I’ve been abstinent, but I’ve been gaining weight because I’ve been eating closer to my food plan and perhaps have been moving more than usual and building muscle. It’s hard to surrender to it, but this isn’t a problem. OA isn’t a diet plan after all, and I am still healthy and have more energy than I have in months.
      In other words, I think this is my first real step-up to working recovery on the crash-and-burn diet-minded paranoia of anorexia–which has plagued me for decades, as well.

      Clearly, I wasn’t listening when I wrote that all-important Step One yesterday: “We admitted we were powerless over [addict substance] — that our lives had become unmanageable.” I’m fighting a future that isn’t here yet, having expectations, assumptions, and black-and-white (all-or-nothing, right-or-wrong) judgments on them. My abstinence, though maintained, is reflecting this in how I am eating more sweets, still. Oh, that’s embarrassing, too, admitting that I thought I had it under control when I added them over the holidays. Again, my HP has me covered, which is a humbling experience for which I am grateful. Abstinence, sobriety, withdrawal–whatever one calls the surrender of the compulsive behavior to a Higher Power–is a gift from a Higher Power. It is not created through the will of any person recovering in a 12-Step program, and Step One is that second opportunity (only after Step Zero: “If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it – then you are ready to take certain steps.”) to accept the gift of a new way of life. Surrender isn’t slavery; it’s freedom from the golden shackles of the supposed pleasure an addiction is rumored to offer.

      I walk into paradise. A beautiful landscape, a vista to see, a quiet and peaceful place of meditative beauty. I see others who are affected by this beauty, and I wish I could be. They seem so content, a look of peace in their eyes. Serenity. Joy. Laughter.
      I walk into a room filled with people at a celebration. It could be a holiday, a birthday, a fiftieth anniversary. People who have not seen each other for long periods of time hug and kiss in greeting, share what’s transpired since last meeting. They seem so content, a look of peace in their eyes. Serenity. Joy. Laughter.
      I am there, but I wear a heavy backpack. I carry luggage in each hand, weighed down because they’re filled. I carry this load because I think I have to. I carry this load because I think everyone else does or did, that they’ve found a way to put it down. I carry it by choice, trying to balance the load, trying to keep my balance, trying not to be pulled down by all of this I carry. I am quiet, thinking of what’s in my bags. Do they need the anvil? Do they need the block of clay? Do they need the rocks? My heavy load, I hope, is useful to someone. My heavy load, I hope, will be taken away. I stay to the side, not wanting to explain why I am dragging it all with me. I don’t know how to explain why I am struggling with it. I am exhausted, I am powerless to put down those bags because I truly believe I can’t put them down. They’re needed. They’re what we all have. The others could put them down. Where? Or can I just not see theirs? How do they survive with their packs and luggage when I am ready to fall over?

Holiday Eating Season Countdown: 1 Day

      I’ve found over the years that whenever I made New Year’s Resolutions, I found myself equally addicted and in the same place mentally as the year before–though my body had aged a year. Since recovery, I’ve found that this one day should not be held above any other as a day to make substantial changes to my life. The simplest and most substantial change I can make, which takes splitting one second at any point during any day during any week during any month during any year, is to stop and get grateful for what is present in my life today, what I surrendered to get done today, and what addicted thoughts and behaviors have been taken away over time which are reflected in today’s recovered thoughts and behaviors. I once resolved to change; today I am resolute that change is part of life, and I want to embrace change more often than not.

Holiday Eating Season Countdown: 2 Days

      I rarely blog-whore, but I intuitively clicked on one of those “Exciting WordPress Articles You Ought to Read” on the welcome page a few days ago. It inspired me enough to send it out to a friend who’s actively changing her life. And, for me, it’s gotten me thinking a lot about when I chose a vibrant future over rehashing the past and hoping for a rescue.

Holiday Eating Season Countdown: 7 days

      I was trying to figure out what was stopping me from doing my Fourth Step inventory, despite logically knowing that it’s foolish to stop (Addictive Thinking Red Flag!). I find there is a disconnect between knowing and Knowing. One is the mind; the other, the heart and soul.

Holiday Eating Season Countdown: 8 days

      Yesterday, I spent most of the day in nature, enjoying the beauty of the northern parts of Arizona. It’s not all desert and Phoenix (and Tucson); the mountains are quite lovely–as anyone who’s driven Interstate 40 instead of Interstate 10 through Arizona can attest.

Holiday Eating Season Countdown: 10 days

      Silence.

Holiday Eating Season Countdown: 11 days

      Despite having the gift of abstinence given to me by my Higher Power this whole time, I have been a messy eater in denial of eating under my own will-powerlessness recently. I’ve eaten a lot of sugar recently. While it’s within my plan, and while I am eating it in small servings through the day, I am eating those servings with behaviors I connect with compulsivity.

Holiday Eating Season Countdown: 12 Days

      I have had the fortune of being connected up with both an incredible metropolitan library system and the streaming Netflix service. I’ve seen one of the films I’m going to talk about yet have not seen the other yet. However, it is queued up. Both films deal with individuals breaking the chain and becoming gentle souls: People who live authentically, who have somehow released the anger, shame, and pain which many of us embraced and made into a life which brought us to the rooms as a solution.