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Your hand reaches out in the dark.  It is pitch black but it doesn't matter it knows where it is going.   It grabs your phone and flips it over.  It's trained and without thinking you type in your password.  It continues to flip thru the apps without sit or thought.  Again, it is trained and it knows what it is doing.  Then electric guitar screams at you from the blackness of mid-morning.  It is a familiar sound and your eyes snap open and to attention. You sit up right at the time Brian Johnson starts talking about being stuck in the middle of a railroad track.  By the time he is done announcing that you have been Thunderstruck your done pissing and ready for the shower.  Not only that but you are rocking out.  You are ready to face the day. Why not, you have been up on and off thru night with Singapore.  However, that isn't really why the blood is pumping.  That isn't why you are up at the ass crack of dawn of 5:15 and up moving around and happy to do it.  No the real reason is that today is your day.  You have four days a year that you are at your best.  They happen at the end of each quarter and you live for these days.  These are the days that you know you earn your pay check. These are the days you rise to the occasion and hit the clutch shot.  Its what you do.  Today really is the reason you do what you do.  It is the reason you love doing what you.  Today is either all guts and glory or its failure.  Its all or nothing and its not for the faint of heart.  You can't count the number of quarter ends you have done.  You don't want too, b/c that might make you feel old.  You can't feel old today because today you have to be at your best, because today you are best.    You wheel and deal and approve and stand your ground.  You do what it takes to get the job done.  Your out of the shower and your not sleep walking to your clothes you are hustling towards them.  You need to be at the office in your command center.  Your ready.  Never been more ready your surrounded by your best team ever.  Other people who want to step and play at your level.  Your bouncing in your car seat before you even get to Pete's.  A small cup will do today.  You haven't had coffee even decaf in a while, but today you need it, b/c sleep wasn't your ally last night.  Coffee is milked and sweetened and you get in the car and you put Thunderstruck back on the radio.  You turn you stereo up as loud as it can go and you rock!   Thunderstruck turns to Rock'N'Roll Train and the beat starts to take when it is cut off and your first call of the day rolls in.  It is time, and that is ok, b/c today there is no food obsession.  There is no worrying if we are doing enough to be healthy.  No, not today, b/c today is all about being great and closing.  I am great today!  That is a good place to start!  We will worry about tomorrow tomorrow, but for now Let's be GREAT, b/c it is my day.

 

 

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I have been sitting here for over an hour trying to find something to write.  Some days you just don't have anything.  I even searched for something old, that I could post, just to keep the streak alive and I really didn't come up with anything.  Looking through my emails, I can't even begin to tell you how many times I was going to change my life the next.  How there was just one last binge. How there was one last mistake.  How it all was going to change.  I wonder how much of those do overs that never panned out was simple do to the fact, I didn't really want to change.  Did I want to be thin.  Yes.  Did I want to be able to exercise more and be healthy.  Yes.  However, I didn't want to do anything different.  Like George Foreman was going to eat cheeseburgers on his weigh to the heavy weight title, I wanted to eat cheeseburgers to the finish line.  I can honestly tell you right now I have no idea how I am going to get my life back on track.  I don't know how I am going to stop myself from gaining more weight.  However, I think that I know that I really do have to change if I want to make a difference is a good thing.  I think I am ready to change now for the first time ever.  Perhaps that is a step in the right direction.   I think the other thing I am starting to realize is when I do fix this it isn't a temporary thing.  It is not like I can quit eating crap for a while then go back to it.  I have to change.  I have to put things like healthy, and happiness above all else and I have to be willing to reach out and grab those things.  It isn't going to be easy.  There is no easy fix.  I think that is the harsh reality of the situation.  For the first time in my life I can't just go forward and expect to get to where I want to go.  Unlike most things in my life this isn't going to be given to me.  I won't be able to sleep walk through it like I did High School and college.  It can't be something I only apply myself part time to.  I actually have to make a long lasting change in my life.  There is hope.  I have a few leads I am working on.  I have a few avenues I am going to try.  I am going to work hard at this.  Because I am tired of slowly killing myself.  I don't want to do that anymore.  I want to live.  I want to get better. 

