Recent conversation with a close friend:
Me: I think I am going to services Friday night.
Friend: (
well aware of my profound allergy to synagogues) מה פתאום!? What’s up with that!?
Me: Well, this is going to sound stupid…but I need to ask G-d for help.
Friend: That does not sound stupid at all.
Or maybe it does. Maybe this is my version of snake oil. But I am desperate.
The problem is that my eating is out of control. One day I eat normally, the next day I binge. This has been the case for me for literally as long as I can remember. I go through periods—sometimes very long periods— where things calm down—where my eating is “normal”— but it always comes back. At some point I will find myself surreptitiously downing boxes of cookies, slice after slice of bread and butter or bread and honey, or massive quantities of G-d knows what else, and promising myself that “this is the last time” and “tomorrow I will give up sugar and white flour for real”.
This is a stupid, insane, ridiculous way to live. The major difference between me and an alcoholic or drug addict is that I can still drive after getting another hit. (Hell, I can drive while taking a hit, so long as the food item only requires one hand). I neither want nor intend to spend the rest of my life like this. There is no way that any food item can possibly be worth the pain of addiction. So I try to get off the crazy train. I have a rallying cry: fall seven times, stand up eight. I try and fail, try and fail and try yet again. I am a weeble wobble, falling and rising. I am Don Quixote, tilting at windmills. I am fighting a war, losing battle after battle and getting up the next day to fight again. And lose, again. My friends and co-workers find it either amusing or sad, my constant dieting. I understand them. They do not understand. Unless you have gone through it (and I know that many have, which helps enormously) how can you possibly understand?
(It is like this. I hate this feeling of being in thrall…to a candy bar. To an obsession. I hate the feeling of my brain being on fire. Must. Have. Sugar. Now. I want peace. I want mental quiet already. I want to let this go.
It is like this. I do not enjoy most of the food while I am eating it. The first few bites, the first few cookies, sure. But after that? Pure primal, animal gorging. Except that the average animal probably has enough sense to stop eating when it is full. I eat when I am not hungry. I eat when I do not want to eat.
It is like this. I LOVE the way I feel and my body feels when I eat well. I love the feeling of lightness. I love the energy. I love the sense of order, the feeling of mental and physical health and the mental calmness I have when I am not chasing after a drug. Even if I do not always like the food as much—let’s face it, carrot cake with extra cream-cheese icing is a hell of a lot tastier than a melon—I could live with that. It is worth it. I know it is worth it.
It is like this. This is a matter of life and death. I have to win this war. If I do not win, if I do not kill this, eventually it is going to kill me. I think of that, when I am binging on bread and butter. What is this doing to my arteries? How many more times can I do this before they end up blocked completely? How long before I drop dead of a massive heart attack? I really should get them checked out, but honestly, I am afraid to. I do not want to know how bad it is, and how much damage I have already done. How much I have already screwed myself over.)
What I need, what I lack, is strength. I need the strength to get through the withdrawal symptoms (similar to the ones I suffered when I quit smoking 11 years ago). I need the strength to see bread and sweets and to not eat them. I need the strength to stand up against my
yetzer ha’ra when it says “Gila, you had such a long day. Don’t you want a packet of TimTams for the ride home?” or “עוד אחד ודאי” “One more time, and then that’s it.” Or “you are starting your diet tomorrow, so you really should binge today because otherwise, you will never be able to eat this or that or the other again”. I need the strength to deal with the day-after-day, the strength not to get lazy and not to get complacent and to not slip into bad habits six months down the road. I need strength to not be afraid. A future without sugar? Never have chocolate again? No more carrot cake? Ever?????
(Just now, writing that, my insides literally knotted up).
I need strength, and G-d has it. He can give me some, if He chooses. He can get rid of the withdrawal symptoms, if He chooses. I will not say “all I have to do is ask”, because sometimes the answer is “no”. Both G-d and I know that He has given me that answer more than once—my perennial single status is proof of that. But sometimes it is yes. So why not ask? What do I have to lose? Friday night, I went to synagogue and I prayed. I told G-d I cannot do this on my own. I told Him I was tired. I told Him I understand that I have to do the work—I am not asking for an easy out or a quick fix—just some
hizuk, some strength that will help me to do the work that must be done. I told Him I was desperate. I told Him that, apparently, I cannot do this on my own. I told Him I needed Him.
Saturday morning I woke up early. I went to one of my
favorite blogs and checked in on his miracles. Baruch Hashem, they are still going strong. I visited Aish’s website and found, waiting for me, an
article about prayer. I had done my grocery shopping on Thursday night. Before I went to the store, I broke out the menus from the diet program I was on last year, the one that helped me to lose 12 kilo (10 still off) and to clean up my eating habits…before I got off track again. I bought accordingly. My refrigerator is crammed with the light bread, the chicken breasts, the cottage cheese and the vegetables the diet calls for. Saturday morning I started the diet again, from week one, day one.
All I need now is His answer.