Acceptance is the Key

One of the hardest battles I had in accepting I was a food addict was uttering those words. Food Addict. 

My pride was entirely embarrassed by those two words. My ego was screaming at me 'what a load of rubbish, you just need to get your head around following a food plan and exercise like a lunatic.  It is not hard to do.'  

Well, the truth of the matter is,  it's not hard to do , it's IMPOSSIBLE to do when in relapse, or in active compulsive overeating.  

I tried to avoid accepting the truth of the matter for close to half a century!! That alone should tell you the power of this disease. I fought tooth and nail to justify my compulsive food choices, with my ego kicking and screaming every step of the way on my journey. Sure I'd had many times of recovery, growth and learning, but not once had I surrendered absolutely and not once had I fully accepted the fact that I actually suffered from an addiction. 

Increasing insanity and disease ran rampant in my life as I refused to listen to the truth.  I blocked any attempts to uncover that one spot within that was stopping me from surrendering.  Then as the saying goes, '*ish got REAL'.  

I had all the head knowledge in the world about AA and OA. I knew this disease was threefold: a physical affliction with an emotional sickness and spiritual malady.  I had been trying to deal with the physical side of my addiction for what felt like an eternity.  I had sought help emotionally in the form of counsellors to see if they could help me with my food issues and spiritually I had attempted to seek the truth.  However, there always came that point where I put the brakes on, when things got too close to the bone, throwing the work I needed to do in the 'too hard to handle' basket.  That attitude is what kept the disease of addiction active in me all these years. 

Emotional and physical pain are excellent teachers; they absolutely drove me to my knees, to that point of surrender and complete acceptance of the reality of my food addiction. 

It was such a relief!!

Below is a quote from page 449 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.  It is one of my favourite quotes and I have changed a couple of words so it reads 'food addict' instead of alcoholic and 'abstinent' instead of sober. 

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.  When I am disturbed it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation, some fact of my life unacceptable and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my food addiction, I could not stay abstinent. Unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes."

Accepting myself and the fact that I suffer from the disease of food addiction without shame or fear has literally saved my life.  The disease of food addiction is a killer disease.  If I had accepted the reality of my situation earlier in my life I could have experienced peace of mind and freedom from obsession years ago. 

 

Choose surrender and acceptance earlier rather than later and save yourself a world of pain.