I WILL NOT PANIC…

So, I am reading one of my new books that I ordered before I went on vacation – Food Addiction, The Body Knows – and I am trying to retain a positive attitude. What I really want to do is to run screaming into the streets, “I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO EAT NORMALLY AGAIN! I WILL NEVER BE WELL!!!” Ahem. I know this is not true, or even accurate, but SHEESH. This gal is taking forever to get to the positive part of the book!! Basically, in a nut shell so to speak, the culprits are sugar and wheat. Cut out processed foods, sugar, flour and all things made with these things and you can recover. And that leaves me basically…what? Beef jerky and water? I know it isn’t really that severe; but as my logical brain (yes, I do have one, shut up) reads and absorbs this information, my emotional brain is screaming BUT THAT IS ALL THE FOODS YOU LOVE!! YOU WILL NEVER GET TO EAT ANYTHING YOU LIKE EVER AGAIN!!! And that actually may not be too terribly far from the truth, actually. Basically, it’s like being addicted to drugs or alcohol; once you abstain and go into recovery, you can never go back to having “just a little cocaine/heroin/bourbon every once in a while”. Just the smallest portion of what you are addicted to causes relapse and continuing addiction, and then you have to start the recovery process all over again. I have to choose how I want to live my life or how I want to continue slowly killing myself. I don’t want to die, I want to LIVE; and not EXIST like I am doing and have been doing for the last 25 years, but truly and completely LIVE.

Sigh…it’s going to be hard. REALLY hard. But the book makes a lot of sense, and I know that everything worth having is worth working REALLY hard for. 25 years of abuse is going to take a lot of time to undo. And I really do want to.

But, can’t I just take a pill for it? No? Ok…sigh…

I thought it was rather ironic that as I sat in the parking lot of my favorite Mexican restaurant, reading about food addiction as I prepared to go in and spend a little quality time with one of my “dealers”, I was crying because just reading about the things that feed my addiction made me WANT TO EAT THEM. Will I be strong enough to learn about my addiction and how to recover without shooting myself in the foot? We shall see.

Maybe I should pitch my story to TLC or A&E; aren’t weight loss and addiction shows all the rage right now? They could have both all rolled into one, and maybe I could earn some money for school (since I am not willing to have a ton of kids and pimp them out for the world to gawk at). What do you think? And do you know someone I could call?

TTFN.