year ago. I even had a sponsor for a short while. However, when my sex addiction issues started going haywire, I had to focus on the disease that was killing me the fastest.

There is no doubt in my mind that I am very slowly killing myself with food. For the past 48 hours, I have eaten nothing but sugar, fat, carbs, milk products. It's just gross to even think of all that has gone into my poor body. And this is simply a continuation of behavior that I've been engaged in for months with sugar and carbs. Right now I am powerless over $1 item menus in fast food drive thrus.

I went to an Al-Anon meeting today at which a woman shared whatever our "substance" we turn to for comfort becomes our Higher Power. That must surely mean that God is nowhere to be found in my life, because he's being gobbled up in junk.

I know the message is that I have to get back into OA, start working the steps with a sponsor and really commit to getting truly sober in SLAA and abstinent in OA. I'll be perfectly honest, I'm scared shitless if I start to work my OA program, my sex addiction issues will rise again and I'll feel out of control in that area of my life.

I know that there is a power greater than me who can restore me to sanity, and I stand at the turning point, am I willing to turn my will and my WHOLE life over to God as I understand God. All I can say today, is God please help me find the courage and willingness to do what it takes to regain my sanity.

One cold Saturday

It's freezing cold here, but the sun is shining, so I'm happy! It feels like it's been a long time since I've been here to write and share my thoughts. The work week went well, though I have to admit that I did have to struggle a lot with focusing on my work and I had some addictive triggers that caused me a bit of anxiety. Still ... I made it OK. Well, at least with my sex and love addiction. The food issues are exacerbated by the fact that every fast food joint in America, and a few great pastry shops have a space on the second floor of the building where I am working. Luckily after the first day or two of temptations, I became desensitized to the "opportunity" to overeat and indulge in all sorts of unhealthy foods.

I also spent some "down" time this week really grieving the fact that I have continually punished myself by bringing people into my life who perpetuate my underlying belief that I am "less than." It made it difficult to make it through one of the days at work, and with so much emotion laying on my sleeves, I was incredibly sleepy and staying focused was even more difficult. I found myself incessantly checking e-mail and writing e-mails and procrastinating in one way or another. I guess this is some of the remnants of the depression, which I continue to take medication for.

I also wasted my time listening to someone I know say that he wasn't quite sure that incest was a bad thing -- that learning about sex from someone who you love and trust firsthand seemed to make sense. He went on to say that there would probably be far fewer hangups if families talked more openly about sex. I sat in silence, feeling both defensive and misunderstood. I didn't even want to scream out, because it felt like it would be a waste of breath. It brought back a feeling I often have that no one can hear my voice.

A friend of mine recently referred to my behavior as "punishing myself." He suggested perhaps I was punishing myself for not being a good daughter ... for not maintaining contact with my stepfather. I wrote to him:

As much as it doesn't make sense, I feel bad about myself for cutting off connection to my stepfather, not calling to check on him when I know he's been in the hospital, not rushing to "clear things up" and pretend again that I am not hurting. Sometimes the farther I go into my thoughts on these things the more depressed I become. In other words, I thought I was "doing the right thing" cutting off connection to him ... and that has resulted in a whole other set of feelings -- feelings like I am only punishing him, it's not really that I am trying to take care of myself, because if I were taking care of myself I wouldn't make myself feel bad by being a bad daughter. It's crazy thoughts like this that keep me spinning. And in the meantime, I'm trying to recover from not just one but two or three lures that are so overwhelmingly attractive that the pain they cause seems better than living without them.

All of this seems a little more sad than my week actually was. My husband was very supportive and encouraging this week and it did feel really good to be among the workforce. I liked learning to use the transit system downtown and had some great conversations with a few fellow riders. The work I am doing also allows me to talk with people all over the world and that has been very satisfying as well. I enjoy meeting new people and hearing parts of their stories -- even if it is just what they do for a living.

Well, it's time to walk the dog ... on this nice sunny but cold day.

Connecting to my feelings about food

Yesterday in my appointment with my therapist she asked me what I envisioned when I thought of when I connected to the part of me that wanted to be healthy and fit. I told her that I get so frustrated because what I really want is to just be "normal." She sort of poo-pooed that away, saying ... "Forget that, no one is normal. All women have body image issues of some sort." I was angry at her for her flippancy. So I stopped for a minute and then said, "What I am telling you is that inside my head, I have the idea that there are people out there who don't have to constantly think about what they are going to eat, when they are going to eat it, they don't think about food all the time, they can shop in any store they want." For me, normal means I don't have to battle with food and exercise issues every day of my life. I can work out every day and love it -- I don't have to worry about what people think about me when I'm at the gym, or have a constant feeling of "I can't do this. I'm too out of shape." The truth is ... I am not "normal" ... I am a compulsive overeater, and I will always have struggles with using food as something other than nutrition. I doesn't mean that I have to let it run my life, but I have to give up that pipe dream that I'm going to be "normal." And honestly, she's probably right, there are few people out there who really can just say they have NO food issues.

