FACING MY OWN ADDICTION

Summer is basically over.

We are back from family vacation and the start of school looms in front of us.

September is closer than not and more year is gone than what remains.

The fall will see most of us slipping down that abysses of school and holidays and the frenzy of life that summer is meant to be a reprieve from. (But really isn't.)

If life were to continue just as it has for the past eight months, January 1, 2022 will see me being and feeling no different than I who I was, how I felt for the last ten+ January 1st.

In other words, all those resolutions and vows and goals of January 1, 2021 are slated to meet a fate similar to those of years gone by.

Shit.

It's not as though I am The Same as years gone by. I feel a tremendous amount of growth and clarity. A refreshing growth and clarity. But it's time to take the mental growth and clarity and turn it into physical change. In other words, I have a pretty good handle on WHAT I need to do (and even on what it is that is interfering with my efforts) and so now it is time to actually DO IT.

Face the hard work, the discomfort and the generally yukiness of changing one's life.

Shit again.

I am a food addict. My husband turns to alcohol: I turn to food. Sugary, salty, chemicalized and process-ized food to deny my feelings and procrastinate in my efforts. The same rationalization and denial that allows my husband to drink a 12 pack of beer in a night allows me to eat copious amounts of crap everyday. I am 60 pounds overweight and need three blood pressure medications to control my high blood pressure.

Shit, shit, shit.

So today I will expect and require and demand of myself what it is I have expected and tried to require and demand of my husband: sobriety. In my case, food sobriety. This is a beast within me that has needed slaying for a long time now. I am fearful of my ability to conquer it. I have all the same lies and defenses within myself that enable my continued addictive behavior as any addict. I have focused so long on my husband and the ramifications of his addiction that my own addictive beast has grown strong and confident within me. It fears me not though I fear it.

But just for today, right.

Just for today I will allow the discomfort. Feel my feelings. Deny the beast Its desires.

Just. For. Today.