Relapse

March 15th 2015 Relapse Life can change overnight, with a relapse it’s rarely like that, there is always a seed, a seed that is planted a week, a few weeks, or a month before hand. It is a slow creeping insidious process. In the weeks leading up to my slip I had become complacent, almost flippant, bored and restless of it all. Playing lip service, using the jargon, doing the programme but not really feeling it. Taking the shortcuts, eating off plan and justifying it, making deals to myself, not sharing or being totally honest. There was a horrible inevitability about it all, life seemed quite flat. I wasn’t communicating with Owen, the connection seemed to be missing, keeping things from him for fear of anger or reprisals. I was becoming distant and paranoid feeling that if his mood was low it was because of me. The general self-seeking addict head that should have alerted me to the fact that the wolf was at the door. We planned a holiday, my idea, no consultation with him at all. I had an itch, it needed scratching. Again huffing puffing justification “we wouldn’t go anywhere if it was left up to him” I don’t think I consciously planned the relapse but the signs were there, not once did I think of planning my meals. We were half board at the hotel with a buffet type meal basis so I figured that there would be something to suit me. On the first night we got there a Saturday evening I slipped, I went over to the desert section and the only desert there I could have eaten staying on plan was technically an orange, instead I chose what I considered at the time the “next best” jelly and peaches. That seemed to go all right, no urges to binge. Sunday we walked past an ice cream stall and Owen asked if I wanted an ice cream (he totally forgot) and Owen does not have responsibility or any type of accountability for my eating disorder. I knew this was off plan, I could have said no but I took my opportunity and was in like Fllin. Then it built and built through the week and by Thursday (this was how quickly it gathered pace) I was binging and the old behaviour came crashing back. The obsession the fixation, the insane thinking. There was a Marks and Spencer’s food shop just up from the hotel. I went in for some biscuits (just one or two with my cup of tea) I kidded myself. Two packets later! I didn’t even want them when I was eating them, I didn’t taste them just that urge that compulsion to cram them all in, not to share them, the overwhelming fear and panic that there would not be enough that I wouldn’t be satisfied. I didn’t even taste the bloody biscuits; I was a free-falling cookie monster, out of control and hungry for more. The other horrible thing was that it really wasn’t working, it wasn’t doing anything for me, and in fact it was making me feel awful, hopeless, ashamed and miserable. Owen could see it too but sensibly kept quiet, silently hoping that I would come to my senses. On the last day I looked through the photographs on my I-phone and then it flooded in earnest. My feelings were out of control, I looked at those pictures and felt disgust, hatred, self-loathing, I pulled at my rolls of fat in the bathroom hating how I looked. Feelings so intense and overwhelming. I could either say “sod it “and go in for total relapse but heaven knows when I would emerge out of that? Or I could make a decision, this stops decision. I decided that it stopped the minute I got off the plane. I decided that I needed to go to three meals a day the OA stalwart. I decided that I needed to get back on eating plan and to take this illness seriously. Still I was unsure if I could, I didn’t trust myself. Go back to step one, one day at a time. Then a miracle happened, Joe my son who is an addict contacted us, he wanted us to move some belongings from his house in Tonypandy, he was being evicted and he asked us to store his things. Of course we said yes and Owen and I drove him up there. Joe was about the lowest we had ever seen him, he had reached his rock bottom, life had never been this hopeless, and he was homeless and living in the Huggard centre. He asked for help, he wanted recovery. This week I’ve accompanied him to meetings lots of meetings. We went in to recovery together initially but he was not ready, he went back out, I stayed clean and sober he relapsed. I recognised my primary addiction was eating and I was struggling, I was yet again out of the lifeboat. The action came from an unexpected source, Joe. Going to meetings with a newcomer has been the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. It has made me think about step one, share early recovery thoughts and feelings and my own eating disorder; head has not been half so troublesome or all consuming. Joe has given me strength and hope; I have looked at him and learnt. It has put my problems in more perspective. It has made me grateful. Today on Mother’s day, I have been given the greatest gift and miracle of all for myself and my family and that is recovery. Without my recovery there would be no family, no work, no relationship, no life. Its early days for Joe, the first few months are hard - openness, willingness and honesty. I need to remember that trio myself to arrest my eating disorder. I have completed a week of three meals a day, no trigger foods has been achieved by working the programme and through the help of my higher power. I’ve used my techniques from the early days of recovery, reinforced by accompanying Joe to meetings and listening to newcomers. Julie