30 Days

Today is Day Thirty of no flour, no sugar, weighing & measuring my meals. There are some things on my mind that I want to share about it & there is the little matter of my step work, which might be easier to do as a blog, in bits, as things come to me.

The first step of the twelve is that "We admitted we were powerless over ___ and that our lives had become unmanageable."

I learned that after having something like four or five days clean without hooking up with my sponsor or going to meetings. Late Friday night I got a call on my cell phone. I had to heave myself up out of bed & go through the machinations of retrieving the message in order to shut the damn thing up. It was a call from one of my clients about a missing pair of earrings. Had I seen them? No, sorry. I went back to bed & the phone rang again. She had found them. I'd been taking care of her dogs for over a week, it was finally over, I'd gotten to bed abstinent & then it wasn't over. I ripped off my nightgown, put on my clothes & went to the deli.

The next morning I found I'd fallen asleep in my shirt & that my nightgown was inside out, such was the hurry I was in.

I got myself to the meeting the next morning & the first person I saw stood up, hugged me & I sobbed, "I can't stop." My sponsor came in late & headed straight for me & again I sobbed very quietly, "I'm in so much trouble."

The inside-out nightgown -- the couple of clean days over in 20 minutes because of a phone call -- the days before I'd stopped bingeing when I took my Entenmann boxes over to the dogs' apartment building to put them in that recycling rather than my own building's...

Yup. Got that.

In many ways, however, I think it becomes apparent how unmanageable life is only when you stop using. The irritations I've written about lately are evidence of this. One's emotions wake up & there's no guarantee that they're going to be the pretty ones. I think the first time I had 30 clean days together I felt excited & curious. The last couple of times I hoped I'd lose a lot of weight & get to qualify (speak for 15 minutes or so) at a meeting & be a star again.

This time...

I dunno. I'm not excited about it. I'm not terribly hopeful about getting thin or being a star after so many resounding disasters. I feel...I feel like I'm showing up, that being abstinent is being on time, having my homework done, being prepared. It's not about being a rule follower as it is a feeling that this is the right way to live. & I WANT this abstinence. For thirty days I have not looked for a way to not have my cake & eat it too.

I also feel like every day of abstinence prepares me for the next hurdles -- publishing Angry Fat Girls, moving to Seattle. Part of it is being thinner but part of it is that I've smooshed abstinence together with walking toward my future. Every day I ask myself, what have I done to move to Seattle? There are a finite number of answers. I made some extra money. I reinforced a friendship there. I got rid of something I won't have to move. I wrote words someone might pay me for. I was abstinent.

I have weary days on which I don't have the wherewithal, after battling my dogs or for my dogs, after screaming at the agony of whatever is agonizing, after a snowstorm, to write or weed through or whatever.

But I was abstinent.

Bottom line.

So while I've been cranky & weepy & sometimes downright foul in these 30 days, wondering exactly where these mood swings come from, I've been able to say each day that I've taken a step toward the Puget Sound.

Which is one [small] aspect of getting some control in my life even when my emotions are anything but orderly.

Another thing about these 30 days that has given me a sense at least of method in action is the work of being able to be abstinent -- the shopping, the chopping, the steaming, the crockpotting. I have a sense of accomplishment when I put a bag of salad I chopped in my tiny refrigerator, & a sense of what I'll be eating next.

I'd forgotten what it was like to be very hungry & have all kinds of chatter in my head about what to eat, only to have all those voice stop when I walk myself through an abstinent meal.

My cravings aren't gone but they're under better control than they've been in a long time.

I WANT WANT WANT this abstinence. I want it. I need it. I deserve it. I will yank it out of God's hands if I have to.

But that's a whole `nother step.

Oh, yeah: I'm fuzzy on how much weight I've lost but it's somewhere between 8 - 18 pounds. My favorite jammies, which I was afraid to put on, are loose & comfy again.

Insurance policies

Each morning as I leave the house, usually a little late and feeling harrassed and scared about the advnetures and confrontations and possible disapprovals I'll be garnering to come, to pick up the first dog of the day. I pat myself down as I walk toward the front door.

Watch.

Cookies.

Bags.

Cigarettes.

Keys -- musn't forget keys!

Some days there are other items. My camera. Invoices for my services. My big clip to tie dogs up outside the next stop on our way to the dog run. Lists for errands. I consider what is in my backpack, which I'll pick up as we swing back. Enough balls for everyone to play? The flinger stick? The tug-of-war rings? The spray bottle to keep -- ha ha ha -- Henry from eating sticks?

Those things established, I have an 8-block walk to pick up Hero, time to think about my other insurance policies. Or maybe the better word for them is "investments". I ask myself, what have I done so far in insure/invest in an abstinent day.

The first items are almost always the same. A weighed & measured breakfast. Doing the dishes. Taking my medications. Brushing my teeth.

I tend to forget that the quiet time Daisy allows me while she wallows in the pillows & I have coffee & cigarettes in the kitchen is partly spent in prayer. I tend to forget that before I went into the Rooms, I rarely hung up my nightgown or did a cursory wash on a day I wasn't going to be "public" (i.e., office, seeing people, etc.)

Today I used my 10-minutes or so to ask myself what else I needed to shore up today's abstinence. A weighed & measured lunch & dinner, certainly. Putting in some time writing just as certainly -- that pride at the end of the day is valuable. Being present for the dogs came next, again a matter of pride at the end of the day.

Then there are little things. Doing lunch & dinner dishes. Picking up groceries to get a head start on boarding a dog for the next four nights. Trying not to fall into the black hole of mahjongg. Posting my daily inventory of food & actions & responding to others' inventories in a hopefully supportive way.

Service is important. Small service is always available. I picked up a chicken bone from the sidewalk, angry at the sloth & danger someone exhibited in dropping it. I picked up some fresh poop in the dog run because I knew I had enough bags. Maybe my blog will help someone; maybe my responses to other blogs will. Picking up the phone when I'm home & returning calls -- no one calls me unless they need me, or need to be needed by me.

Today I'm trying an experiment. I usually have my second carbohydrate at dinner. The trouble is, I'm often too tired to cook dinner. So I roasted my Brussels sprouts & potatoes while I was in the shower & am eating as I write. Maybe I'll be more content with less labor-intensive (gee: 10 minutes) meal tonight.

Oh -- washing my hair! That was necessary to today's investment, as are clean clothes.

It's interesting to see that the shower I put off too long took 15 minutes. The labor-intensive meal was 10 minutes. What's up with that? One answer is that I really am tired by 6.

I even `fessed up the true amount owed from a dog-sitting gig. I hate asking for things, even things that are mine. I crossed a character fault, on of my San Andreas veins, & did the right thing for a me who has a lot of taxes owing. I stood up for myself.

So overall, now that it's 2.30 p.m., I've already put a good deal of investment in keeping my abstinence intact. If I were really motivated, I'd hie me to that Greysheet meeting tonight or call someone from program.

Dunno if that will happen. I still have to wash these dishes, put on clean clothes, keep my energy intact enough to write later & have one more round of Good Dog to give.

But I've begun.