Why I have to engage the frontal lobe of my brain and challenge these negative thoughts

Blog 31st July Good bye July officially the rainiest month ever. Every morning I woke up it was raining. It’s been an interesting week. On Monday I went to Slimming World feeling good. I actually felt slimmer lighter and was sure I had lost a few pounds. Imagine my horror and disbelief as I bounded on to the scales with gay abandon only for them to .....................stay exactly the bloody same. “What” I said to the poor woman recording the weights “How can this be?” instantly suspicious. Her pitying face said it all; they clustered around me, “It happens sometimes” “I feel as though I’ve lost weight “I whelped “Look my clothes are looser” I said in despair, pulling on them like someone demented. “You’ve probably lost inches then” one of them tried helpfully. It was no good; negativity had descended like a mist. I stomped to my seat scowling and laughing at the same time. “I’ve maintained “ I said whispering my plight to another member burning with shame and feeling genuinely pissed off. Glass half empty. “Well it could have been worse you could have gained” he retorted back. “And you stayed for group.” I shot him a sideways evil stare, as he clutched his Slimmer of the week silver sticker. Then it was time for name and shame “Julie stayed the same this week, but all in all a weight loss of 11lbs” thunderous applause from the group. “What’s your aim for next week?” I knew I was being petulant and very childish when I said the immortal words “7 stone” but somehow I couldn’t help myself. I did get a laugh, but inside it wasn’t funny. I take these setback things far too much to heart, instead of accepting it and looking at ways to change it I stew on it and become defiant and angry. What’s the point? Its crap, it doesn’t work. (Clearly it does) Comparison with others then creeps in. What will they think of me? (Who Cares?) Negative thinking, stinking thinking, my disease slinking back in at the first hurdle. Self pity, I’m a failure, I’m useless, and it’s too hard. Ludicrous nonsense, thinking based on bashing low self-esteem and thinking that will make you eat again. Myths not facts. I have tried to impose positivity, shared it, seen the funny side of it and not gone off on a binge. I have to accept it and plod on. I trust that sometimes quickly sometimes slowly eventually I will develop a pattern of eating that is not self destructive and does not damage me. Julie

Two contrasting events

Blog 19th July 2015 I’ve been out twice this week, to see two interesting but very contrasting events. The first one was a theatre production of the musical Sweet Charity; it was in the open air theatre in Sophia Gardens and was pure entertainment, the all singing, all dancing, feel good, toe tapping, high kicking, thigh slapping caper that some of us know and love. (I always said I should have been a gay man, my love of musicals cements this) The second event was a film documentary called Amy about the tragic and all too short life of the musician Amy Winehouse. I wanted to see this from the recovery angle, to see if they covered it “warts and all” and captured the lonely self loathing confusion and despair of addiction. I think they did. I was also reminded with flashbacks of shame of my own degenerative state at the time. My fiends nicknamed me Winehouse, how we laughed, I even went to a Halloween party dressed as her thinking that being seen as my nemesis was cool and ironic. I was fat she was tiny but under the black comedy of it all we shared more than drug and alcohol addiction, we shared an eating disorder. Think of Amy and you think of drugs, of alcohol, of jazz and soul and a voice, a beehive, Bambi legs, flicked eye liner and a dirty laugh. Amy also had a serious eating disorder she had started making herself sick at the age of 13 around the time of her parents confusing and acrimonious divorce. How we mock those afflicted by addiction, they become the bane of our jokes, we can’t look at ourselves so we point and sneer at them instead. I’m bad but I’m not as bad as her. I wonder if the comedians Graham Norton and Frankie Boyle watched that film and cringed as I did poking fun at a young girl’s painful, long drawn-out suicide mission. Like so many of us her body just gave up, it couldn’t take the battering any more. One quote that was relayed by her friend spoke volumes to me about the way she viewed life and the fact that she was a long, long way from acceptance and recovery. It was at the Grammys; she was clean and in London. She spotted her friend Juliette in the crowd crying with happiness at her success and pulled her onto the stage then whispered in her ear “Do you know, this is no fun without the drugs” Not knowing what to do without them. In the end she lost everything that she had once genuinely loved and became the addiction. It was the only way to run away and hide and she reverted to type. It could have been so different, but she was never ready and those around her with vested interest in her were never ready either. Let’s wait until these five concerts are over then she can have a rest. She’s resting now on - a vacation of a permanent kind. Sweet Charity was a different type of character, manufactured, yes, but there are such women out there. The tart with the heart, eternally optimistic, shrugging off the shoulders and getting on with it, pushed down pulled up, but never beaten, enduring it all with gritty determination and a tits and teeth attitude. Believing in the dream that good things happen and love will conquer all. Even after being jilted for the hundredth time. Seeing the bigger picture and never giving up hope. Becoming a giver not a taker and trusting it will all work out in the end. Living a positive meaningful life. Julie

