Greetings all,

I am back. To those with shorter memories, I used to post during the month of June, but had temporarily lost Internet access.

So what is new with me?

It would be nice to say I am abstinent. Unfortunately, I am not. Although on occasion there are days when I do not eat anything definitely non-abstinent, the "question mark" foods dominate most of my eating. Nor have I been able to make it through a 48-hour period without eating something that definitely qualifies as a binge.

I go to 5 meetings a week, of which 2-3 are OA meetings. I do not have a live sponsor. Only once did I summon the courage to ask someone to sponsor me, and she refused, on the grounds that she found me physically attractive, and thus a sponsorship was inadvisable! This is a highly gratifying compliment for someone accustomed to thinking of himself as ugly and undesirable, but it still left me sponsorless.

I know very few people in OA well, as I am still exploring the 25 meetings available in my city. In fact there is no meeting I have been to more than twice. Many are not accessible for transportation reasons, or conflict with meetings in other fellowships. The meetings have been good ones for the most part, but I have failed to respond to them, just as I have failed so many times before to free myself of this addiction.

Because I do not have a car, nearly all my spare time after work is spent going to, or at, meetings. It takes me on average 60 minutes to reach a meeting, each way. So if a meeting is 2 hours long, it takes 4 hours for me when transportation is thrown in. Hurry alone provides me with a frequent pretext to binge. Other times I have binged right after meetings.

In fact, I have been reluctant to attend the same meeting more than twice because of the scarcity of progress I have made. I keep fearing people will question my commitment to the Program, and grow irritated with my sense of pessimism and futility. Yet I cannot bring myself to share an optimism I do not feel. I don't feel hopeful about becoming abstinent, I feel hopeless.

A few people have given me their telephone numbers, but I have called none of them. In part this is because I am seldom home (work by day, meetings by evening) but even when I am, a reluctance to phone, a desire to isolate, comes to me and I usually surrender to it.

Why do I keep binging? Sometimes for no other reason than to calm a nagging sense of disquiet. Other times to fill sudden waves of aching hurt and abandonment that wash over me without warning. The craving for comfort is irresistible, and temporarily at least I can lose myself in the warmth of the binge food. Nothing else, I do mean NOTHING else (except my other addiction, of course) seems able to provide the solace food provides.

In these moments of despair, resisting the urge to eat seems about as possible as climbing the CN Tower, and prayer is as ineffective as flipping coins. To be perfectly honest, I am writing this post in an effort to avoid another binge, but it does not seem to be working. The desire to eat is only increasing.

It is like a monster, a consuming beast whose malice is matched only by its savage power to dominate my life and my thinking. I feel absolutely powerless under its crushing grip, cruelly made to dance to its tune, drowning in emotions I cannot handle, drives I cannot manage, hungers than remain futilely out of my control.

I have a sponsor in another fellowship (one that is more pushy - newcomers are assigned sponsors without having to ask for them) and have made some progress in the other addiction. Yet some of that is artificial - on more than one occasion I have shamelessly turned to food to avoid acting out in the other addiction. This is not recovery, it is substituting one addiction for another. Failure again.

Outside the food picture, depression has continued to inhibit my effectiveness at work; often leaving me blankly staring into space instead of working.

In addition, for the first time in my life I am having recurring nightmares, in which I am the villain, usually yelling at (or worse) my parents with a frightening rage. I have told my parents I want no further contact with them (no phone calls, no visits) for the time being, but the angry dreams continue, at least twice weekly.

There are times when I am happy and contented, revelling in the fact that I am now living alone, and have total freedom, but these lifts are often celebrated with...binging again. Even happiness does not prevent morefailure.

The HALT slogan is one that has a considerable impact on me. Virtually 24 hours a day I am feeling at least one of these four things, usually more. I feel hungry even after I have eaten a large meal, healthy or otherwise. Anger comes across me often, even while asleep. Outside of meetings I am often painfully lonely. And tiredness is with me a lot, all day long, even after a good night's sleep.

The therapist I am seeing now is not as effective as the counsellors I saw earlier. However, now that I am no longer a student, free counselling is hard to find, and most therapists' fees make me blanch. My doctor has placed me on the antidepressant Luvox, but it will take some weeks to have an impact, if any. Psychiatrists' waiting lists run over a month and a half long.

Looking back on this post, it is by far the most pessimistic I have written. I am genuinely sorry if anyone is offended. However, it does represent how I feel. I often want to cry but tears do not come. Anyway this is all, I shamefacedly admit I am going to go binge.

Oasis, Aug. 5, 1996.