To Work or to Eat, that is my question! Binge, Binge, Binge!!

Two hours a day is what I am devoting to this blog and my website.

John Chow,  http://www.johnchow.com/  who is a blogging wizard makes millions on ads for his blogs.  He advises two hours a day should be dedicated to your online pursuits if you want to see success.  I am not looking for success in monetary value, but more traffic to my blog is pretty exciting.

Two hours is not over doing it in the addiction category and it gives me something rewarding to fill my time with and not just being busy for the sake of being busy.   The more I study up on workaholism the more I understand that workaholics aren't necessarily good employees.   They stretch themselves too thin with needless tasks.  I seen this in my old boss.  He had a great business plan but wasted so much time on flow charts and things that were not necessary to the daily running of his business.  He wasn't focused because he was still in obsession.

I want to move away from obsession and not just busy myself with useless menial tasks.  Still filling a void so that I am not shoveling my face with chocolate chips or laying in bed fantasizing about the hot playboy that will be my reward after this three months is up... or worse yet getting high because I am bored and have nothing better to do.

Four to five hours of work a day,  six days a week is my focus to keep the bacon on the table and a roof over my families head.  Two hours a day on my blog.  That is seven work hours each day.  I think that's pretty reasonable don't you?

Falling into the pits of depression and not even making these hours has been a struggle. The anorexic side of addiction.  The flip side of more more more.  The purge.  The addict, in my case I have named her Lady Vixen, throwing up her hands in a tantrum.  This is how addicts keep control.  Discipline to not use is part of the cycle.

For me something always falls into step to refocus my addict

 I have been eating my sorrows away and busted the poor zipper in my favorite Etnies hoodie today.   It was a huge eye opener that I am fattening up nice a good, unfortunately I am not a turkey and this is not a good thing.   How can I be heading into a detox when the scale is climbing at a  steady rate?

Whenever I would enter a purge phase of an addiction the week before the infamous Monday start date I would binge the  shit out of whatever I was about to fast off of.  If it was dope I would have one last bender... this is when many addicts overdose, this or a relapse.  This is when the fat girls get the last of their favorite tubs of ice cream in and all those completely forbidden foods.   In large doses.  Its the workaholic working double time before a holiday.

I used to convince myself its because I would become ill with over dosing myself on the addiction and then it makes it easier to purge it.   To some extent this is true... but more in truth for me it actually just spins the addiction tighter making it harder to release.  So this is why many juice cleanses speak about phasing in to prepare your body and mind and as well to wean off the addictions.  Ease the symptoms.

Well I am weaning off all my addictions and its hard not to swing the pendulum into complete purge.  Not working my full hours in a day is easy for me.  I am not monitored in my job.  As long as my list gets done it doesn't matter the hours I put in really.   I have to be very careful here as my negative mind or inner critic as I have spoken about before can start to chew the shit out of my self esteem and then lead me into an addiction to shut her up.

Working my allotted hours is not a joke to be taken lightly.  Its the real deal to keep me on track to this detox.   The two hours here at this blog will be the reward for getting the four hours in.   I am trying to reset my dopamine paths within my brain.  This would be a good reset I think.

Well thats my concern for today.  Keeping my work balance.  This in turn dominoes in a good way my over eating from boredom.   The cycles can spin upwards as well I guess.  I sure hope so I have one hell of a cycle to unspin over the next three months.

Questions for you... Do you struggle with workoholism?  Do you swing the purge pendulum and struggle to get off the couch to go to work??  Here is another great article on the effects of over working and how it compares so closely to that of a crack addiction.

  https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-workaholics/201112/understanding-the-dynamics-workaholism

In my experience sex, food and working have been more detrimental addictions for me then drugs ever were.  At least with drugs they are not accepted by society and therefor help is found easily if you want it and funding in plentiful for those needing to bow out of the rat race in order to get better.  With workaholism... You don't work,  you don't eat.

Refresh

Well this is better.   I have moved my computer to a location I can sit comfortably and write.  I miss writing.  My platform and where I promote it is shifting however.  I used to write for my family and friends on facebook.  However this caused some unease for me as I write some pretty personal stuff about myself and my family in these pages.  But I don't know any other way to market my writing.

I want to share my story in the a way that takes the reader on a journey through the trials and tribulations with me.  But my path keeps shifting and taking on different avenues and down back streets that what once a reader was comfortable with now they are not.  How do I change and keep my support group with me?