A friend succumbs to his addiction

Blog 14th July 2015 I received some very sad news this week a friend and old work colleague committed suicide by jumping from a bridge. A final deliberate desperate act. There was no other way out for this person suicide was the only option. No way forward and no going back. Many of us in recovery have been at that jumping off place but by some divine intervention or reaching out for help we did not fall over that edge. My friend did. No one will know what was going through his mind in the build up to making that decision. He was a charismatic character, a Robin Williams-type, manic, hilariously and funny; an excellent mimic and smart, he had a wicked glint in his eye. He could also be angry, impatient and dip so low in mood that it coloured the room and everyone in it. He was one of us, an addict; he didn’t know it, I didn’t know it at the time (I was too sick and in denial myself to see it) but I know it now. His poison was women, love and sex, and boy what a tangled web he wove! He ducked and dived, lied and cheated, told them what they wanted to hear, smiled and charmed them into bed, and back they went for more and more. We kind of understood each other; I think there was a connection that two damaged people often feel when they are together. You can’t kid a kidder. He was trapped in the veneer of this character that he had created for himself - a tortured soul. As so often happens, what he showed the outside world did not reflect who he really was inside. He could not find his way in this world and be himself, he didn’t know how. I cannot imagine his pain. And for those around him and his loved ones there will be weeks, months and years of “If onlys” I said it myself today, “If only he had reached out” But he didn’t, he couldn’t. And now his family have to bury him. All I know is that this man who found life too painful to live is now at peace. Julie

Things are getting better......

Blog 10th July I have had a good week. My eating plan is steady and enjoyable and I’m neither fighting nor obsessing about it. I have to plan and be organised and I have managed to achieve this despite a blip on Thursday when the planned tea was not ready on time. I accepted this and ate something else that was healthy and on plan instead. I find that I’m not craving as I can have some sweet things if I keep it simple and make sensible choices. I’m trying to feed my body healthy nourishing food that I would be happy to give to a child. Food is fuel and I want to fill my tank with good stuff not stuff that clogs my arteries piles on weight and makes me feel sluggish and tired all the time. I need to learn to look after my body to care for it as it’s the only one I’ve got and my illness has spent years trying to destroy it. I need to learn to treat it with respect as it has to last me the rest of my life and I’ve given it a battering over the last 47 years. I also bought a bike. It’s a big old fashioned affair with a basket and a bell. My son kindly put it together for me but teased me by putting a picture of it up on face book calling it a Grannies bike. I’ve carried on with my swimming in the mornings and have had to change pools due to a refurbishment. I now have a whole new set of pensioner friends. I look forward to the group on Monday not for the weigh-in but for the help, support, ideas and recipes that they share. I find that they give me motivation for the week and its non judgemental and kind. All they want is for you to improve your quality and standard of life fitness and health. Whereas I would have been dismissive and defensive, I’m willing to give it a go, I’m willing to put some action in and follow the plan. I’ve got nothing to lose. I have had some freedom from the obsessing this week. Driving home the other day I realised that I hadn’t thought about food since eating my lunch; that was massive for me. Something seems to have shifted, I feel lighter, and I’m trying to install a positive spin on the plan and to enjoy it. I’m sick of fighting this illness. I don’t have to fight it, I just have to accept I have it and live with it as it is part of me, but I must also trust that it can be arrested and it can be helped and managed if I let it be. Julie

Nothing happens by mistake...

