I’ve written a lot about my abstinence and I seem to be particularly focused on it these days as I gratefully approach one year of back-to-back abstinence. That’s 365 days without flour and sugar! And while that’s pretty impressive for someone like me who was an in-the-gutter, couldn’t put it down if I if my life depended on it (and it did) food addict, I need to be reminded regularly that what I’m doing isn’t about abstinence, it’s about recovery from food addiction.
Abstinence is only one of the tools I use for daily amnesty from my unhealthy obsession with food. Abstinence along with the six other tools I employ every day are what keep me moving forward on the path of recovery. With my abstinence, I get clarity of mind allowing me to see, and in most cases, gratefully accept the lessons of recovery. Of course I don’t always learn the lesson the first time, but the great thing about recovery is that I’ve learned to be more interested in the journey, than in the destination, which is why I get to keep working the steps over and over.
I wanted to write about recovery this week because even if you aren’t in a 12-step program there are many ways to find recovery. A person can work one-on-one with a therapist, belong to a support group, there are self-help and recovery-related materials the world round, or a person can take the journey with their higher power through prayer and meditation. Regardless of how someone chooses to escape the throes of addiction, if their energy and true desire is directed toward recovery and isn’t solely about dumping the disease that ails them then they will likely begin to experience a reprieve in their addictive behavior. So if you aren’t sure how to arrest your addictive behavior with food, I encourage you to take the first step to recovery today–recognize you have a problem with food and simply want recovery, I mean really want it. Do this and you are on your way.
If you’ve already experienced the joys of recovery, but are faltering a bit, be kind to yourself. Remember that part of the transformation from addict, to recovering addict, involves the potential for lapses and even relapses. It can happen, and it often does, that in recovery we take a step or two backwards only to stumble forward again. I know because this happened to me a little more than a year into my recovery. It was during this time I realized the difference between recovery and simply starving off my disease, which was what I did my entire first year in program. With that small realization, even in relapse, recovery had taught me a valuable lesson. The thing is, once you start on a journey of recovery you never, ever will find yourself back where you started. You can’t unlearn what recovery has taught you. You can fight against it, and many people do, including yours truly, but it’s too late you’ve already fallen down the rabbit hole, drank the Kool-aid, swallowed the pill –recovery is hard, if not impossible to shake. So stay with it, look for the lesson, take it in and move forward.
Moreaholic Confessions 