"And call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you and you will honor me."
Psalm 50:15
Here it is, ANOTHER blog on addiction. I know I tend to focus on this quite a bit lately. For a week my psych meds have not been working like they should, and I have to wait a couple more days until I see my dr about them. With this being said, my brain and my emotions have been all over the place. With my brain and emotions running wild, my addictions have been pretty difficult to face to be honest. I've been hallucinating, hearing voices, and very paranoid. Why just a couple days ago I cried for an hour because I thought I was being a bad friend (I've been trying very hard to be a better friend to people, but that's for another blog for another day). I'm paranoid that everyone is going to leave me - I mean, REALLY paranoid about it. If I'm talking to someone, and they don't get back with me in a few minutes, I start freaking out, "Did I do something wrong? Did I say something I shouldn't have? Maybe they don't like me anymore? Maybe they don't want anything to do with me anymore?" I've been trying very hard to ignore those thoughts, but it's not easy. Paranoia + codependency is NOT a good combination.
My addictions though, I've been very tempted to cut. There's something about cutting that drowns out the noise in my brain. The voices seem to go away for a bit. This may be the same for others caught in addiction (such as alcoholics and drug addicts, they may say the same thing). I've been good about not giving into cutting so far though. Unfortunately, I have done some binge-eating. Not enough that'll make my stomach have more issues, but enough to make me gain more weight. I can't tell you how much cake I've been having lately. Every time I see cake, I have to have some. After weighing myself today though, I definitely realize I need to lay off the cake. That's going to be difficult to give up for a while, but if I want to get healthy, I've got to not have any for now. Time to make more smoothies!
When I'm caught in addiction, it screams at me when I don't give in. Seriously. It affects my brain and my body. I don't really know how to explain it. It consumes my thoughts and there's like this strong craving. It's like a girl and chocolate. Chocolate is a girl's best friend - until you take it away. You take away her chocolate her body craves it (I don't know if it's the sugar or what), she gets grumpy without it, and may do whatever it takes to get some chocolate. She passes down the chocolate aisle at the grocery store and it depresses her. She tries to reason with herself how one little chocolate won't hurt her. What harm could one small piece of chocolate do? Once she gives in, one little piece of chocolate isn't enough anymore. She has to eat a whole bar, then two bars, then an entire party pack, etc! It's a lot like that (for me at least anyway). Whether it's with food or cutting, this is what it does to me - and when I give into it, I feel even worse than before. I feel like a failure, I feel further away from God, and guess what that does? It makes me feel even worse, so then I do it again. It's this endless cycle! I'm going through the Steps Program with Celebrate Recovery and it's been tough. I've been learning not only what my problem is, but why I have these problems too. Stuff that I've buried that I didn't want to deal with has been coming back. My tendency is to give into my addictions and just bury them again, but I'm having to deal with them without giving into my addictions. It makes my addictions scream to give into them, but I'm having to just let them be, and if I have to cry, I have to cry. It's not easy to allow yourself to cry (or at least for me it's not easy).
Something I've been learning is that when my addictions are screaming at me, I really have to rely on Christ to help me. There have been times where I literally go to him in tears, just begging for him to save me from these addictions. It doesn't necessarily mean he'll take away the addictions. For some people he does, for others he doesn't. Sometimes it's the thorn in our side that we have to deal with until the day we die - and as miserable as that is, it's okay. Everyone has their struggles. We have to cling to Jesus and rely on him to help us through them.
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.
1 Peter 5:10
The more we cling to Jesus and don't give into our addictions, the stronger we become. He understands your suffering, and he will restore you.
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