9 months abstinant

Today I hit 9 months without binge eating.

Since September I've been meeting with my sponsor once a week & had started working the 12 steps again starting with step 1. I'm currently on step 4. The 1st time I worked step 4 my list of people I am upset with or have animosity towards was huge. Now that I'm closer to Christ and am living a more harmonious 12 step life my 4th step list was so small it surprised me! I'm currently praying twice a day for the people who I have any animosity or negative feelings towards. After only 4 days most of those negative feelings I had has dissipated and feelings of acceptance and compassion are building in it's wake. Living a life for Christ and continuously working the 12 step is making me a much better person. I believe I'm much easier to get along with & be around. I'm more forgiving with myself which in turn has made me more accepting and loving to everyone around me.

I'll be going to an OA meeting to get my 9 month chip Tuesday morning!!!!!!

I'm only in charge of me

Last week I had posted on this blog that a few people in my OA group have been Jesus bashing. Their comments bothered me & they were a large reason I was no longer attending OA meetings. I believe God has spoken to me about that issue. I believe He told me that He doesn't need me to be His defender. If He wanted those people to change their view or change what they were saying He is completely capable of handling that Himself. My only job is to keep a strong relationship with Him, follow His word, & do my best to be the best example I can be because I may be the only bible someone ever reads. I cant control what people say, more importantly I shouldn't try. I need to focus on myself & my relationship with God. If someone else hates Jesus that's between them & God. It doesn't have anything to do with me & God wants me to stay out of it. The only thing I have the right to do is love others not because of who they are, but IN SPITE of who they are.

is it them or my addiction that's the problem?

To give those who follow my blog an update, I still haven't found a sponsor, & to top it off I've stopped going to meetings. The last few times I've gone to the meetings there has been comments from people that was down right Jesus bashing. I understand not everyone believes as I do. I try to be sensitive to others & their beliefs, but there seems to be a real anti-Jesus sentiment here in Santa Fe. The 1st couple times I heard those comments in OA meetings I tried to just ignore them & stay strong in my faith & abstinence. The last comment I heard that was the proverbial straw was, "I'm tired of getting a face full of Jesus."

It was more than I could take, so I left the meeting and haven't been back. I've stayed strong in my recovery without the meetings & a sponsor, I'll hit 8 months abstinence this week & I've maintained my weight for the 1st time in my adult life! I went through a 3 month stretch where my staying strong with my recovery was easy. It was like breathing, I could do it without thinking. But I'm struggling more & more. I'm finding myself obsessing about food again. I'll eat a little more at meals than my food plan allowed, I'd then try to make up for it by eating less the next day to make up for the extra calories I'd ate the day before. I seem to be going up & down in my eating & my food obsessions. I'm afraid I'm perilously close to going back to my days of food insanity. Binge, diet, binge diet. Sometimes the pattern would flop back to the high or low in 3 month intervals, sometimes withing hours.... Gaining 50 pounds in 2 months, taking 6 months to lose it.... I don't want that life again, but I'll always be an addict. I'll always struggle, I'm afraid I'll always be in pain. It's painful to see others eat my trigger foods in moderation & see them enjoy it & not use it to destroy themselves like I end up doing. I wish I could eat, enjoy it and move on... I can't. If I eat it I become an addict in the worst possible way. I binge eat to the point where I over load my kidneys. I'm getting closer to that person lost in my addiction since I am not aggressively pursuing my recovery. I now to do some real self inventory very soon or I'll end up relapsing: Am I staying away from meetings because they are insulting my God or is it my addiction being cunning & forcing me back into isolation? Is it them or my addiction that's the problem?

Thanks for listening. I wont take as long to post again. scouts honor...

3 weeks ago I started reading a book called "understanding the borderline mother." It explains my mother perfectly, I've realized she has borderline personality disorder. On one hand the book was very healing because I was able to realize that my mother's actions & treatment of me wasn't my fault. I also realized her actions aren't because she's mean or evil, it's because she's sick. It was good for me to learn about her problem & to learn some of how to deal with her, but on the other hand it stated clearly in the book that there's no cure for her borderline personality. She will be that way forever.

Recently my wife & I had started going to counseling to try & fix some of the problems between my Mother & us. No matter what my wife or I said my mother twisted what we said or lied about what was said. Unfortunately I learned counseling was futile. There's no fixing her & there's no changing her. I have a choice to make, I can either except her for who she is & what she does or I can cut her out of my life. I'd prefer a life without her, but my wife & church councilor is saying I should keep a relationship with her & just try my best to avoid giving her ammunition to use against me when she gets angry & tries to slander my wife & I, which is what she always does anytime anyone disagrees with her no matter how small the issue it is. In her mind a person is either all for her or against her & she plays dirty when she goes to war against someone.

The good news is now I know & understand her, the bad news is that since I started reading this book I stopped pretty much all my eating recovery. I hadn't gone to an OA meeting in 3 weeks. I haven't worked on any of the 12 steps or done any writings in 3 weeks. & I haven't been able to get a hold of my sponsor, but only half of those missed phone calls were my fault.