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Nothing really to report today.  Great walk this morning.   My eyes itch really bad.  I had a few tears even roll down my face.  My allergies are really bad.  

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Super tired right now and I am sure this will be riddled with typos, but I have to get this out.  More because I promised myself I would write everyday, even if it is only two words. Or as something as simple as yesterday and just a picture a few words and a happy day!  I think I took a big step today.  I admitted to a friend that I needed help.  that I couldn't control my eating on my own.  I think that is really huge, because I know I have an issue with compulsive eating, and I know that I want to deal with it and move on with my life.  Things have been so hard lately.  I have been getting it from all sides and I have not done a good job at taking care of myself.  I am still not 100% sure what my next step is, however,  I am committed to move forward and trying to figure that out.  If it is going to a live OA meeting.  Trying to find a sponsor.  Reaching out to a gentlemen Rachel pointed out to me who lost 180 pounds, he is local, and I think it would be so good for me to understand how he did it and have someone to talk to about it.  Honestly, I am going to do both go to OA and reach out to this dude.  However, I am not stopping there.  I am going to start leaning on my resources I already have.  I know a bunch of people who already do a lot of the stuff I want to be doing.  So, maybe it is time started getting back out in the world.  Also, as I was talking about with Rachel today it is so important to remember and be grateful for what we have.  It is so easy to go into a black hole, but if we remember to be grateful and we remember all the good in the world, then it is also easier to get positive.  If you are positive you feel good and if you feel good you want to do things to keep making you feel good.  Look I don't have all the answers right now, but I realize now as dark as it is, and as much as I can go off the rails that I am moving forward.  I am doing a lot of good things for Billy b right now.  That I am better now than I was two weeks ago.  That I am working through the darkness so I can enjoy the light.  That if I think good things, then good things will happen.  I am coming through this, I know I am and I am committed to keep moving forward and getting better.  Now off to bed with me.

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Rachel and Shiner sent me this and wished me a Happy Easter!  I thought it was funny as can be.  I got a good laugh out of it this a.m.  Happy Easter to everyone!  

it was a busy day.  I cooked two meals and a two quiches.  Had a great walk this afternoon.  All and all a pretty great weekend!

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I was thinking about what I was going to have for breakfast before I thought about anything else this morning.  There wasn't a question if I was hungry or not.  If I needed sustenance or not. It was just waking up and it was time to eat, it is what I was supposed to do.  The next thought after thinking about what I wanted to eat for breakfast was what am I going to cook this weekend.  It wasn't am I going to go walk, swim, or watch the Elite 8.  How am I going to have food for all of next week.  I got out of bed and went take my medicine and all the time my mind was bouncing between breakfast and cooking for the week.  I started to feel stressed over it.  I started to think maybe what this means that food controls my life.  I started to wonder if maybe the podcast i was listening didn't start to make sense.  What if I am powerless against food?  What if food has become my addiction of choice?  I decided I wasn't going to go anywhere for breakfast.  Instead, I walked back and got into bed and went back to sleep.  While I was sleeping I had this strange dream.  I was at home, not here at my house, but home, home, 7825 South Sycamore.  It was night and I was in the big red basement where I spent so much of my formative years.  I was alone and it was dark.  Then out of the floor popped two little black skeletons.  No more than knee high.  Instead of having humanoid head.  They have black headed birds head, even the beaks were black. They were absolutely terrifying.  However, I was frozen there looking at them.  Then each moved towards me and I couldn't move, I couldn't turn.  I just stood there.  They each grabbed a leg and wrapped around it tightly.  I tried to move again and I couldn't.  Then I felt myself being pulled down into darkness..  I was being over taken because the bird skeletons which were no longer skeletons but instead a black mist.  They were pulling me down and over taking me.  I was becoming possessed by a dark force that was so far beyond my comprehension.  I just felt like I was sinking down.  I tried to move but my body was not under my own control. The only thing I had control over was my mind.  Everything else frozen.  However my mind was still free.  So, I told myself I was not going to let this these things take me down.  that I 

