Looking back, I can see that my problems with drinking too much alcohol and overeating were similar, and perhaps even symptoms of the same disease, but my experience with them was quite different. I stopped drinking with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1974, but I was still struggling with overeating a few years ago, wondering how I could be an AA oldtimer and not even able to decide whether I really was a compulsive overeater so I could take the first step regarding the other problem. I was, literally, a heavy beer drinker, weighing in at 336 lbs., over 150 kg., at one time. After getting to AA, I was able to resolve my problem with alcohol by just staying away from it and going to lots of meetings, trying to work the 12 Steps and trying to do the next right thing by learning to follow my conscience.Taking all the beer out of my diet seemed to also pretty much resolve my overeating problem too, particularly as I was only 28 and fairly active at the time, perhaps as a way to burn off a lot of nervous energy that came to the fore then. But over time my weight crept up to the point where I was up to about 270 lb.,123 kg., when weighed as part of my last physical exam at the college I taught at in Japan, six years ago, before I moved here to Tasmania to retire. I was a daily overeater, and I can now see that almost every meal I ate was too big to fit my present definition of a sensible one, and I felt that I had to have a cup of ice cream after supper to ward off the heartburn that I hadn't had for years anyway. I actually thought I was eating sensibly, and tried to avoid taking calories in between meals, but I was often conning myself in the same way I did when drinking, and was clearly continueing to do the same thing and expecting different results, eventually. I had gone to a few OA meetings from time to time but had trouble taking them seriously. I could easily see that the first drink did the damage, knowing that I could end up in a jail, nuthouse, hospital or mortuary within hours of taking one, but telling me that one cup cake outside of a food plan did that seemed ridiculous. A friend was telling me that it wasn't a matter of admitting he couldn't control something and yet trying to control, but I couldn't see the difference. I somehow did manage to cut out the ice cream and find meals I could eat that were actually sensible as I would now define it, such as a KFC Twister, slaw and Pepsi Max; a 6" Vegie Delight at Subway or a Whopper Junior at Burger King, but still felt like I had made a big sacrifice and was getting little in return in terms of weight loss. I can now see that this was similar to the time when I stopped drinking, feeling sorry for myself for being deprived of alcohol, the main solace in my life until then. It eventually occurred to me that, if I sat on a street corner with a tin cup and a sign around my neck that said, "Can't drink socially." I wouldn't collect much, although is suppose a few wet drunks might cast a sympathetic eye my way. It just occured to me that I would probably get no sympathy at all from anyone if the sign read, "Have to eat sensibly." as most would just see that as part of the price everybody pays if they want to be a healthy human. I now have weighed less than 195 lb., 89 kg., for about three years and my new eating habits seem to have become almost second nature. I sometimes eat a bit too much, but those occasions are fairly rare, and now not really pleasant as a full stomach has come to feel uncomfortable. I am even more careful to stay in bounds in the days that follow. I just concentrate on making sure that the next meal is truly a sensible one and I stay away from calories in between. I mostly eat sensible meals out of habit and quite enjoy them. I can see now that I get only guilt and not more pleasure by eating more. I have come to see that sanity is the ability to adjust to reality and that is part of it that I've adjusted to. I find it amazing that is seems easy and simple now, not really a sacrifice of any kind, and marvel that it took until I was past 60 and retired to be able to do it. I now feel that eating sensibly is no longer a problem unless I start thinking that it is no longer a problem and get complacent about it. When I was new in AA, I thought that getting a good job would be the answer to most of my problems. When I had a near perfect job teaching English in Japan, I thought that having English AA meetings nearby would do that. And, after moving here to retire, with no job to be concerned with and a meeting a few blocks from this house, it seemed like eating sensibly might do that too. My life is wonderful now, but that seems to have little to do with what I am eating, and I can see that it has had more to do with attitudes all along. Things happen and whether I see them as curses, blessings or just things to deal with depends on how I choose to see them. One of the most useful things I have heard in a meeting was from someone who said, "I can't do much about my feelings, but I can change my attitudes and the feelings tend to follow." |