So, maybe here's my confession, a confession

I'm reading my way through a pile of books to get prepared for a conference I am going to in April.  One of those books is Lit by Mary Karr.

Mary Karr had a nightmarish childhood: sexual, physical, verbal and mental abuse – she knew it all. Her mother, though brilliant, struggled with mental illness and did not appear have much of any capacity for parenting. Her father roved in and out of her life but remained in many ways her hero, saulty though he was. Mary Karr herself had a brilliant mind that her early years of debauchery failed to destroy. Then she appeared to marry well and build an enviable, to other writers and educators, life.

But she drank. She was addicted to alcohol. She was ruled by alcohol. Alcohol owned her and, for a time, had such a claim on her life, she was willing to risk everything else to hold a glass, a bottle of any alcoholic beverage in her hand, believing as she drank it, her life would be better, if only for a moment. Finally, after more than one effort, she began the journey toward sobriety that she would discover would require an honesty more painful than she imagined, would introduce her to real, and community, would lead her into a relationship with God, the one with a capital G.

And she jerked my chain, well, her words did. She wrote about the power alcohol had in her life, even when she knew it would or could cost her everything. She wrote about the ugliness she saw in the lives of other alcoholics, yet she persisted, continuing in what she could acknowledge was self-destructive behavior.

I read a newspaper article many years ago that talked about how some alcoholics are truly addicted to carbohydrates, and how some people who struggle with obesity could have as easily become alcoholics. And today, as I finished Lit, I wondered how closely am I to alcoholism or carbohydrate addiction.

I lose weight. I have lost weight, 40 pounds at a clip, swearing I will never have to do it again, swearing that I will be in control, and in too few years, I stand at the abyss again looking across 40 or 50 pounds again.

Here I sit, looking at those pounds, this time more than 40, but knowing I would be happy with the 40. And I look through the looking glass and see my alcoholic father, the one I loved to hate and wonder how thin the line is between us. His addiction was public; mine secret, but I choose to eat the chocolate bar (Kit Kats a favorite), the cookie, the French fries with as much momentary passion as he approached the glass of liquor, as mindlessly as he did. And probably, I have come to hate myself and my weakness as he did, from time-to-time, because I do remember periods of his sobriety, when he would say he wasn’t an alcoholic because he could go without drinking. And I use the word probably because I don’t want to admit the reality of my own self-hate.

Am I so different? I can go months without eating a piece of chocolate, but when I fall off the wagon, the fall feels so complete and so impossible to stop that I find myself not even knowing how many pieces of forbidden carbs I have injested,

Mary Karr knew her life style could lead her to the streets. My father knew his alcohol consumption could cost him his family, if not his life. My addiction to carbs, because that is what it is, could cost the respect of my children and grandchildren, my own health….my own self-respect. And that is not say what it does really to my relationship with God. How can I hate what he loves? How can I give control to anything but his Spirit, and that is what I do to carbs, when I allow myself to come under their spell?

Just as Mary Karr found excuses to refuse help, so do I find excuses to do it alone – to rationalize my way out of exercise groups, weightwatcher meetings or Bible studies that focus on life modification.

And I must face the reality that I haven’t hit bottom yet, and what, I wonder, would that look like, and would I survive it? And do I need to hit bottom? Is today bottom? In God's mercy, is today the day that I say, with God's help, with the help of the Body, I will aspire toward Spirit control - not carb- control? Is today the day that I will humble myself and post this knowing what this transparency might mean? Accountability? Embarrassing comments or offers of help? Or maybe, an undergirding of prayer from those I love?  Well, here we go...I'm leaping into the abyss.