was not going to lose to these things. I told myself I had my will and with that I could do anything. So an epic battle for my soul started.  It was like helms deep, it raged on for what seemed like ions.  In the end I was able to shed them. Then I ran. I ran up stairs.  Everything was still black.  The entire world was black tinted.  I saw my sister Heidi.  I saw she was frozen in place.  I saw the black skeleton birds hugging her legs.   I told her she had to think.  Think and use her will and mind, then she could shake them.  I then turned and I realized these awful black skeleton toucans were all over the house.  As I turned and saw Heidi break free, i turned back and two more little black buggers grabbed me. They started to morph into black smoke and pull me in.  That is when I told Heidi to throw me my lightsaber, if I had that, then i could use it to focus my will on and it would be easier to fight the black skeleton head toucans with the mini human bodies. Then, i was awake.and I was terrified.  I laid there with that empty feeling you have sometimes after nightmares.  Thinking and wondering just what in the fuck just happened.  I was cold and bothered.  However, i dozed again.  Then I woke up and it was a quarter of noon. This time my first thought wasn't about food, not really. I thought about step 1.  Thought, am I really powerless over food. I was like this is starting to make sense to me.  Perhaps, just perhaps there was something to this.  I got up.  I thought about trying to make everything smaller.  to take it one day at a time.  I decided I would listen to a podcast about Oa again today.  I walked.  It was a good walk.  I started to contemplate what that dream meant.  I am sure a lot of people would have  a lot of different theories on it.  In my mind I am still trying to figure it out.  Are the birds my addiction or they my issues I have been carrying my whole life.  Is my mind my god?  Is it they one thing that can save me from my own addictions?  I don't know.  What I do know is that I will just take it one day at a time.  That is all I can do.   I am really thinking about joining oa.  What I have done doesn't work.  Maybe it is time to try something knew.  Make the world smaller.  Make everything smaller and one day at a time.  

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IU and NC for a trip to the elite 8.  Sounds like a pretty good Friday night to me.  Been a long time since I have been able to sit down and watch IU in the Sweet 16.  Hopefully they will represent.  I don't watch college basketball anymore.  However, I watch faithfully in March.  I don't care who is on, if I am home, I am watching.  Let's got IU!

I have now listened to two OA podcasts.   I am warming up to the idea.  I think I am scared because I know I am at the bottom right now.  It has been a really shitty week.  Can't go into it all, but trust me it sucks.  I also know the way I have been trying to do it doesn't work.  I think I get mad and scared when I think about making changes and part of me really thinks that is the addiction and the void talking to me.  Trying to get me to turn off the path.  

I also reached out to a friend to try and get in touch with another 40 year old in San Jose who lost the weight already, over 180 pounds.  I would like to talk to that dude.  I'd love to understand what got him going?  Was he just eating like shit or was he compelled to do it.  Was it his narcotic of choice?  I heard that on a podcast today.  It made sense.  I use the food to try and hide from all the shit I have been hiding from my whole life.  

so things are going good.  It is Friday and it is the weekend.  Tomorrow is swimming and maybe sunday too.  So, by Monday we will be right as rain!

 Well IU down 12 not looking good right now... but 28 plus to play...

