History in the making

As I was just commenting on someone's blog I found myself reflecting about a concept that my AA sponsor has said to me over the years.  Of course in AA it's all about alcohol, but as I was reading the gal's post, I was reminded of the concept and how it can apply to food and eating as well.  My sponsor calls it "building a sober history". 

When I first came into AA, I'd been using alcohol as:  medication, feel-good potion, escape hatch, pressure release valve, augmenter of positivity, diminisher of negativity, confidence booster, social lubricant, personality improver, validator of my right to be on the planet with the rest of you guys - basically as an all-purpose best friend on whom I could rely for whatever the moment's reality warranted.  I didn't stay drunk 24/7, but I used booze a lot.  Often.  And like any best friend, it never let me down. 

Until it did. 

But being a trusting and loyal soul, I didn't jettison booze out of my life when something didn't go well as a result of its counsel.  I gave it another chance.  And it would treat me well again and so I'd know that the one bad experience was a fluke that would *never* happen again.

Until it did. 

I could continue this dramatic recitation of my personal experience with alcoholism for many pages.  Or I can advise you to hit "replay" countless endless times, and you'll have the tale in a nutshell.  Our stories are many and varied with different props, sets, players, details, plot twists, attempts to quit (also countless), relapses and so on. 

When I finally put down the drink for the last time (several months after I started trying AA), my emotional landscape (after the initial physical withdrawal) became a landmine field.  Little and big explosions all around and within - things like having to remember to sign permission slips for field trips for my kids, a broken washer, the snub of a friend....you know, LIFE.  But suddenly LIFE was full-on and not blunted by the warm buzzy haze of alcohol, and it was harsh.  It was happy, sad, maddening, frustrating, PMS monthly (that I never perceived), scary, angst-ridden.  I walked around for the first several months feeling like I was having major surgery with no anesthesia - as raw as an open wound.  And my # 1 go to remedy was no longer available (if I was serious about getting and staying sober).

I'd call my sponsor and complain, moan, whine and generally SUFFER about all the little and big things, and about wanting to just drink, damn it.  I wanted to drink every single day.  I'd say to her (and anyone else who'd listen) "This is ridiculous!  I'm worse now than I was before.  At least I didn't think about drinking when I was drinking, and now it's all I think about!".  She gently said that I was thinking about it constantly because I wasn't doing it.  It's called obsession, and the only way to extinguish an obsession is to not feed it.  If I drank, I'd be reinforcing the obsession so that next time I wanted to stop, the obsession would be a little stronger because I'd fed it previously.  But if I didn't drink and instead went to a meeting, cried, called her, took a bath, made a bed, went for a walk...anything besides drinking...the intensity of the desire to drink would diminish gradually.  For that time in particular, and for all time in general...gra-a-a-dually, slowly.  Think glacial.

And then she'd say, "You're building a sober history!"  Huh?  But as soon as I first heard the words, I intuited what she meant...that I was learning to live life on life terms without the crutch (or the aniticipation) of alcohol to soften all the rough edges.  If I got through one crisis (which could be as small as a broken shoelace) without drinking, I'd have that experience to help me with the next thing, and the next.  The first sober holidays, the first sober seasons...births, deaths, vacations, weddings, in-law visits, ups, downs...all that life tosses up to us - handled sober, rather than in some level of pre, post or during a "load".  Sober history.  I love that term, and my sponsor, Lisa (the one who is still battling lung cancer) is the only person in AA I've heard say it.  She learned it from her sponsor.  It's the notion of life experience informing future life experience, and in this sense - in a VERY GOOD way.

What does this have to do with a weight loss/food addiction blog?  Everything, because again and again I experience or read of others' experiences with getting a few good sane days of healthy eating together and finding themselves suddenly restless, irritable, discontent.  Critical, judgemental, easy to anger.  Fearful.  And the food thoughts start to intrude.  Refrigerator contents mockingly beckon with their empty promises of calming creamy, sweet, salty, crunchy, cold, warm, flavorful emotional salve.  And THIS is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to building a new history.  Getting through an episode of the urge to binge one's brains out, or to have "just 2 cookies" when I've never eaten just 2 cookies in my life but lie to myself that this time will be different, and NOT doing it.  Feed the obsession, you strengthen it.  Find other means of self-comfort that don't involve compulsively mindlessly overeating, and you begin to diminish it.

It's a conundrum that when you stop engaging in addictive type eating, you feel better for a day or two, and then you feel worse.  Much worse.  Emotionally and physically.  Part of it can be physical withdrawal, but much is the fact that when we stop stuffing our feelings, they begin to surface and our awareness of them is acute.  And it's HARD.  And food will WILL help *for a time*.  Maybe just a few minutes, maybe for a few hours.  Maybe until whatever food I shove in gets on board sufficiently to either trigger the desire for more of the same, or another flavor to offset the first (like something salty after something sweet).  And off to the races I go.

So it occurred to me today that I want to build an eating history in which food is used for nourishment and a little pleasure, rather than as a cure-all for the scared little girl inside who really isn't hungry or malnourished.  She's starving for affection, love, kindness, intimacy, friendship, solitude - any number of things that calories can't provide.  And she wants to love herself fully, not just the parts that aren't overweight, weak-willed, anxious and scared.

I've never thought of myself as a pioneer, but in the negotiation and management of my own life, my feelings, my struggles, my character defects and my spiritual development, I really am a pioneer.  No one has done "ME" before, so it's up to me.  I can rewrite the history of Leslie using a softer touch and loving self acceptance.  With a little help from my friends and a lot of help from my God.