Unpacking My Thoughts

It's late and I need some sleep. I won't be able to do that unless I unpack my thoughts first, so here I am. I haven't picked up my journal in a while and perhaps more than anything, blabbing here is a good reminder to pick up that pen again.

I've had a lonely day. I was hoping to go to my weekly AA meeting but the roads were slick and winter driving isn't my favourite thing to do at the best of times, so I stayed home. Dearest one said there were vehicles in the ditch all the way home tonight. I'm thankful not to be one of them.

I needed the meeting today.

Needed to see some familiar faces and hear the experience, strength and hope that would've been offered around the table. With being out of town last weekend and staying home the previous Saturday due to weather, it feels like far too long since I sat my butt in a chair at a meeting. Days like today I would almost trade my secluded spot on the planet for a house in town with daily meetings just a few minutes drive away. I did have a phone number of someone I could've called but I didn't pick up the phone. I needed to reach out my hand but chose to isolate instead.

I've been following the Sugar Addict's Recovery Program for several months now...baby stepping my way through the first step and seeing quite a bit of change within myself. Simply 'doing the breakfast' has made me more stable and seems to have calmed my drama queen tendencies. Fog brain has lifted as well. My body likes a stable blood sugar instead of the peaks and valleys bingeing brings.

There is a connection between my body loving alcohol and how it processes it and it also loving sugars and what that does as well. My body will take the Beta Endorphin hit however it can get it. The program teaches new ways to do that which don't involve food and also how to eat so that there aren't spikes in blood sugars.

This also means there hasn't been any white knuckling it, the program is based on abundance. It heals at a cellular level and I've started noticing small moves in that direction. One is that the blocked saliva gland in my mouth that I was on the cusp of letting the doctor lance open, has healed on its own and disappeared. It had been there for over 6 months.

There are 7 steps to the program and I'm hoping to be detoxed from sugar by next June. For once I am willing to baby step my way to something better instead of trying (and failing) for the umpteenth time to revamp my life overnight.

Recently I noticed that since getting stable on the breakfast I was actually inhabiting my body instead of living from my head. It was unnerving to be that aware of myself. I don't quite know how to describe it. One day I simply noticed I felt grounded in my body instead of detached from it. It was kind of like, "holy crap, how did that happen?" It scared the daylights out of me and I promptly stopped eating a decent breakfast in a quest to stop feeling so vulnerable. It worked. Out of whack blood sugars make for an out of whack me. Being out of whack is familiar, something I know, but don't always love.

Today is day three of avoiding doing what is healing and trying to run the other way fast. It's not fun. It's not worth it. I'm a little more ready to learn what it feels like to inhabit this body of mine instead of insulating it. Tomorrow is a new day. One with an adequate breakfast in it. I will take calm over reactionary any day and if doing the breakfast is the first step in making that choice easier then so be it.

I do have nearly 5 weeks of stringing one day at a times together in my battle with sexual addiction. I don't feel like I am white knuckling it through that either, more that I've become willing to swing back and forth in an imaginary hammock that God rocks gently back and forth until the urge passes. Getting hit over the head with a rock would be more timely and less painful some days. But being present, acknowledging the temptation and simply waiting it out seems to be what I need to do. It feels like I've willingly exposed a big, gaping hole by doing that sometimes but I'm trusting it will be less painful in the long run. Looks like I'm learning to be present in both mind and body.

Reminding myself that I can't - God can - and I'll let Him is the only way that I can keep putting one foot in front of another.

I came across a new-to-me blog the other day and found this post that I printed out and found a space for on the wall above my keyboard. Shame has been such a heavy load to carry on my journey. Once, when I went for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Father Charlie asked me where I was in regards to shame and I told him I was in over my head with it. Learning to not be covered in it or let it call me by name is a gift I'm learning to receive.

I quote the whole post here for you:

"Shame........a hollow empty pit where disgrace lives

Fed
by painful self-contempt
by the fear of humiliation
by the guilt of impulsivity
by thoughts acted out.

Shame........ugly remorse that devours goodness.

Hidden in the folds of the shadowed curtains.

Reflected in the eyes of esteem

Rinsed in bile.




Nothing makes me more distraught than feeling shameful.
It is lonelier than lonely. "

~ from Awareness