Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine

Eight months have come and gone. Eight months, nearly 80 pounds gone.

A very intelligent woman I know has likened my recovery from surgery to being identical as the steps one goes through when recovering from addiction. My life after surgery is simply not just eating less. If that's all that Roosevelt has helped me accomplish, then I never would have needed the surgery, as there would be days I ate less then 1200 calories. Then there would be the days I hit at least 3000.

An article I read recently said that some people view recovery as being similar to serving a prison sentence. These people are deprived of their favorite crutch and the best thing they can do is count the days.

I've had those days. Part of the reason that this blog even exists is the fact that I keep count of just how long it's been. As of November 2, it has 245 days since my stomach was reduced to the size of an egg. It has been 352,800 minutes since I've been able to drink water without gagging. It has been 5880 hours of learning how to live life without my crutch.

My pre-surgery liquid diet began on February 16, 2015. That means it has been 259 days since I have been able to eat whatever I wanted. It has been 37 weeks since I have been able to eat pizza. 6216 hours since I've had a soda. 22,377,600 seconds since I had to give up my addiction cold turkey.

And it is a process. I will never be completely free of my addiction, because the temptation is always there. The urge to eat is always there.

I lost my beloved dog, Elsie Margaret, on October 5, 2015. it was the first real trauma I had gone through since surgery.

All I wanted was to stop hurting. I wanted to numb the pain.

Before Roosevelt, I would have binged. Ate myself to the point of being misera-full.

I couldn't do that. I thought about drinking, but that doesn't work so hot for me either post Roosevelt. I thought about smoking my first cigarette in over 4 years. I even thought about harming myself in some way, just to divert the pain I was feeling.

Instead, I prayed. I talked to God. Thanks to him, I was able to make it through that first horrible day without my Elsie. I found ways to cope with my pain. I made an emergency appointment with my therapist. I knitted. I sobbed. I held my little Lila, the dog I adopted right before I moved to Charlotte.

It was not easy, but I survived without a crutch.

And then there's the people who view recovery as freedom and the chance to rebuild their lives completely from scratch.

I've had days where I feel so alive now. Shedding the weight is freeing. Feeling again, without being able to numb myself with food. Finding my voice. Writing again. Saying no to situations I don't want to be in. Turning down invitations. Putting myself in social situations I used to dread. Trying speed dating. Going on my first date post surgery. Not having a second date because I realized I could do better. Realizing I don't have to settle for anyone in my life that doesn't add to it.

All of this change isn't so easy. It is absolutely terrifying some days. Relationships in my life have been hurt. It's hard for people to understand that I'm not the same person I was prior to my gastric sleeve. It's not as if I had my gallbladder removed and can resume life the way it was before.

I had breakfast the other day with a friend I had not shared a meal with since surgery. He was stunned by how little I ate. He was concerned. He asked me how on earth I was getting my nutritional needs met. I told him about my daily vitamin/supplement regimen. I explained why I still have at least one protein shake a day.

Now that he's seen me eat post-Roosevelt, he seemed to understand that I'm no longer going to be the friend who shares a large pizza with him late at night. That going out to eat with me isn't a shared exhibit of gluttony anymore.

Besides his thoughtful questions over breakfast, I was able to share with him some of my feeling post surgery. How difficult it has been for some friends to wrap their brains around the fact that the way I eat now is my new normal. That I'm not going to share bottles of wine with them again. The isolation I feel at times when I do turn down invitations just because I am not going to put myself in a situation where I am uncomfortable. I'm not going to go out to Oktoberfest. I'm not going to go out to Five Guys, as there's nothing there I can or want to eat.

I feel that I am still in early recovery. I am still learning how I am going to live my life without my crutch of food. There's a lot more to this than just learning to eat smaller portions. Remembering to take my daily vitamins and other nutritional supplements. Learning to not gulp my beverages. Not using straws anymore. Chewing food to the point of liquid.

Figuring out how to divulge my secret to people. Adjusting to the ignorant comments from people. The judgement I face when people find out I had my gastric sleeve. Realizing people I haven't seen in a while aren't ignoring me, but that they don't recognize me at all.

It's all just one big mindfuck.

The biggest change though, and the one that doesn't scare me, is that the past 8 months have changed my relationship with God. I used to think I was an agnostic atheist.

I am not. I am developing a relationship with God that I did not have 8 months ago. I regularly attend church now. I study about my faith. I talk regularly with God. And I see all that He has done for me. What He continues to do for me.

I now understand why 12 step program talk about a higher power. I would not have made it the past 8 months without God.

This relationship with Him is bringing a new level of peace to my life. And it gives me more comfort than food ever did.

I am curious to know what my life will look like a year from now. I am curious to know who will still be a part of it. It's exciting to be going through all this change. It's exciting to have the power to jettison people from my life. I still have a lot of fat to trim though, literally and figuratively.

And I'm not naive enough to think that it's going to be easy. If it gets easy, then I may fail. Complacency in my recovery from addiction will lead me down a dangerous path.

The urge to go buy a cake from the grocery store and eat it in one sitting is going to be there the next time I suffer emotional trauma. Just because I choose not to do it does not mean that I don't want to. Just because even trying to do so would make me violently ill doesn't mean it's not tempting. I pray for the day when I just think of food as basic nourishment and nothing more.

But the memory of the comfort I used to believe I got from food is in my blood. And I don't know how to expunge it.

I do know that I will never stop fighting the urge to lose myself in food. I do know that the temptation from food will never go away.

I do know that I am stronger than the urges. I am stronger than the temptation. I am brave enough to get through early recovery and reach lifelong sobriety.

I just can't rush it.