I want abstinence!

Hello Everyone! I’m powerless over food and I cannot manage my own life. How about you?

So...a new post, a new excuse for blog neglect. This time I’ve been tripping from one end of my country to the other, stopping in at home for a night or two to fulfil a local commitment, then setting off again. Travelling can be great fun. But it’s not wonderful for recovery. Not only does it often become difficult to find the time, privacy and internet/phone/meeting facilities for working the program, but there are a lot of triggers for overeating, including stress, change, fatigue, lack of control over what and when you eat, and so on. Overall I saw progress on this trip compared to previous trips in recovery, but failed to maintain abstinence, mainly due to a combination of stress, fatigue and program neglect, as well as just plain self-will.

Early Thursday morning I left home for an 8.5 hour train trip to visit my paternal grandmother in the town where pretty much all of my dad’s family grew up and resided for two or more generations. It’s a country town which gets pretty boring at times so I took a friend along. Being a compulsive people pleaser, living with two people outside of my “inner circle” was slightly stressful. Moreover, food has always been a huge part of my relationship with my grandmother. Just stepping through the door at her house is a trigger for me.

I almost made it through that trip abstinent. I say almost, because on my last full day there I gave in and had “just one” of my grandmother’s home-made sugary treats. I managed to be abstinent after that for about 12 hours...but the obsession that had been triggered was brewing inside me, and eventually broke through the flimsy barrier of my willpower. After everyone had gone to bed I raided the cupboards not once, but twice, and and did not regain abstinence until two days later. However, progress not perfection is my favourite OA slogan. I can definitely say that there was improvement. Apart from the length I held out, I was much firmer with my grandma about my eating requirements, and less worried about putting her out, than I have been in the past

I arrived home at about 9pm on Tuesday the 29th of January, and hurried to prepare a lesson for the next day. I felt very resentful when only 4 people turned up to the free, volunteer English class that I had cut short my time at my grandma’s to eat. After getting home from the lesson I packed my bags for another destination, got to bed around midnight, and woke up at 3:30am the next morning January 31st to head to the airport. My second destination was more than a twelve hour drive from my home, but this time I flew. I went to visit a very dear friend of mine who is now studying there. I got back from that trip at 12:30am of February 6th, snatched a few hours sleep and hurriedly prepared a shambles of a lesson for that afternoon. After getting home on the Wednesday night I collapsed into bed, and I’ve spent the last 2 days recovering.

I started my abstinence again on the morning of the interstate trip. During my time with my friend, I slipped up a teensy bit once or twice. But overall I would say I was abstinent the whole time- eating according to plan without white flour or sugar. That was a definite record for time away from home. However, getting a record for nomadic abstinence made me cocky and wilful, as did the loneliness and depression at saying goodbye to my friend again. By the time I left her I was back in the illness. As I was saying goodbye to my friend all I could think about was how I would soon have the chance to eat without any accountability at the airport. I did overeat in amount at the airport, but I still stayed away from white sugar and white flour. That was definitely my Higher Power not me at work, coz I came awfully close. Unfortunately, even that abstinence broke when I got home. I had two white rolls on arriving home, and the next day I also ate some of my number one binge food: ice cream.

The thing that really ruined my abstinence this second time was the return of self-will and cockiness. I’ve just started my fourth step. (More about that in another post), and one of the targets of resentment I found myself writing down was God (see the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous Chapter 5 for more about self will and resentments in the fourth step) . I’m so angry at him for giving me this disease and making me do all this work to overcome it, and for not taking away the cravings, and for everything else that sucks in my life. At the end of the second week away I was so exhausted from maintaining abstinence, so annoyed at all the times I’d felt deprived, that I just said “Hang it all, I deserve this binge”. That’s, of course, a stupid way to think, but we compulsive overeaters are insane after all.

My abstinence started again this Friday. May God help me to maintain it. I’m working my program hard now. I’m sick of breaking abstinence again and again. So many long-timers have years of back-to-back abstinence. I know it’s possible if I just work the steps. I am continuing to work my third and fourth step. More about that later. For now, thanks to all those of you who have bothered to read this far. I hope my story has been of help to you. And thank you to God for the more than a day of abstinence. Please continue to grant me more. I offer myself to you, as your servant creature. Please mould me and remake me so that I might serve you and do your will as you would have me. Amen.