When I started this blog it was definitely drug recovery focused.  As that shifted away from my trails I hid all my Narcotics anonymous posts.  But I don't feel right about that because it has been a pivitol part of my journey.  Yet my support group from that time era has moved out of my scope of vision as I no longer adhere to the strict rules that the fellowship holds themselves too.  So I feel like a hypocrite.

Keeping my family in the loop of my recovery was okay until I began to unearth the childhood traumas that brought me to the sick cycles I am looping now in my life.  Its uncomfortable speaking about how much I hate my mother when I know she reads my blog.  Because In truth I don't hate her but in this point of history I really need to hate her to express the feelings that keep finding dope as the only way to release.

So how then do I market this blog?   I have hit over ten thousand reads and have had many personal comments about my journey but that's not what I am looking for.   I want to have more interaction with people in general on this platform.  I need a new support group and finding it in the physical in my small northern city is not an option at this point.   I need to move into this new era of online support.

So I am going to once again revamp my blog.  My focus more on detox and living in the void.  Sharing my experience of what happens when I enter into the void.   A new look and new pages and researching new markets to launch myself from.   Its time for me to enter into a new era of my healing journey and invite new people along with me.

Its a refresh stage!

Please I invite you to comment below.   If you have been reading my posts up till now, let me know I would love to hear from you.

Day One: Phase in Detox. Baby Steps

I need to manifest a better work station for my blogging.  Pulling up my brown leather chair from my sofa set and sitting in front of my 42 in tv is not working or me.  The mouse doesn't reach my right side so I am forever crossing over my body to click the little thing.

All in due time I guess.  This move from my three bedroom town house with a full basement to a two bedroom apartment with a closet for storage is turning out to be a larger adjustment then I anticipated.  Part of the detox process I am in.  Less in rent money affords me a job with less hours so I can focus on self care and reblancing my addictive self.

I always taught my weight loss clients to first visualize where they are going and then take baby steps to get there.  I am taking my own advice today.  I haven't defined where I am going yet, only that I was in too much pain to stay where I was.  I don't think I am ready to define where I am going.  The pain of staying the same is great enough right now to keep me motivated.  Maybe I will remind myself of my vision when my motivation during this detox period fades.

Baby steps is what I am looking at right now.   Part of my addictive cycle is purging.  I get a huge high off the self discipline it takes to completely purge my addictive substance of the moment.  I love food fasts, the spiritual high I get is intense while starving myself.  I feel empowered when I am able to say no to sex or drugs.  I also feel great when I don't spend a dime and put it all in savings.

All of these actions though sacrifice my self care.  Food fasting masked as detoxes have there time and place, for me its too addictive and has no place in my world.  It just keeps me in a sick cycle of bingeing after I come out of it.  I might not binge for a very long time but I always end up back into a binge cycle where the purge after is the sought after high.

So today I need to take baby steps out of my addictions.   Its easy to say no more wine or weed.  Neither I have indulged in, in an unhealthy fashion for a very long time.  To go three months without them doesn't break a sweat on my forehead, even six months would not cause an issue.   I enjoy wine occasionally and have proved to myself its not a substance that spins me out of control, more just a rat Lady Vixen is surviving on.   So this is a detox step that is very easy to take and considered begun yesterday on my day one.

Food is going to be the trickiest at this point because its a daily issue and it has so many layers to it.  I am drawing heavily from my time as a weight loss coach here,  I am starting with cutting the foods out that I know make me sick instantly.  Timmies coffee, pop and chips are easy to go.  I don't like them all that much and they are so toxic for me they hold no benefits.

I will have to look at not having large cakes or sweet treats in my house.  I cannot control myself if they are within my grasp.  Its the same with weed.  I cannot have that in my home or I smoke it till its gone whether I wanna smoke or not.  I eat cake whether I want it or not if its here.  So my goal this week is to get rid of all sweet treats from my apartment.

The romance junkie is working overtime to mess with my mind.  I remember why sleeping with this recent guy was on my off limits list.  Its hard to shut this addiction down once its opened up.  Sex is so good with him its all I can think about for days after.  I wake up to thoughts of it and I fall asleep to thoughts of it.  Which lead to increased libido which needs attention and cause I am not acting out, well I act in the privacy of myself.... if you get what I mean.   Which means I am breaking my no sex rules.

This is an area that will need constant work over the next couple weeks but once I am free from the thoughts I will be able to breath some relief for awhile in this area.   It will be after a couple months where I will start to climb the walls and the true work of this detox will come into play.

