Still Craving Something

Determined to be Queen shares...

I quit smoking over four months ago. It was easy! That is, as soon as I started thinking that every cigarette I didn’t smoke was an instance of loving myself, of being kind to who I really am via the body I live in.

I always knew it wasn’t the nicotine I was addicted to—it was the chemical flush that altered my mood when I couldn’t handle life. The boredom of grading papers, the loneliness of my life as a hermit, the pain of not being understood or acknowledged by my significant other, the sadness of living over 1,000 miles away from my entire family. There was always something missing, and I kept trying to fill up the space with smoke!

But, like all the other times I’d quit, I just started eating sugar instead: cake, cookies, ice cream, and chocolate. Oh how I love chocolate! Whenever I have had overwhelming feelings of any kind, I would run for something to give me the rush I needed to keep going. So, not long after quitting the smokes, I became a carb-aholic.

See, it wasn’t just the sweets I was eating too much of. Oh no. I started eating bread and bagels and ramen noodle soup. I ate all kinds of potatoes: mashed (with gravy), chunks in my homemade soup, and lots of French fries and hash browns at a certain fast food establishment within a half mile of my home. When ice cream was two half gallons for $6, I’d buy four at a time so everyone would have their favorite flavor! I bought several boxes of ready-made cookie dough from the girls’ fundraisers. I ate out too often and ate too much. I gorged and gorged.

I consoled myself by saying, “I can’t quit everything all at once, and hey, at least I quit smoking, right?!”

Wrong.

I watched in silent horror as I broke the promise I made to myself two years ago when I’d hit my ideal weight again after losing almost 25lbs. I wasn’t going to do that to myself again. I was going to love myself by eating right and staying trim. But when I’d grown out of all my clothes by my birthday this year, I knew I’d hit rock bottom again. It was time to quit everything all at once!

Five days ago I quit sugar, cold turkey. I started exercising. The good news is, I’ve already lost two inches around my waist. But I can’t tell you how awful the carb withdrawals are! You know you’re an addict when you sneak some extra parsley, celery, and cucumber bites and sigh with pleasure. I’m in lust with vegetables right now because they’re the only source of carbs I’m allowed.

So, now I’m faced with the source of my addiction. The utter longing. What my friend Camellia calls “The God-shaped Hole.” Now, when I’m not “busy” with something that engages my mind and body utterly and completely, I’m thinking about when I can next have some vegetables! I sip herbal tea and black coffee to try to calm the part of the craving that feels connected with ingesting something! I wrack my brain for something—anything—to do that will make me feel better.

Yesterday I did two workouts: 40 minutes of muscle sculpting (can you say lunges?) and 30 minutes of a fat burning, “special occasions” workout. After that, I still had too much energy; luckily it was time for lunch, so I ate and savored every bite of the grilled onion and bell pepper on top of my steak. Then I wandered around trying to decide what to do next. I finally decided to go looking for the diet book, to see when I could start adding in other foods and what they would be.

Apparently, this addiction thing is bigger than I thought! Well, that’s not entirely true. I knew it was big, but I thought it would be easy to kick. Get rid of the cigarettes and sugar…et voila! She’s cured! I thought that if I just put the focus on my dreams, all of this would pass away quietly. I can honestly say I really don’t want to face this part of myself. And by the laws of the Universe, that which we avoid comes back to haunt us.

So it looks like you’ll be hearing more about me learning how to face my addictions head on. I know I have described this blog as showing “the ups and downs of one woman getting a life,” but I think I was secretly hoping to avoid the downs. And that’s another lesson, isn’t it? Can’t have one without the other. Perfection is not an option, but I hear that happiness and peace are. I keep forgetting that I can be happy without having the “perfect” life. And maybe it will be perfect—well-suited—for me, but not free from challenge or change.

Craving perfection just doesn’t make me happy. But, I believe I can transform this craving for perfection into a craving for peace and happiness—one that comes from making good choices to create a life that is, at least, more of what I truly want.

Then again, maybe peace and happiness are already here, like Camellia says, and I'll just let the cravings go altogether!

© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.