3.5 Months Down and an Eternity Left to Go

As I fast approach my 4-month sober anniversary -and I can honestly say I have been sober- I can’t help but think I’m backsliding a bit.  Maybe it’s my newfound affinity for butter or perhaps it’s the fact that I inhaled several large spoonfuls of curly white pasta straight out of the pan tonight, but in any case I feel a need to re-commit.  I can’t help but wonder if it might be because I have not been to any recovery meetings lately.   Since summer has hit, I’ve been busy and I must admit, a little too self-confident about my new sugar-free lifestyle.  I’m not sure what it is about those meetings, but I heartily feel that they greatly contribute to addiction recovery success.  I think that it might be the fact that attendance shows humility.  It is an outward sign of an inward dependence on God.  That’s huge.  And I also believe that just showing up is a form of serving others.  So I’m re-committing myself to my Monday afternoon meetings.   I also feel that I might be ready to take the next step in abstinence.  I’ve been trying to stick to mainly whole grains, but refined flour has crept into my daily intake more and more lately.  I have to say that on a scale of 1 to 10, I’ve been a steady 6 or 7 as far as mood goes and probably about a 5 or 6 in energy level.  (As opposed to the 2 and 1’s I felt during my sugar-inebriated life.)  But I want to get into the 8’s!  Or dare I hope for 9’s?  Please note that I have not posted my weight or mentioned any weight loss/gain.   I actually don’t know what I weigh.  I don’t own a scale anymore.  I’m pretty sure that I haven’t lost any weight as my clothes fit the same, and I still have that particularly annoying back-fat fold right below my bra line.  But I just don’t care.  I feel so much better!  I’m not saying that it’s always easy (or ever easy!)  My daughter made chocolate krinkle cookies the other day.  I love those.  I’ve just found that not having any makes it doable.  It’s the “having just one bite” that does me in.  Do I worry about falling off the wagon?  Yep.  Do I salivate when I smell cookies in the oven?  Yep.  Do I wish I could be one of those skinny people who can eat half a candy bar?  Yep.  (How do they do that anyway???)  But am I happier than I was 4 months ago?  Yep.  And that’s the part I’m focusing on. 

Just Add it to My List

I know.  I know.  I haven’t been blogging in a while.  (Side note:  when I was young, there was no such word as blogging.)  It’s not because I’ve been eating sugar.  I haven’t.  (Although I did eat an entire stick of butter the other day.  I found out that if you melt it and mix it with flour, it almost tastes like a cookie.)  I’ve just been busy.  Besides blogging I have to find time to go to my addict meetings and work the steps (of which I have been greatly slacking).  I also have to write in my personal journal, take care of a house full of kids, keep a great dane from tracking in mud, go to church, go to church activities, sometimes clean the church, learn new Zumba choreography, learn new weights routines, listen to new music to use in the new Zumba choreography and weights routines, take care of my husband’s manly needs, answer phone calls and emails from my Sweaty Chix, make crappy, no-sugar dinners for my family, watch Modern Family, take my daughter to her vaulting lessons, take my other daughter to the mall with her friends, take my college son money because he never has any, take my mother to her doctor appointments, take my father to his doctor appointments, take my father to buy new clothes because his pants fall down and he walks around in his underwear and the living facility where he stays doesn’t like that, take more care of my husband’s manly needs, do laundry sometimes, try and help with our other business called Biolynk, try to explain to my business partner why I haven’t had to time to help with Biolynk, weed my yard, help my neighbor weed their yard because that’s what good neighbors do, feed the sick, clothe the naked, etc etc etc.  You get the idea.  Just writing all of that made me tired so I’m going to go to bed.  I forgot to add sleep to my list.  Night.