One of the reasons I chose "kindness" as my secondary "focus" word for the year, was because I am trying to learn to be kind to myself, including to my body. While kindness to others (when I pay attention to them) comes pretty easy for me, kindness to myself is so much more difficult. I am really hard on myself and that is something I want to work on. But I am also continuing to realize -- peeling the proverbial onion -- how little I have seen my own responsibility for myself. For all of my life I have sort of seen things as "take what you get." Whether it was my health or my happiness, even though I worked hard, I always sort of just lived life without much discipline or thought, never recognizing that part of being "lucky" in life was doing some work to prevent disease and unhappiness.

A friend sent me this in one of our New Year's exchanges. It was something she read elsewhere: If you (1) want to change, (2) decide to change, (3) learn how to change, (4) take action to change, (5) persist in your attempt to change, and (6) start again when you backslide, there's a very good chance that you will change in the ways you want.

Ain't No Love in Here

I recently heard a woman speak at an OA meeting ... she was fantastic in her story telling. Something she said about her refrigerator keeps sticking with me though. She said she has a note on her refrigerator that says, "Ain't No Love in Here."

For people, like me, who struggle with compulsive overeating, they find comfort and love and understanding in food. Food is a place they can retreat and be pleased ... not to mention, shamed and degraded.

I read this in an e-zine this morning, "Compulsive overeating is accompanied with much guilt and shame. People with this condition often feel that they are not good enough and are ashamed that they could not control their eating habits. This only makes it worse because their negative feelings only lead them to more compulsive overeating. Food is how compulsive overeaters deal with their craving for acceptance and appreciation. Some use their overweight appearance to keep people away because they subconsciously feel undeserving of love, while others use it as punishment whenever they feel bad about themselves. One does not become successful in overcoming this condition unless they gather up the courage to face the real emotions they are afraid to feel and unless they can honestly admit the issues that cause them to be stuck in this destructive behavior. All this of course, would be a difficult accomplishment without professional help and the support of friends and loved ones."

For me, my compulsive overeating and sexual addiction are closely intertwined ... for it was in being sexual violated beginning at age 3, that I turned to food for comfort and protection.

As I was trying to pull myself away from the computer this morning ... where I sometimes sit for hours, chatting, e-mailing, searching for that "hit" or that person to meet ... I thought of the woman's note on her refrigerator ... Ain't No Love In Here.

If I were to post a personals ad that said ... "There is a hunger of the body, a thirst of the mind, but it is the craving of my soul that cannot be satisfied," I wonder if any human power could ever satisify that? I think not.

Update

Well, it's 11:15 p.m. and I leave in a few minutes to pick up dear hubby from the airport. So far today, by the grace of God, I am abstinent in OA, sober in SLAA and rested enough to make the 30 minute drive over to the airport. I contacted five churches today about using their facilities for a weekly SLAA meeting, and am awaiting responses. I went to an OA meeting at a residential treatment center for girls with eating disorders. I called the woman I wrote about earlier who might be a potential sponsor. She said she already had too many sponsees, but I could call her anytime. I was thankful. I called someone else who could be a potential sponsor, but she was not home, and I left a message saying, "You don't have to call me back." And I looked up the names and numbers (for the third or fourth time)of some therapists that are in my insurance plan and called and left a message for one of them. I went to a restaurant for dinner, with the intention of eating some binge foods, and found myself full after eating a healthy, nutritious dinner.

I'm thankful to my friend for writing me, to God for allowing me to take an honest look at what I am doing. I know that this is just one day, tomorrow will have its own set of struggles. That's why we do this, one day ... and for me, one minute at a time.

A humble reply

I wrote the following in response to a recovery friend's question, "How are you doing?" It is a humbling truth about me, a woman who seems unwilling to work her program of recovery:


To be honest, I don't know how I am doing. I feel stuck in the warp of food and sexual addiction ... God "told" me -- not nuts, just the message I got while I was walking -- go to gym every day. If you don't do anything else, go to the gym every day. I stopped going. My doctor told me eat a little bit of protien and the rest fruits and vegetables, with only a few carbs every day. I didn't listen. My inner core tells me to pray and meditate every day, instead I waste my time looking for either new sex partners or new love partners. My OA friends say, you have to get a sponsor. I call people in OA, but never the people who I want to be my sponsor. I am paralyzed when I think of calling them. You've told me, others have told me -- get a counselor, but day after day I don't make the call. I need an SLAA program in my area, and at one time had the willingness to start it. But every day passes by ... I don't make the contacts to the church that I need to. I am still going to OA meetings, but have stopped my Al-Anon meetings almost all together. Instead I isolate and act out. I know, I have seen, God has shown me, honesty and acceptance are my two keys. I still lie, I still judge, I still expect outcomes, I still eat and have sex with strangers to make up for the "lack" of my expectations being met.