Well there you have it my report from day one of my three month total pleasure seekers detox.   Baby steps.  Revised plan.  One month phase into the total detox.  Three months in total detox and then one month transition back into healthy living.   I will devise a list of what is being detoxed within the next month and will have it posted on my home page.

I invite you to detox with me and share in my journey.   We can do together what we could not alone.

A Gift on the Eve of Detox

On the eve of my impending three month detox, I was blessed with a gift to indulge one last time in a behavior that is not so much detrimental to my being as it is unhealthy for the path I want to embark on.  

I am grateful for the call from a man I can trust to take me into my last unhealthy manipulated dopamine spike.

I love how awareness works for me.   Because I knew this was going to be the last time for awhile that I would play in this arena and maybe a forever, I was entirely present for each and every single moment of the process.

 As the inviting texts began my heart rate started to increase.   Having been with this guy several times in that past two years I know fully what to expect.  My body loves what this man draws out of it.  My mind is already replaying every single one of our past interactions.... of course only the highs.

As I let the memories dance in my mind I began to mildly shake.    Like this rippling vibration was taking over my body.    I have never noticed this before.   I compared the feeling to dropping a hit of ecstasy.    If you have ever experienced MDMA before you  might have experienced your body's vibration shift and this flood of excitement followed by peace and intense love.  I am sure its the flood of dopamine pulsing through my veins that cause my eyes balls to shake

I could almost stop the process at this point because I believe this is truly the high I get, the full anticipation of what I know is about to come.  And if it was any other man I would languish in this moment as long as I could.  But its not any other man its the one that has found a way to make love within the context of a booty call.  Intoxicating.

Plus Lady Vixen has already kicked me out of the drivers seat at this point, there is no stopping this bus now.  Nor do any of my inner beings wish for this to end yet.

True to my expectation I was delivered to the stars, around the moon twice and placed so gently back on earth it almost hurts to say goodbye.   Well two days later now.... it actually did hurt to say goodbye.

The high is still seeping through my energy fields but the lows are filtering back in again.  I fell pregnant with creative energy and in the past i used this energy to seek out more of that high.  This is where the addictive cycle would always start for me and the insatiable desire to have another night with this fine specimen of a man.  But alas...... I am in detox today.

So I choose to nurse the high, ride this wave till it naturally crashes into the sand.  What I believe to be what normal people would do in a similar situation.  My belly is still warm with creation and my heart is still flooded with the love induced.

Its my head that I struggle with.  The flipping thoughts of wanting to contact him and the realizations that we are not meant for each other in any other compacity then this.  I feel sad and the loneliness that induces threatens to crush me.  Until I flip it around and feel grateful to have had a moment like this on the eve of my three month detox.

One thing that learning about dopamine has done for me is its removed the shame from my acting out.  We were both consenting adults that talked about what we were doing before and after.  I feel good about that.  Even in a once so unhealthy it was detrimental to my life situation, I have seen tremendous healing and growth in the guilt and shame area.

It is this process that has convinced me I am close to that last level of recovery.  I fully believe that one day I will be free of the pleasures that had once bound me in chains.

Sex and an insatiable desire to be loved without putting the time and energy into making something real has been the heaviest chain to bare.   Food and a slave to eating my feelings away during socially acceptable thanksgivings where gorging one self is a time honored tradition.  Working and making more and more and more money to buy more and more and more stuff is a silly cycle that already cost me my family.  And well of course there are the drugs that stripped me of my humanness.

I have at some point or another already detoxed from each and everyone of these as I have already stated in my post the other day.  But to do it all at once is only acceptable because I am on the last layers of detox.  Its the rats that I feast on that are keeping lady vixen at bay and not destroying her entirely.

I have conquered her demons already.  Its time now to remove the rats from her grasp and let her wither from starvation.

Pleasure seekers guide to Detox

I have been on the recovery journey for a pretty long time.   Hindsight is one of those things that help you to see that you have been on a path that has gone much deeper then you realized.

Its my birthday this weekend.  Coupled with the new moon and the partial solar eclipse.  In my little reality of understanding that's a power house combination.   I always set an intent every year on my birthday for the upcoming year.  I always do a tarot spread laying out the frame work for that intent and pay close attention to the pitfalls heading my way within the intent creation process.

This year as was my intent for last year, is too see recovery wrap up in my life.  I wish to circle the last wrung of this cycle that I have been in for most of my life.   I once believed that I would never get out of this pattern as it is who I am.  A part of me felt that it's a disease that will never be far from my reality.   I no longer believe that.