Blog 3rd July It’s been a while since I decided to put pen to paper. I had a period of slipping and sliding, caring not caring, binging not binging and generally feeling quite unhappy and miserable with myself. I started to detach and disassociate, I became angry and resentful at others. I am a star at deflecting my anger, it was never my fault it was all someone else’s. This melancholy and trauma reached a peak a few weeks ago in the Living Room where I actually walked out of a group. Instead of exploring why this was I blamed the other members of the group and the Living Room and ended up in that horrible revolving anger that is so damaging. I could feel myself pulling away, what I failed to recognise was that my addiction was winning. The defiant inner child was stamping her feet; she was rebelling and performing like a good un. It took a Sunday evening family group to release the tension. I was able to truthfully tell the group what had been bothering me and safely let go of some of the anger. I was even able to practise what I needed to say in an appropriate fashion. When I left that group I felt better. I made the decision to tackle this eating disorder. Wyn helped, he suggested that the addiction was winning, the defiance and the anger was the illness inside me and it was in the driving seat. I did not have a chance when that was the case. I was being controlled by the demon within. I had to recognise my true condition and come to see that I could not do anything about it by my own will, I had tried and failed. I was still hanging on for grim death to that control. I needed to accept and stop fighting, every time the demon called I needed to put action in and trust that my higher power would be right there beside me taking care of it all so I didn’t have to. Simple, but why did I keep relapsing? Because I did not fully concede to my full condition, I still believed deep down that one day I would be able to eat as much as I wanted and stay slim. I still believed that food was my friend and comforter and ate emotionally. I still had that need to escape from myself and feed something inside me. Everyone’s recovery is different - what worked for me may not work for someone else. I shared previously that OA although amazing for others and has helped millions was not working for this addict at this time. I struggled with the concept of abstinence. Even the word (it’s just a word Julie) has holier than though connotations for me. I did know that I needed a routine, a structure and a plan that was healthy, sensible, realistic and would fit into my life. So I have joined Slimming World contradicting everything I previously said about diets and clubs. (I’m an addict we change our minds, and I’m a woman). I’ve gone there with an open mind and a sense of humour and I have enjoyed it. It’s another way of embracing a healthy lifestyle and caring for my body. Looking after my body as though I was nurturing a small child. I will use the 12 Steps in sync with the group so my spiritual well-being and my addiction are addressed. I’m almost 2 weeks into recovery now and feel so much better; each time I have a craving I try to see that pang as my addiction and my defiance. I engage my rational mind and decide I don’t want to get into the ring and fight the demon; my higher power will come through and help me if I let it. I’m enjoying the food plan, I don’t feel restricted and I don’t feel angry as I have freedom to choose. Julie

