facing my addictions

[Bertha Venation]

I hope this isn't TL;DR. I hope you'll be interested.

On May 6 I started on Medifast, a medically-supervised semi-fast of about 1000 cal per day. I am morbidly obese and was used to probably 2500-3000 per day. The first 3-4 weeks breezed by; I thought it was easy.

But the longer I stay on it, the harder it gets. It's amazing how much easier it got when I turned to rum. It was easier to stop my craving for a real lunch when I realized I could drink when I got home.

I drank right out of the bottle, and hid my drinking from my wife. I drank in the master bathroom, from the liter hidden under the sink or the pint in my night table drawer. I drank between a half pint and a pint almost every night. And my wife didn't know.

I liked drinking and wasn't ashamed of it. I was very ashamed of hiding it from my wife, so yesterday I told her. She wasn't mad, or even hurt. She's very even-keeled, and she reminded me that she understands addiction.

So because I won't hide it from her, I won't be drinking anymore.

And now that I can't, both addictions are burying me, with food being by far the worst. I used to go to OA (a lifetime ago) and quickly realized that the AA/NA model does not work for compulsive over-eating. It would be easier to overcome if, like alcohol, my body didn't need food. If I could stop eating altogether . . . but I can't.

TL;DR. Thanks for staying with me.

Do you have any thoughts?

[Betsy Ross]

1. Sounds like you have some

support very near by. Best of luck.

[JayhawkSD]

2. It eventually gets easier

One thing about compulsions. If you give into a compulsion it returns as strong as ever. It you ride it out without surrendering it returns weakened. Maybe only a tiny bit, but weakened nonetheless. Each time you ride it out without giving in you weaken it a little bit more. Little by little the compulsion becomes weaker and weaker.

One day you realize, "Shit, it didn't come back"

[irisblue]

3. (((bertha venation)))

no advice from me tonight, just support

[lins the liberal]

4. you might consider

giving OA another try. I read what is below just this morning. I know it is not easy. But I also know that OA does work for many people. I believe it is a harder program to work than AA. And everyone I have ever known who is in AA and come into OA says that it is definitely a harder program to work. Because, yes we can't put the plug in the jug. Yet there are many people out there who have lost and kept off significant amounts of weight through working an OA program.

HP, please let me set aside everything I think I know about You.
Meditation, Recovery, myself and my disease for an open mind, an open heart and a new experience."

Wishing you the best!