Through experience I have proved to myself my addictions are not a disease.  I have come to learn my addictions are learned coping behaviors and manipulation of my own chemical reactions to release dopamine on my terms.   I have mastered how to keep my serotonin and dopamine levels spiked.

Not the greatest thing to master if you ask me.

When I came into drug recovery the hindsight for me was understanding my three years working at a weight loss clinic not only afforded me my own weight loss but taught me how controlling food was in my life.  A piece of chocolate cake spikes a dopamine rush.  I was over 200bls because I abused sugar to keep myself in a rush state.

And like dope there was always a crash after the spike thus creating an obsessive pattern.

Working in a job that is rewarding and recognition is cash bonuses, is a toxic environment for me.  This is a much more recent realization for me as I am in a position now where there is no recognition for the work I do and no major thrill for me to do it.  Many benefits to my job yes, but no dopamine spikes that's for sure.  Money is another place I get spikes, getting the paychecks and spending them give me the highs and lows that food did.  If I won the lottery it would probably kill me, it would be like the crack to my weed addiction.

And of course sex and men is the most constant basket I have put all my eggs in.   That dopamine spike has the full range contained within it.  Mild self play to the intense drug accompanied orgasm brought on by the hot guy.   Nothing and I mean nothing compares to that shot of dopamine and serotonin in the same moment in time.   Fantastic.  For a moment.  then the crash hits.   As it does every time with every single one of these toxic poorly motivated avenues of pleasure.

My bad cop of the good cop/bad cop therapists has asked me to abstain from all of the ways I act out on my addictive nature.  I have been in this process of elimination for over ten years now.  Learning to eat properly was my first elimination.  I know exactly when I am eating to stuff a feeling, to control my happy brain drug.   She has asked me to stop that.   Apparently I need to move past awareness again.

I can do that I did it for a few good years.  I had wonderful discipline in the food arena.  Problem was I replaced my food habits with dope.   So she has asked me to quit all drugs including glasses of wine.  Again,  no problem,  I have seen years at a time without these aids.  Not worried, piece of cake..... ahhh, nope scratch the piece of cake, cant go back there.

K cant drug, cant over eat.  Fine lets get busy and work!!

Ya right, the devils therapist says no money over the amount needed to just live on.  No part time jobs, no extra funds to spend, no playing with money, no distracting myself with work.   Fuck.  Now she is starting to dig into places that are getting scary.   She says I keep my addict alive this way.

Its all about the motivation behind things.   Every single one of my addictions is acceptable even down to smoking a little weed to relax.  Problem for me is that I have gotten so good at interchanging them that I am a slave to my addict not the substance.

And lastly all things sex and boys needs to go for the next three months.

Let me repeat that.... all..... things.....male.....and sex...... needs..... to.....be.....abstained.....from.....for.....three...... months!!!

Double fuck with chocolate sauce.   That my friends is asking a lot of me.   It is only now that I am starting to feel the full power lady vixen has had over me and my life.  If its not food over eating it was toxic men and dirty sex.  If it wasn't dope it was over working.  There has always been something that I have been a slave too.

Let me lay this out more clearly.  Eating healthy is a pretty accepted fad these days.  lots of info available for people to understand how to eat well and the effects that has on your body.  People are becoming more aware of the stresses of work and money and the bad behaviors that over working can bring out in people.  Shopaholics are funny little women with a closet full of shoes and a pissed off, broke, over worked husband.  Right?  We have bread acceptable addictions and even healthy ways to get out of them.... but what about sex?

Sex for me folks is never with some one I love.  Romance is never with a guy I am truly attracted to.   Its a cycle of chase and conquer and move on.   Read my blog for the past two years and tell me how many guys I have been in love with, how many guys have been the one.  lol   Huge joke.

Giving up sex is like giving up a food addiction.  You have to learn what is healthy and what is not.  I have learned what is healthy for me with substances and what is not.  I am now learning what is healthy for me in my work field and what is not.  I am learning what I can handle for cash and what triggers the crazy in me.

So to abstain from it all, at the same moments in time.   Fuck.   I will have to learn a whole new way to cope on a way deeper scale then just the one categories I have been dealing with up until now. I am grateful I have worked a full set of the twelve steps and am aware and have accepted my lack of control with my addict and have bared my secrets and am still working through my resentments.  Because now I can go deeper in my understanding.

  My therapist explained to me the purpose of this is to reset my dopamine levels back to normal.   She also included that rewiring the brain to healthy ways to release dopamine in a more natural way where I am not a slave to it.  That coupled with intense counselling around my childhood traumas.... hopefully will enhance my over all reality in the end.