Why, you ask. Why, I ask. I don't know my friend, other than it seems that I don't want to get well. That's a lie and we both know it. It's all a bondage of self, a disease ridden self destined to kill herself one way or the other. The third step prayer says ... "God please release me from the bondage of self." Some days, the shame of all that has been and all that is keeps me from even praying, "God give me the willingness." Yesterday, when I wanted to go get a whole package of snack cakes and eat them, or go home and post an ad and find a dinner and bed partner for the evening (My husband is out of town.) I struggled with the voice inside that said, "make a call, go to a meeting." But I shrieked out ... "God give me the willingness." And I made two calls til I found someone who was going to a meeting and said "See you there." On the way home, I still wanted to stop and get those snack cakes, but I just kept driving and had the willingness to pray, "God, just get me home. There's nothing there that can hurt me too much." When I talk about the shame to even pray ... it's my codependence there ... I'm even codependent with God. I feel like such a disappointment. It's one thing when you do all these things and you don't know better. It's another when you know and you just keep going ... you don't take the action. But, guess what? The first step says ... "We are powerless." My friend, I am powerless. But I am not hopeless.


There is a woman who spoke at two different OA meetings last week ... and I feel that she could be the answer to my ongoing silent and spoken prayer to God for a sponsor who can help me. I had the willingness to ask if I could call her this week, to which she said, "Please do.", the willingness to write down her number and I am terrified to call her -- I can even at times feel the call of my disease saying "But I don't want to get better." But I am going to call. Let me rephrase that ... I am continually praying for the willingness to call her, without any expectation of the outcome, other than praying ... "If this is the one, let her say yes." The answer will come one way or another. There is something in "How It Works" in the AA Big Book that says ... "No human power could have saved us." And the further down the spiral I go, the more I realize how true it is. A sponsor can help me, but no one, and especially not me, can save me. That's the humble, honest truth.


Thank you, my friend, for asking. Thank you God for giving me the humble and sobering answer I needed to write.

Taking stock

I've had a rough couple of weeks that have just passed. I had been doing very well with my food and for a long, long time with my sex and love addiction issues. But relapse came on like a thunderstorm in both program ... the sex, notably after the food.

Today I went to the gym and walked for 50 minutes. I watched "Spanglish" on TV as I walked and it made me think of a conversation I had last night with one of the latest men my addiction is courting, in which we agreed (or I deferred to his sanity)that what we were pursuing was merely a friendship. God knows if that's what I was pursuing or not, but it certainly deflated any ideas that this man was going to become the next "love of my life." After my walk, I went to the bathroom crying ... I seem to be doing that a lot lately ... I can't stop crying. I cry at every emotion that comes up. Anyway, as I'm in the stall in the bathroom I just say to whatever force is listening ... "I don't think things will ever be OK." The message back was a "Do you trust me?" message and a reassurance that things will not always be this way. I was also reminded to keep going to the gym, quit lying about going to the gym, and actually go there and exercise every day, no matter what. Exercise is good for my mental condition and it also gets me out of the house.

Just for a point of record, I need to note here that over the past week I met a different man every day (M-F)and had sex with three of them. When I am away from the situation, it is hard to say how I feel about it ... Obviously, I'm walking around crying at the drop of a hat, so this behavior is emotionally damaging. Likewise, I can't focus on anything and the need for "more" is always there. Yesterday I was with my husband and also for the most part today ... so the food didn't seem to call me much. At some points the sex and love addiction did. I'm just trying to make it through this latest storm and am thankful that I see at least one window every day where I find the willingness to say a prayer.

I went to a meeting yesterday and the day before I called people on my outreach list ... but still I am in the mode of life where I am watching myself from the outside in. My behavior seems like my own, but there seems to be this sane person who just sits back and lets all the insanity happen, numbed to the effects. I guess this is all about PTSD, I honestly don't know. I wonder sometimes if I need to go to a psychiatrist for testing ... but then I'm not even making the appointments with the counselor.

One day at a time ... I am just going on. I am thankful for the small successes, the many miracles and the willingness to just keep going.

The willingness

I sit here tonight, having just finished eating my portion ... meaning the portion I allotted to myself on my food plan, knowing that I have the opportunity and the need to go to a meeting. Which meeting do I go to? I've struggled with both OA and sex addiction issues lately. I went to a codependency meeting earlier in the day. Sometimes I think I am "hiding out in recovery" ... going to meetings, not getting much done.

I mean, after all, I am sitting her on my ass procrastinating. I know where the OA meeting is ... and would need to look up the SA meeting. I can go to both an OA and an SA meeting tomorrow.

What I really want is for my husband to come home and for us to have a great conversation and laugh and love one another. It was after 8 before he came home last night. I use this fact to beat myself up and to justify acting out in my sex and love addiction.

I had the chance to act out today ... and I didn't. I stopped it. I am thankful.

Anyway... I'm doing good about making "just for today lists" and I think except for kidding myself on a couple of them ... I did pretty good today.

I had a happy dream in the afternoon. I was with a friend and we were laughing and having a good time. I want to laugh and have a good time. I don't know what happened.

Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.

Better get going. I'm going to the OA meeting. I'll do OA and SA tomorrow, God willing.