Recovery Meditations: March 3rd

A DISEASE?

"Doc! What do you mean-nothing! What? An incurable disease?
Doc, you're kidding me! You're trying to scare me into stopping!
What's that you say? You wish you were?
What are those tears in your eyes Doc?"

The Big Book, The Believer


For a very long time I scoffed at those who said my overweight was because I had a disease. Yes, my body had doubled in size ... but it was because I ate more calories than my body burned. My doctor said so ... he didn't say I had a disease. His "treatment" was to tell me to go on a diet and join a gym. The diet lasted for a few months and I believe I used the gym about six or seven times. I know now without a single doubt that I have a disease ... a serious one. I know that it is incurable and that I will have to live with this disease for the rest of my life. Dieting made me fat. Somewhere along the way I didn't "get it."

One day at a time...
I will resist thinking that being a compulsive eater is not a disease. I will aggressively and tenaciously do the footwork necessarily to combat it.

~ Mari ~

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Food is a legal drug...........a socially acceptable addiction, too.  "Oh, go ahead and have a slice of cake, it won't kill you!" the friends and non-believers tell us.

How do they know what effects that slice of cake will have on us, as compulsive overeaters? That sugar rush may lead us on a binge that lasts for weeks, months, years..........

I have a disease. I can choose to treat that disease seriously, or, I can choose to pooh-pooh it away while insisting I can learn to eat like a normal person.

Kind of like an alcoholic insisting he can learn how to drink like a normal person, eh?


Oh, that's different! Alcoholism isn't the same thing as food addiction, we are told!

Um, yeah it is the same thing!

For me to acknowledge alcoholism as a disease but not not compulsive overeating is to bury my head in the sand and to stay sick, body mind & spirit.

Once I acknowledge the fact that I DO have a disease, only THEN can I treat it with all the seriousness it deserves.

If I have diabetes, I take insulin to keep it controlled.  If I have high blood pressure, I take pills to regulate IT.

If I am a compulsive overeater, I stick to a healthful eating regimen to keep IT from flaring up.

When I treat my disease with another diet, I encourage it to get stronger instead of to simmer down & go into remission.  
 
For today, I pray to accept my disease and to treat it with all the seriousness it deserves to be treated with.