Crimes against Humanity

Forget ISIS, forget Assad, forget Putin for that matter. The dictators, despots, fundamentalists and killers that grace the front pages of our newspapers are a side-show, a distraction from the greatest scourge of our time; addiction. Recent statistics released by the journal Addiction in the 2014 Global statistics on addictive behaviours report illuminate the vast, worldwide scale of mankind’s subjugation by addictive substances and behaviours. It shows that five percent of the entire human race struggle with alcoholism (some 240 million people), and that a fifth of all human beings are addicted to tobacco. There are over a billion smokers on planet earth, each compelled by their addiction to inhale cancerous chemicals that will end their lives prematurely. In addition to this there are 180 million cannabis users. There are thought to be 150 million problem gamblers in the world and a far smaller number of people intravenously inject drugs (a mere 15 million). These are conservative estimates, and they do not show the massive collateral damage that addiction does to the families and loved ones of addicts, whose lives are wrecked and whose own behaviours are distorted beyond recognition in order to cope with addiction in their lives. The statistics do not show the suffering of entire societies in Central and South America, West Africa and South East Asia that have seen a bloody and fruitless war on drugs simply hand unaccountable power over to criminal elites. They do not show the millions of intelligent, industrious and productive people around the world who have been dragged through courts, prisons and recently in Indonesia, in front of firing squads as governments react in the only way they seem to know how to the challenge of addiction. The loss of potential to the human race of this disease is almost beyond the ability of anyone to calculate, but, like global warming, it seems to be an issue that the political classes of the world are constitutionally incapable of addressing. Our cautious, impotent and craven leaders, terrified of ill-informed howls of rage from newspaper columnists who feel qualified to hold forth on any and all moral panics, do nothing more than prohibit, punish and push away the problem. They do a very good job of mimicking the behaviours that are commonly found in homes where addiction rules the roost ‘don’t speak, don’t say, don’t challenge, don’t feel, don’t think, don’t admit’, in behaving in this way, the governments of the world aid addiction every single day. What, then, is to be done? The proponents of legalisation argue that controlling, taxing and licensing drug use is the only way to limit the harm it causes. Perhaps. There is another solution to the problem of addiction, but one which lies far beyond the skill sets of our current leaders. It requires nothing short of an existential revolution, a reformation of meaning to take place across the world. Addiction is the practice of self-annihilation; it is the consumption of a substance or the engagement in a behaviour in order to flee from one’s self. Surely, by posing the question as to why so many millions of human beings wish to escape from the only life they have or will ever know, we can work towards, not only a solution to addiction but a solution to the problem of ‘human-ness’. Life never creates a crisis without also presenting the seeds of opportunity and in addiction lies a potential springboard to the future, its victims are so numerous they present a critical mass and if, together, they can speak with one voice and tell the rest of the world their experience, the results might just be revolutionary.

I'm slowly getting back on track

Blog 24th May 2015 I’m slowly recovering after a three week long relapse which built to a crescendo last Tuesday. I still don’t know if that’s my food rock bottom, only time will tell. I’ve been experiencing every emotion under the sun over the past three weeks and eating furiously to keep them all at bay, but of course eating doesn’t help any more (not that it ever did really). I’ve been jealous “How come all those people at OA can do it and I can’t?” I’ve been angry “Life’s too short not to eat a biscuit” I’ve been pitiful “Why me? Why do I have all these addictions?” I’ve been childish, petulant and resistive “I can’t be bothered, I just don’t care, and it’s too hard” I’ve been lazy and self-loathsome “I’m not doing it, I hate myself anyway, I’m old and ugly anyway, I’m disgusting, just a big fat ugly pig.” I’ve been doubting “I’m never going to get it” I’ve been ashamed and guilty “I’ve hurt, lied and cheated so many people that I love, I’m never going to be able to resolve it.” I’ve been hopeless It’s been a dark, dank and depressing time and I have been out of control acting on my own will and turning my back on others. The self-righteous indignation is creeping back in and I remind myself of my Mother which just compounds my self-hatred even more. I’m slowly picking myself up and with help putting myself back together. ONE DAY AT A TIME I’m going to ease back into it, I’ve gone from binge to three meals a day again and the next step will be re-engaging with OA. This time when I re-engage I need to do it whole heartedly and that means listening and being willing to try another way, instead of resisting. The only way to do this is to do it. I’m praying for willingness, for a sign, for a way in. I know I need a sponsor and I also know that I am so much better when I fully engage with the programme instead of paddling in the shallow end. Even as I type this I’m frightened as it then means I have to put pressure on myself and put some action into my recovery. I can’t do this by myself. I need to leave my pride at the door, stop looking and comparing, ignoring and despising others, as this does me no good. Now I just need to take that leap of faith, what have I got to lose? Julie