inury update and a day off

My quad is healing relatively quickly. Not as quickly as the last time I pulled it, but fast enough for me to not be freaking out. I can climb stairs and stand up from a sitting position without much pain. I’m thinking I’ll take today and Thursday off completely. Friday I’ll do an hour long bike all zone 1 and zone 2, Saturday I’ll try a 45 minute zone 2 run. I have the Atomicman duathlon on Sunday. I’m relatively certain I won’t  be able to push myself at race pace but I’m still going to show up to run and bike nice and easy with my only goal being to finish. A finish still gives me points for the South West Challenge series, and I love competing in the SW series!

I didn’t work last night. This week was the 1^st time since December that I took more than 1 day off in a week, and being home with my wife and babies is my favorite thing in the world. Unfortunately celebration is a huge trigger for me, so I ended up struggling with my eating last night. I was able to avoid binging, but barely. With the exception of my struggles with my eating disorder it was a perfect night. As we were going to bed I told my wife, “For just one night I wish I wasn’t an addict. I wish I could be home and enjoy myself rather than having to struggle with my desire to binge eat.”

Today I start working with a 12 step sponsor, so I’m hoping I’ll begin to struggle less. He sent me a list of his expectations and I’m in agreement with all of them. I posted what he sent me in the email, but I changed some things to keep him anonymous.

He wrote:

So... I've been thinking about our sponsoring relationship. I am attaching the first set of reading/writing I'd like to have you work on. In my experience, it works really well to read my answers aloud to my sponsor. Have you ever done this?

Let's think about the tools:

1. Food Plan... Check. Could you please type up your plan and send it to me via email so I have it in print?

2. Sponsorship... Hey, that's me!

3. Meetings... What is your plan here? I'll admit that my own meeting attendance is spotty. Do you have a stated goal for meetings?

4. Telephone... Tell me about your phone usage for recovery/outreach calls. When I started OA-HOW, it was mandated to me that I would make or receive THREE live phone calls every day. I did it for 14 months, and it was awesome... and very stressful. It was definitely one of the things that drove me away from the program eventually. What's your willingness? What's your desire? What do you think your NEED is for phone calls?

5. Writing... I think this is key. Stepwork is WHY we get abstinent in the first place. I think, if at all possible, you should be writing every day, even if it's just to answer only one question. Or less... I like to just look at a clock. If I don't get the question answered in 15 minutes, I start on it again the next day, unless I'm really into it and I want to continue.

6. Literature. Ditto. Every day... But this goes hand in hand with the writing. Read, then write. Every day is a great plan.

7. Anonymity... Well, I don't know that I have any special thoughts on how to use this in our relationship, but of course I think it's important.

8. Service... We'll talk about this as we go.

9. Action plan... Again, I think this will be addressed as we go forward.

So, I guess the things we need to determine are:

How often should we talk on the phone? Are you able/willing to do reading and writing every day? How many people can you commit to calling every day, if any? What food plan will you follow? What's your plan for meetings?

Cody, it all boils down to this: How can I help support YOU in your recovery? If it fits into what I believe is helpful, from my experience, then I'm happy to do it. It helps me too.