10/1/2015: Am I an Addict? What Does That Mean?

Days of abstinence: 8 (8 completed, today is day 9)

Days until surgery: 76

Weight:  166.2 pounds

When I restarted this blog on September 19^th, I weighed 166.2 pounds.  Today I weigh 166.2 pounds.  Ugh.  I lost two weeks.  I spent a week starting and restarting my program.  First there was the beginning of the season kickball party and then there was a baseball game in the Diamond Club section.  I chose to indulge in Off Program food at both of those events.  It doesn’t take much for me to gain 3 pounds and sure enough I did.  Prior to going back on the Whole 30 program and starting my 84 days of abstinence on 9/23/14 I weighed 169.8 pounds.  Therefore, in my 7 days of being 100% On Program I am back to where I started on the 19^th.  Sigh.  That is a little frustrating, but it is what it is.  I can’t change what happened in the past but I can influence what happens in the future.

I had my first session with my shrink yesterday.  His name is Stan.  I haven’t seen him for over 10 years so it was a little odd walking into his office.  In fact, it had been so long since I’ve seen him that my file had been shredded, which was just fine by me.  That file needed to be shredded!  I told him I wanted to fix two things.  First, I want to fix my food addiction, and while I am there anyway, I want to fix the pattern I have of getting fairly seriously depressed every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  As far as I can tell, these are the only two lingering issues that I have left that are unresolved.  He chuckles a little when I say I want to “fix” these issues.  I don’t know why it sounds funny.  That is what I want, I want it fixed.  Maybe that sounds a little too much like taking a car to a mechanic and saying the window won’t roll down, please fix it.  The thing is, I am willing to do the work to fix these things, I just need help getting there.

The session was interesting.  After a fairly brief conversation it was clear that I had truly resolved many of the issues that were plaguing me when I first started seeing Stan 24 years ago.  24 years ago!  Wow, that is a long time.  He wanted to know why I thought I had a food addiction.  I clarified that I don’t think I have a food addiction, exactly, I think that my addiction is to sweets, in particular.  Unfortunately I don’t have any more time to blog right now so I will come back to this topic later, tonight, I hope.  But the bottom line is he agreed that I appear to have a sweet treat addiction and if I accept that premise, that I am a sweet treat addict, then that means that sweet treats need to be something I abstain from forever, not just for the next 77 days. 

I want to resist that idea.  I want to embrace that idea.  Both desires are equally strong.

I’ll talk about it a whole lot more in posts to come.

Have a beautiful day!