The choice is now yours.  Remember, your commitment to follow this program does not include a commitment to not eat.  At the same time, it’s not permission to go eat.  These writing exercises are simply to make sure you don’t just go on automatic pilot without at least getting a sense of what is going on within you.  Hopefully, it’s allowing enough time for you to make a thoughtful decision.

If you decide that the negatives outweigh the positives, then perhaps you can go back to what you were doing before the thought to go eat came up.  There’s a good chance that following this plan will work as a pressure valve to dissipate the rising emotions building up in you that were pushing you towards relapse.

Now might also be a good time to call a fellow member and relate what just happened.  It helps reinforce the memory, and might very well help that person down the road.

An important fact I mentioned earlier: the average craving goes away within 20 minutes.  I never would have known that because I never waited that long before heading out the door.

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 taking some time – not a huge amount – to do this, you can break the destructive cycle of relapse that many of us have experienced.

Perhaps it won’t stop you… this time.  However, doing these small writing exercises will allow your pre-frontal cortex (the reasoning part of your brain) to drive the bus on the decision, not the amygdala (the reactionary, impulsive part of the brain).  Just remember, our disease resides in all parts of the brain, so keep on guard.