August 9, 2015 - Alex
Failed Logic
The epiphanies keep coming.
I was catching up with an old friend today and I was telling her about this blog and my efforts to escape my addiction to sugar once and for all. It’s not uncommon for the conversation to shift to the topic of diabetes and the importance of getting regular checkups. As luck would have it, my annual physical was two weeks ago, so I came prepared with current, relevant data. Samples were taken, tests were performed, results were provided: No diabetes. Yay.
So, all good, right? Not for a minute.
I had a realization this week and it has scared the @#$% out of me. Here it is.
I wasn’t going to the doctor every year because I was healthy and I wanted to make sure I stayed that way. Nope.
I was going to the doctor every year because I always figured that I would develop Type II diabetes, and I wanted to see if I had finally run out the clock.
How could I possibly allow myself to get this far off track?
I felt like Nicolas Cage in the movie “Leaving Las Vegas.” He went to Las Vegas to indulge with no regrets and “go out with a bang” by drinking himself to death. And he did.
Wow. This is really bad.
It seems to me that the assumption that I would inevitably get sick was based on the idea that I was always going to be addicted to sugar and that it was never going to change. And it’s easy to see how I would have landed here. To date, my diet-to-failure ratio is 1:1. Every diet has ended in failure. After fifty years, that pattern would seem established and unbreakable.
Of course, I’m not willing to accept that sentence.
Alcoholics who reach sobriety are successful because they have an accountability partner: a sponsor. In recent years, I have begged some chosen family, friends and colleagues to be my diet buddies and help me down this road to recovery. It’s well known that your odds for success will dramatically improve. But sadly, timing is everything and your buddy has to be willing and ready to jump in at the same time that you do. My buddies just weren’t ready.
You, the readers of this blog: You are now my accountability partners, my diet buddies. I’m created this blog because I want to gain control of my addiction and live out the rest of my life in excellent health, and I’m confident that this will be part of the solution that gets me to the finish line. But I hope that I can help even one of you out there along the journey as well. I will never meet many of you, but it doesn’t matter. I know that I do not want to do this alone. So, let’s succeed together. I mean, if you discovered The Fountain of Youth, would you keep it all to yourself?