If I’ve done my job, I have hopefully helped you understand the process that occurs in the space between being abstinent at one moment and eating the next.  If you can commit to take some time – not a huge amount of time – to do this, you can break the destructive cycle of relapse that many of us have experienced.

And perhaps it won’t stop you… this time.  It just means that taking the time to do these small writing exercises will allow your pre-frontal cortex to drive the bus on the decision.

If taking this time still leads to that first bite, as least let the thinking, reasoning you – the real you – can come back and look at what “lessons learned” might be gleaned.  Reading what you wrote in the sunlight of a new day might help you see exactly how the disease of compulsive eating works on you.  Your amygdala (the reactive part of your brain) and your disease had seized control of your decision making.

This gives you knowledge, and knowledge is power.  Don’t misunderstand an important thing, as it says in the Big Book: “But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge.”

I agree wholeheartedly.  But knowledge and action can give you a different perspective when hitting that “fork in the road.” Hopefully, it will start your journey to long-term abstinence.  If you do find yourself at the beginning of the road on the abstinent side of the fork, you’ve accomplished the easiest part of the journey.  The hardest part will be maintaining that abstinence, no matter what life has to throw your way.  And you can do it.  Thousands and thousands of others have done it – and none of them possess a special “abstinence gene” or “abstinence gland” that you don’t.  How did they do it?  Through the 12 Steps.

If you have committed to this program, I’ve will tell you an unspoken truth I haven’t said up until now:  that commitment was an admission that you are powerless without help.  You might have been at Step Zero when you first started this plan, but you were at Step 1 once you committed to it.  You cannot delay in moving forward with your Steps and working the program from here because long-term abstinence is not about stopping, it’s about staying stopped. 

To continue “staying stopped,” you need a life and way of living that’s working towards that end, not against it.  For me, that way was getting into the Steps, working the Steps, and staying involved in a 12-Step program.  The Steps aren’t a rite of passage, but rather a way of life.  Why did I choose that way?  Because people I knew and trusted told me it was the way to a life without addiction and one where I can be happy, joyous, and free while living that life.

I will take one last moment to advocate for something I think anyone with trauma in their past should consider:  therapy.  If you were like me, you might have tried it in the past and not had much success.  However, the key to making therapy work for me was for it to be an adjunct to the program, not a substitute for it.  The reason I got very little out of therapy in the past was because I was continuing to self-medicate with the food.  Once I was gifted with abstinence, therapy became an essential tool to dismantle that “engine of relapse” that resided within me.  It’s the reason Bill Wilson thought so highly of it.

The choice moving forward is yours.  Hopefully, that choice will involve this program, and then the Steps.  Trust me, if I can make it work, anyone can.

[This program is based on ACT – Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.  ACT is a treatment modality which was developed by Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D.   ACT was developed to help those with anxiety, depression, OCD, grief, chronic pain, and other mental health conditions.  The ACT Therapy model was itself based on Relational Frame Theory (RFT).  ACT has also been shown to be effective within the substance abuse community.]