Somehow I have been able to stay abstinent & not fall back into a pattern of destructive eating. I believe most of that was because I kept a decent relationship with Christ. Also because I have a very strong food plan that I got into the habit of doing without fail.

This last weekend my wife & I went to Pagosa Springs Colorado for the weekend. That was the 1st time we were able to get away without our kids in over 4 years. Usually being away from home, work, etc will throw me into binge eating. Celebration is also a huge trigger for me, this weekend was both. But I was able to continue my abstinence. I'm now 2 weeks away from hitting 3 months abstinence. I've never hit 3 months before.

I will start working the 12 steps & writings again tonight. Thank God that God is with me, other wise this would have been a horrible 3 weeks of binging & weight gain.

turns for the worse

Things were on an all time high for awhile. When things are great they are fantastic, but when it's not everything sure turns bad quickly.

On Tuesday I got a text message from my mother saying she doubted she could work through the problems she has with my wife since there is more than one issue. She said if there was only one problem she could see hope, but since there's more than one she doubts they can. This was the 6th time she said this to me in a couple weeks. She then asked if she could call & talk to me. I responded saying she could as long as it was about her & I. I said that because she gossips & slanders A LOT! Many times word has come to me about some horrible lies she has said about my wife & myself. A week earlier I had asked her to promise me that she wouldn't talk negatively about my wife & I to mutual friends and our family anymore. She promised me she wouldn't. By telling her I was only willing to talk about her & I, all I was doing was reminding her of that promise. She responded with the following text. I copy & pasted it so it is exactly what she wrote.

"Dont misinterpret what i said. i said this whole situation has me feeling steamrolled aka overwhelmed. i thought Dr reinhart encourages everyone to express how they feel. didn't realize that is 4 everyone but me. u just minimized my feelings and made me feel really unimportant".

All I did was remind her not to gossip & slander & I got that kind of a nasty message? She is selfish & hurtful.

I could go on & on about why that exchange elicited a defensive response in me. But what it boils down to is since I was a kid she has made me feel like I'm not allowed to have any opinions or feelings of my own. On the rare times I have expressed my opinion she has attacked me & has gone out of her way to make me feel like I'm some kind of abuser & she is a victim. The other reason I felt hurt by her response is that growing up I was not allowed to make or set boundaries to keep myself safe. Anytime I have ever tried to make a boundary, such as not slandering me to someone, she has challenged me & become verbally & physically aggressive so that she could make me feel like I did something wrong. If that didn't make me be submissive to her then she'd make it seem like I'm an evil person & that she's a victim who is being abused by me. A prime example of this was when I was growing up she'd tell me all sorts of horrible things about my natural father in hopes of making me turn against him. When I was in 2nd grade she told me my Dad cheated on her & that he said he never wanted to be a father. She also said that she left my father because he wore women's under wear & she feared what a man who did that would do to her son. What kind of a person says things that that to a 2nd grader?

When I was in middle school she told me he used to be a part of circle jerks. I didn't know what that meant so she told me it's where a bunch of men make a circle and masturbate together. Highly inappropriate to tell anyone about their father, but I feel it was especially abusive to tell a boy that young.

Last month I asked her not to tell me bad things about my Dad anymore, & if there was ever something she felt she had to tell me about him that she should ask me if she could first. She completely ignored my request & told me that I'm a child from rape. She then told me her Mom & Dad didn't care & forced her to marry him. Who the heck would ever say stuff like that? What about my feelings?

Then on Friday I talked to my sponsor. She told me she felt I was rushing through the steps & that my writing were shallow & lacked depth. Ouch. That hurt. In my mind I wasn't trying to rush through them, I was motivated to work the steps as best as I could. If my writings seemed shallow then I'm not sure what I can do differently because what I wrote was the best I had. If my writings are the best I can do but aren't good enough then in my mind there's no point in continuing.

I'm feeling overwhelmed, hurt deeply, & lost. I know have no idea what to do. It's Gods grace alone that is keeping me abstinent because if I had the smallest craving in my current state of weakness I'd fall apart. I thank the Lord Jesus Christ for stepping in on my behalf & shouldering my desire to binge.

There is good news. I've also lost all my feelings of burnout with triathlon training! I've gone over 3 weeks without missing a single workout & I've figured out what my race schedule will be for the entire year. I'll be competing in 9 sprint distance triathlons, one half Ironman triathlon, & one full distance triathlon. & Since December I've lost 20 pounds. I'm now 30 pounds from my ultimate dream weight. Again, I've been successful because of Gods grave & love because I've tried my entire adult life to overcome my binge eating unsuccessfully. It wasn't until I turned it over to Jesus that I've been able to feel like I have some ability to have a normal life.

If any of you are willing to pray for me right now I'd sure be grateful.

Thank you. By reading this I feel like I'm able share about this dark & lonely disease I have of compulsive overeating, & because of that I feel less alone & misunderstood. You are helping in my recovery, & for that I can never tell you how grateful I am.

The Innkeeper (by John Piper)