For Today: July 17th

Nature never deceives us, it is we who deceive ourselves.
Jean Jacques Rousseau

Nature did not make me a compulsive overeater. My hunger pangs are like everybody else's; they tell me when I must take nourishment to sustain my life.  When I began eating to satisfy emotional hunger, this simple mechanism went out of kilter and it stayed that way until I became abstinent in Overeaters Anonymous.  The irony of compulsive overeating is that it eliminates hunger and intensifies craving.

Today, I live as nature intended me to live.  I eat the food I need, with all the pleasure, enjoyment and freedom God wants me to have.

For Today:  Normal eaters may occasionally indulge in eating to satisfy needs other than hunger, but I am abstaining from such uses of food.

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I started eating compulsively as a child, to cope with issues I had no power to control.  I remember eating salt straight from the shaker because all the rest of the food in the house was carefully measured and accounted for. I couldn't go into the refrigerator or pantry & eat whatever......because then I'd have to face the questions of who ate all the food? 

That type of questioning led me to eat on the sly......I was very young when I established my routine of eating when nobody was looking or when nobody was around. 

Compulsive overeating is a disease of isolation, in many ways.

When I had money to spend, I spent it on candy which I hid in my room. I'd eat it when the rest of the household was asleep. The more I ate, the more I wanted. Food soothed my wounded soul & I used it for emotional comfort. My night-eating routine was established long, long ago, and, to this day, night-time is when I struggle greatly. I can get through a whole entire day 100% abstinent and then a huge craving can hit me after dark.

Old habits die hard. I am not sure they ever die completely, either, but they are kept in remission, so to speak, one day at a time.  I am not sure I will ever see the day when I never have cravings, when I never want to turn to food for emotional comfort & to anesthetize myself from pain.  As a matter of fact, I know for certain I won't ever see that day.

Never is a long time....even longer than Forever.

For today, I am grateful to have my compulsive overeating behavior in recovery & to be abstinent for the next 24 hours. Yesterday is gone & Tomorrow isn't here yet, so all I have to worry about is Now.  And for the next 24 hours, I choose to stay abstinent from compulsive overeating, with God's help, amen.