The morning of my most recent CPA exam, I woke calm and grateful. After delivering my son to school, I went to the riverfront to jog and practice yoga, thus clearing my mind in order to connect with my Higher Power and remain calm during the test. While jogging, I saw the tanker High Courage […]
Hello, 5th Step. Hello, God. Hello, Me.
Thank you, God. I know You better now. I know better the me as You meant me to be for so long. The me You crafted with love and light. The me free from the toxic obsession with food and body. I better know how to live life – with love, honesty, consideration and tolerance. […]
Complete Abstinence
What is complete abstinence? It is zero slips. It is the act of refraining from my trigger food behaviors and trigger foods 100% of the time. I have had complete abstinence for the past few weeks, and I am working the steps ‘like my hair is on fire’. I had countless slips and relapses in […]
Hooked
pleasure masked danger. tasty tidbits floated before me, to and fro with the ebb of the sea. innocently, I ate and at once knew fulfillment. my first true friend. food filled me and comforted me during the chaos of childhood. Dad on drugs? Mom missing in a fog of depression, medicating with food? it’s ok. […]
A Recovery Tale
Once, there was a Being, our Friend, shining brightly. It frolicked and played, reveled and mourned. It lived – pulsing light from its Inner Source. Somehow, someway, sometime, our Friend, became disguised, distorted and full of despair. How? Our Friend found a fountain burbling and others playing in the cascades and pools. As our Friend […]
life lived with color
denial is a bully, an instinctual artist born of fear and anger. eight-limbed, forty fingered, it uses its palette of extremes to blind us to our true selves. black and white, is or is not, truth or lies, light or dark, never room for the slow birth of dawn or the gradual goodbye of dusk. […]
The Transformed Hill of Me
I went home recently. It was the first time I have ever visited my hometown abstinent and sober. It was scary. Tropical storm Cindy was making Her presence known. Gusts of torrential water blurred my windshield as I sought the hill. The hill where I was date raped at age 16. To this day, it […]
Rigorous Honesty
I have been doing a Big Book step study with a sponsee in which we work the steps in tandem. As I contemplated the last question of the Step Three inventory, I was given an answer for my food and body obsession which has lately grown stronger. First, the context then the question. I have […]
Day 364
Today is day 364 of consistent, continuous abstinence. Day 1. Day 3. Day 46. Day 59. They were all were one day at a time. Day 364 is one day at a time. 3-6-4 Eve of 1. Eve of 1 year of continuous abstinence. 1 year, 365 days, made possible by living one day at […]
Mardi Gras and Abstinence
Fat Tuesday, 2017 I moved to New Orleans with my family in 2014. I never suspected moving to a city known for decadence would open me to recovery. Yet here I am enjoying recovery, one day at a time. Yet here I am lighter than I have been in 15 years. I am smaller than […]