It means I am moving out of the disease of all or nothing thinking.   I will fall in love one day and make amazing love to a super hot guy.  I will work a career again that I am passionate about.  I will be able to have a piece of cake and be able to stick to just one slice again and I will be able to have a fat bank account again one day. And I can go back to enjoying a glass of wine occasionally with my dinner and have a night on the town with the girls without it ending in the random one night stand.

I know this to be true because i have achieved this in all the areas of my life at one point or another recently.  I have just never tried to do them all at the same time before.

But first I must detox Lady vixen out.    Oh goody.  I am looking so forward to this.  I invite you to journey through my discomfort with me... it will be .... joyous.  not.

When is it OK to be Depressed?

The power of positive thought.   You control your reality.  What you see around you is what you have created for yourself.  You choose your feelings each day.  You choose your thoughts each day.

These are all beliefs that I have come to live by.   I have a good life because of these tried and true beliefs.

I am swinging the pendulum back into depression.

For the past few weeks.... hmmm... maybe more stretching into a couple of months.... I have been working over time to counter my negative feelings with positive thoughts.  I have engaged in all the happy activities that pull me out of the slums of my mind.  I have even accepted that I am not really in a truly happy phase of my life today in hopes that this acceptance and action will change the course of these blues.

I have even fell victim to my old ways and sought out distractions.   All the distractions that once worked are no longer holding any power for me any more.  I am not getting the relief I have achieved in the past from my toxic but effective behaviors.

My beautiful therapist, the one I have been walking with the past year, not the devils mistress she has brought on board recently to pick me apart, asked me if I have ever been able to just sit with my feelings.

I realize I have never been able to stay entirely present with the process of my feelings.  I have in the past been able to acknowledge my feelings.  It was fun during the acknowledgement phase to begin to understand and actually meet for the first time many of my feelings.  So when she asked me this I was pretty confident that I had sat with my feelings before.

Staying present with them in their entirety is a totally different ball game I am coming to learn.

I have become a master of manipulating my feelings.   When I came into drug recovery the main focus was not using mind altering drugs to change your feelings.  In that process I became very aware of the replacements I used instead of drugs to change my feelings.  Sex and love relationships of course became very obvious and for me was the chicken before the egg in my already aware reality.

Work was another replacement for me feelings.  In early drug recovery I was advised to try to take a year off work and relationships.  I never understood why then, but I understand that now.  They are pretty great distractions to our feelings.  I can throw myself into my job and into a relationship, thus catapulting myself out of my own energy and into something else.

Another way I get out of my feelings is through fellowship and friends.   Becoming overly involved in service to others is a really great way to get out of yourself....a healthy and honorable way.  Not saying this is a bad thing, just like working a job you love isn't wrong or falling deeply in love and loosing yourself isn't wrong either.  It's the motivation behind these acts.

All in their place and time.

Staying present with the process of my feelings good and bad, but not getting entirely sucked in and stuck is the lesson I am engaging in.    Learning to reach in and not out is where I am at today.  I asked the universe a few months ago to teach me how to be strong within myself.  A friend said to me the other day home isn't a place you go to, its what you carry within you.  

Learning to sit with my hurts and not get back together with the guy to get out of them..... accepting that I am depressed and not sauntering out to get a part time job to fill my time so I don't hurt...... letting the stings of my addictive cycles sink in and not rush out to get loaded.....  Are the only ways through this phase of my healing.

I want to become fully healed.  I believe in full recovery from my addictive nature.  I have the utmost faith in the fact that one day I will look back at my life and be entirely grateful that I moved away from a limiting story that held me trapped in a life that was continually torturing me.

I am not an addict.  I am a woman that was never taught how to cope.   I am not a co-dependent.  I was a woman trapped in a society that breeds dependence.  I am not a Christian, Pagan, Mormon or any other cult like persona.   I have a very strong beautiful goddess within me that guides me through my feelings and thoughts when I am still enough to hear them.

I am staying present with my depression so that I can understand why I create this story I am living.  I stay present with the process so that for the first time I can come through the cycle and not get trapped like I have for decades.

The trick I am finding to staying present and not drowning is to stay in the moment.... every moment. Within the depression are these incredible moments of peace, which when recognized and honored lead to a deep love of self.   ((I am having one of those moments now.))   Finding the beauty in the sadness.  Understanding that there is a purpose behind every feeling when you are surrendered to your higher power and are constant in the moment.

Today.... I am OK being depressed.  I am actually better then okay, I am.... enjoying it????