I made profound (to me) connections with the components of addiction. John Bradshaw's def. of addiction-
"is a pathological (love to, have to) relationship to a mood altering substance or event that has life damaging consequences". And a quote that I heard a couple years ago about "substituting pleasure for happiness". Put those two together. Pleasure being temporary elation from an event, and happiness being a conditional feeling of well being.

Our common denominator, as obsessive/compulsive people is that we emerged from childhood with a hole in us emotionally. We lacked self esteem and self love and felt like incomplete individuals. We were disconnected from our feelings and lived our lives completely on the outside. John Bradshaw wrote that we don't carry any self esteem, but instead collect outer esteem through people and things to place our pride in.
I identified strongly with pleasure seeking on continual basis as a form of mood altering.  I did to cover up my basic feelings of not being safe or even "ok".  Inside there was a constant nawing of shame churning and I did anything that I could to escape from it.  That ranged from over achieving, to thrill seeking, and ultimately  to being dysfunctional  Today I know that I had to learn to be still. Learn to be happy in my own company and the company of my higher power. I could only do this by reprogramming my brain through gratitude and affirmations. Happiness is a daily (or hourly) decision,  happiness is an inside job and can only be achieved through daily gratitude for my daily needs being met and acceptance and love for myself in my very current circumstance starting with "I'm happy that I'm breathing today". 

There are voices in your head that will tell you that this is nonsense. Who's voices are those? Are you the voices or are you the one that is listening?



-- Edited by StPeteDean on Monday 31st of August 2009 05:22:14 PM

StPeteDean wrote:

---

"is a pathological (love to, have to) relationship to a mood altering substance

---

I don't mean to take away from the seriousness of this post but this line did make me giggle.  Only because it's so similar to the opening line in Bridget Jones' Diary...."If I don't do something to change my life then the greatest relationship I will ever have will be with a bottle of red wine."

That was me!

Hi Candice,

And welcome to this MIP Board.

I wanted to share an experience I had a while back, don't have a clue if it might work for you, but it sure made a change for me.

When my Mother died, who was very mentally ill, (and as a result of this, really never had one rational conversation with her). I was the one at the time, in my family that
happened to be between jobs, so I was the designated person to see her get transferred to different hospitals, as her end of life needs changed, then she died, and I was the one now responsible too for the complete Memorial also. Well I did all of this in sort of a roboctic way, just putting one foot in front of the other, I had many years in Recovery, so I would go to a meeting everyday, and then do the tasks at hand, and cooking for 4 days myself for this Memorial, doing all the Invitations, seeing that it was carried out successfully. And it then the day came when this was all over and done.

THEN, and only then did I realize I had gained 35 pounds in a little over 3 weeks,
I did some thinking about this and the answer came very quickly. I had been really over eating almost everyday, FOR emotional reasons, to try and fill some void in my life that was actually a void that had always been there, having a Mother through biology, but not experiencing a Mother in any rational way.

So I said to myself, I am not going to diet, dont believe in them. So I drove myself to one of my favorite health food stores and headed for the veggie area, and said to myself, Now, Toni you can have anything and everything you want, the only condition is that you buy it here, in this store, and mostly in this section.

I went there every week, bought a ton of veggies, and some really healthy chicken theighs, and made every day this awesome concontion of chicken broth, onions, one chicken theigh, and a ton of veggies, and I ate that, and only that for several weeks and that turned into months, because I was now addicted to how good I felt after eating this really delicious and healthy food.

So Candice that was my little story, we can always change our love of food, to a healthy way of having it.

And the good news was it was just over 1 month that I lost the entire 35 lbs. I had gained, I did put the weight issue completely out of my thinking, I would suggest not focusing on the weight, but on filling that void with healthy things, if you can do that.

I wish you the best,no matter what, we cannot stop loving food, I'm Italian, so maybe I am speaking for myself. But I never really eat for emotional reasons, that would be clue.

Let us know how you are taking on this task, ok, would love to see more of you here.

Toodles and a Big Hug, Toni



-- Edited by toni baloney on Monday 31st of August 2009 04:15:35 PM