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!

I was taking control, with God’s guidance, of my health—namely in the areas of nutrition, exercise and sleep. I was making good progress emerging from the sugar fog, feeling tired at the end of the day and rejuvenated somewhat in the morning. I wanted to get my seven to eight hours of sleep and wake up at sunrise each day to maximize the hours of daylight and sunshine in my life. All good things in my life, all God-directed in thoughts, words and behavior I thought. But there was a resentment and it was directed towards one of his nonhuman creatures— that chirping little bird in the tree outside my bedroom window.  He was so chirping so loud that he or she woke me up each morning an hour before the sun rose and I resented it as something contrary to what I thought was God’s plan for me.

How could this be and what could I do about it? For a few weeks I just endured it and suffered waking up to resentment. I have lived in this environment for a while and don’t recall this natural alarm from the sugar days. I was probably too tired and exhausted from my nightly compulsive eating. In this new era of honesty and thoroughness and fearlessness to find the answers in my life, I decided to get out of bed, go outside and investigate the scene of the crime a little bit. After a couple more weeks of deciding and resenting I actually got out of bed and went outside. I did not bring a gun though I am sure that would be the recommendation of some of my friends.

Today was the day to do so and I learned a lot. The first thing, as I went outside into what I thought would be pitch black, all black-out environment, I learned was that it was not. There was a ring of brightness around the horizon. Immediately I realized the birds had it right. An hour before sunrise is time to get excited about the upcoming sunrise and let everybody else know about it. I could see their perspective, especially when I put myself in their place of sleeping outside with little protection in the dark for what would seem like an eternity. I remember one rainy, dark night as a child awake, cold and wet in a tent on a campout. I was joyous too when the first light came signaling an end to my misery, I mean fun. The birds had it right and I had it wrong.

I walked over and stood stalking the feathery creatures nearby my bedroom window. Of course the criminal had fled. Well no longer that harsh I was hoping to see the bird for further enlightenment. I had envisioned one about the size of Big Bird with a bully speakerphone on the branch of the small tree closest to my resting place. I hung out for a few minutes hearing the distinctive calling in the distance. Then one small bird flew over and perched high in another tree above me. Remarkably she or he was the one as he auditioned vociferously for the part in my crime drama now turned life-improving mystery. It was still too dark straight above so I have yet to get a full visual on the Mine Bird that likes to wake me up and greet me in the morning.

The upshot of this experience for me is that I can change to meet conditions. Like the bird I can rise with excitement an hour before sunrise and go to bed an hour earlier each night. I, with God’s direction and my improved understanding, can transform and move an hour in my life from a sometimes difficult to maintain abstinence in the evening to the more productive for me morning hour.

Recognizing my feeling and emotion of resentment was the key clue that led me to this self-discovery that I can choose to change to meet conditions, whatever they are. What’s the most important thing in my life? Abstinence and the serenity, peace and joy that it brings for sure.

Where I feel resentment I will go seeking and surely find other opportunities to improve the God-given quality of my life. I am excited to do so.

The room is lighting up and so is my life. The sun has risen for today and I am ready to go an hour earlier than usual. This will be my new normal. Thank you my little bird friend!

Have a TROML Day Today!

Anonymous Andy

Your Personal Revivalist

Reference Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc, first published in April 1953, Step 4—“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves,” Page 47.

First Day of TROML by Frank & Ernest (Credit: Bob Thaves), we all mess up sometimes!

Here I am starting all over again but not from the same starting point.

I have to laugh at myself when I read the Frank and Ernest (by Bob Thaves) comic posted here next to my desk.

“Today is the first day of the rest of my life. But so was yesterday, and look how you messed that up.”

It’s true I did mess yesterday up. I slipped and eat sugar. I don’t have it in my home so I used the excuse of being out of eggs and needed to stop at the convenience store for them. Who buys eggs at a convenience store? And sugar? I do because I am a compulsive eater and have a disease that will slowly and surely kill me sooner than I want to leave this earth.

That’s the first step and I think I am truly accepting it for the very first time.

My only goal today is to be abstinent and eat only three good meals with nothing in between.

The rest I am turning over to God who is my Higher Power (HP). In TROML as in any Twelve Step program, your HP can be anything you choose it to be or have none at all.

Remember we are all alike, we are all human beings.

I hope to be the best me today and be abstinent.

If you would like to journey through life with me, please join me.

Have a TROML Day Today!

Anonymous Andy

Your Personal Revivalist