Why Can’t I Accept that I Am Only Human After All?

I slipped last night and chose to eat sugar not for pleasure like normal people but to self-medicate, anesthetize myself and escape into yet another night of a self-imposed, self- constructed prison.

Why do I do that? Why can’t I simply accept life on life’s terms, say my prayers, be thankful for all that I have, take my contacts out and go to bed?

Why can’t I accept people, places, things and situations and just sing along with The Parlotones that “I’m Only a Human?” (lyrics below).

And the reality is that I know that you and everyone else can understand and simply accept, love and be compassionate to me. Yet there are times I can’t let it go and be accepting, loving and compassionate to myself.

Aren’t we all perfect except when we are not?

I am grateful that this slips are now typically for only seconds, minutes and hours, not days, weeks, months and even years long.

By the grace of God (my God, not necessarily your God) and the love and support of friends and relatives and especially that of Overeaters Anonymous (OA) I have maintained a weight loss of over 100 pounds for the last eight years and counting. I am about 20 pounds from my healthy body weight and am trending in the right direction. In OA we all can have our own God or no God at all and there are no rules or fees just suggestions and freewill to grow and be more healthy.

So why do I do what I do which is basically run out to a local convenience store and buy sugar and other binge foods when I am anxious and feeling emotions that I don’t understand and obviously can’t readily accept as a normal part of life. Why do I expect myself to be perfect and in control? Why do I think in terms of all-or-nothing and why am I so harshly judgemental and critical of myself?  Why can’t I just love myself as I do others and be an accepting and comforting friend to myself too?

I know growing up with alcoholism did affect me. I chose to develop certain personality traits (called The Laundry List in Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA)) in order to survive a situation no child should survive. Did I really have a choice back then as a child? No. Do I have a choice right now as an adult. Absolutely Yes! My childhood experience will always be a part of me. My Mom was a Saint and my father was a Hero to me. Dad never had a drop of alcohol for the last 25 years of his life. After extracting all the inspiration from my childhood and incorporating it into my own TROML Program I am simply left knowing in my heart that my parents loved me the best way they could and treated me far better than they were treated as children. What more can you ask of someone to give more than they received?

So it’s not them in the past or you in the present, it is definitely me. I am trying to control something called sugar which I am powerless over.

Thanks for letting me share this this morning. The shame, guilt and resentment of compulsively overeating sugar last night has left me. I do feel the lingering effects in my brain and body which I know will dissipate and leave me over the next few days and bring me back into a beautiful state of mind like I was just before I made that bad decision to take that first compulsive bite.

I am in the right frame of mind to thoroughly live this day today. In a way I am simply overwhelmed with blessings in my life. With the exception of the sugar addiction, I have a beautiful, meaningful and quite spectacular life. Maybe this last binge will be my last because I know realize I don’t have to be perfect after all. I only need to be human after all and I am honestly human with you this morning after.

I am grateful that I am a sugar addict in recovery.

I am grateful for OA and ACA.

I don’t have to be perfect and  in control all the time or think in an all-or-nothing and judgemental way.

I choose to accept, love and be compassionate to myself first today and everyone else that I meet.

I am grateful for this day that awaits me.

TROML Baby am I.

Have a TROML Day Today!

Your Perfectly Imperfect Personal Revivalist,

Anonymous Andy

ps: Gotta love The Parlotones!