Yesterday was chaotic with sick Child3, Child2 with gym trainings, working from home with kids on school holidays and the Saint out for the night. Finished off by Child2 arranging a sleepover for tonight and the cleaner didn’t come this week so we had to blitz the house… No time in there to write a blog! I ate well considering all that. The kids had a McDo for dinner but I made myself a prawn curry. Child3 was craving my favourite chocolate and I went and bought him some. Working from home is dangerous for me when it comes to sweet snacking. I ate a brioche in the afternoon and, whilst it could have been better, it could also have been a lot worse!

Today has been fine food-wise too. I picked up an Indian takeaway at lunchtime which again wasn’t ideal but was a fruity prawn curry so not too bad (the starter may have been off plan though ;-)). The girls had pizza for dinner and i had to pick it up when i was tired and hungry. Dangerous territory so I used the wait to scroll through some OA chat I hadn’t been able to keep up with this last week. It put my head in exactly the right place and the moment passed. There was a particular passage about prioritising abstinence even when we are a wife, mother, sister, friend, employee. And how all those roles benefit from us being abstinent. It particularly spoke to me.

The Saint made us lentils, chicken and avocado salad – just perfect! One of the girls had brought a homemade apple cake and the Saint was surprised when I passed on it. I realise now that although it isn’t the sort of food I binge on, that it’s like a gateway drug and leaves that door open to going back to the sort of food i DO binge on. Another text i had been reminded of earlier spoke about “accepting the fact that we can never return to what we thought was normal eating, then we can stop making irrational attempts at experimentation which always fail… We see that our new eating plan is really very normal. it was the old compulsive overeating habit which was abnormal in the extreme.”

Before i quit drinking, i had wanted to learn to drink “normally”. I tried changing what i drink, imposed rules about when i could drink, etc. All of it just led me back to bingeing on white wine. The bingeing only stopped when I realised I was addicted to alcohol and couldn’t have the first glass. I’m doing this with sugar now. Doing irrational experiments that i know deep down can’t possibly have the ending i desire: where i no longer binge on sugar. That ending requires me staying away from that first mouthful of sugar.

Every day i will just have to make the next right choice until it becomes a natural way to eat and be – like my sobriety did.