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How many times have we been here before?  How many times have we tried to pick ourselves up from the bottom of another rut?  Only right now I am not even sure I want to climb out of this rut.  Everything seems to be spinning, spinning, and spinning further out of control.  You look around for a break but there is nothing.  You sit and plot your next binge.  You think about all the things you should have for dinner and then you think about what you want for dinner.  The two things are never one in the same.  Two days ago you made a phone call.  The phone call you wanted to change your life, but it didn’t.  The more you thought about the phone call the more you realized why you had hated it the first time around.  You are not 100% sure which you have a bigger issue with people not taking responsibility for what is going on in their lives or the non-stop reference to God.  Look I can’t sit here and say I am an atheist, because I don’t know if I am one or not.  I believe that there is something out there.  I don’t know what it is.  I call it Ka, because Ka makes sense to me.  I know that sounds pretty fucked up, that something I learned about in a Stephen King novel is something I relate to as something out there moving along our path, but it is.  Fate, Destiny, Ka, the path, or whatever you would call it.  When King talked about it, it made sense to me.  In a world that I always felt a little out of place in, that spoke to me as being truth.  We are all moving down the path.  We are going to the next destination.  I am getting away from my point, but this little tangent has made me smile a little bit on day that I wanted to do was frown.  Things just aren’t clicking right now.  There seems to be fires everywhere.  I am trying to stay positive, but positive is so hard right now.  I feel like everything is closing in.  The rails are coming off.  Then I think about these meetings and listening to God this and God that, and how he is moving you to this or to that.  I hear this and I get angry.  I get angry because where is the responsibility?  Where is the accountability on the one place that it should be placed and that is on me?  Then I think, Billy b, is this just another in a long line of excuses to get going.  Just another reason not change your ways?  Then I say to myself why would I think that if it was not true?  Then I get sad again.  So, I went to spend some time on the website of OA.  There was a section on there about Atheist and Agnostics and how people that don’t necessarily believe in a God still follow there program.  Then I realize I am already criticizing this and I don’t know the first thing about it.  I think that is the part of me that could give a shit less if we ever get better.  That is the part of me who would happily eat myself into a grave.  I think that sometimes and addict is just an addict and doesn’t want to know it or wants to avoid it.  Not because they feel good with what they are doing.  No, it is more because somewhere deep inside they don’t want to face the long solitary road to recovery.   Or even worse, the one question that is always in the back of your head but you never want to ask.  What is there left of Billy b, if he no longer has a weight problem.  Is there anything left?  Most of his life has been trying to fill this void and no amount of food can possible fill.   We all have days like these.  We all get low.  The real test is to see if we can stand back up.  I think tomorrow will be a better day. I think I will get more sleep tonight.  Tomorrow things will be all right!  Plus, I have two podcasts to listen too.  I have never downloaded a podcast in my life.  However, I did.  I found them on itunes they are an introduction to the 12 steps of OA.  And when and Addict is just an Addict and he does want to change his ways, perhaps it is time to start find a way.  Maybe it is time to leave the worry that there is nothing left after I lose the weight behind.  It’s just time to take a little control and be the driving force in my own life, so I will let you know how the podcast go. 

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Warriors Clippers tonight!!  Should be a fun game!  Curry hit a shot from the tunnel, it was pretty bad ass!  We got to see his whole pre-game ritual!  Not much to report right now!  Today was a better day!  Tomorrow will be even better than that!  Things are picking up a little better all day.

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Some days you are just come to an end.  Today is one of those days.  It was just a really long day.  I have nothing really more than that.   I am really thinking about calling into a meeting tomorrow or downloading a podcast to OA.  I realize that I do eat without control.  I eat for no reason.  So, i think it might be a good idea. 

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It started off like any other Monday.  It was a normal day.  Work was cruising along.  All, I could think about was getting home, and watching some TV.  I just wanted the day to pass.  Monday's are like that.  Monday's can be hard.  You just want it to move on.  

I started sending a buddy at work IM's about laying off the booze for 30 days.  We did a little back and forth with some jabs.  Then he jested he wouldn't drink until I lost 20 lbs.  He was one of the guys who was in on the Billy b challenge and a big supporter.  So he asked me what I did today to get him his booze back.  He asked if I was taking that Dog for a walk? I told him no, b/c I didn't have the dog.  Plus, I had a nice walk yesterday and a good swim the day before.  So, I was not sure if I was going out today.  I told him I was logging my calories.  I was cooking for myself and that I lost three pounds over the last three weeks.  

He told me he was proud of me.  That there was nothing harder than what I was doing today.  That I needed to keep it up. Then he was like go force yourself to sit in an OA meeting.  He was like where are you on that.  Do you need support?

I instantly found myself making excuses as to why I have not looked into it.  I was thinking of all the reasons why OA wasn't for me.  God.  Strike Plans.  I don't have a problem.  Etc... Etc.. Etc... 

so I was honest and said I do need help.  I have been dragging my feet on it.  That is when my IM blew up:

He said:  "Fremont 7PM on Monday

Dont

Hayward Tuesday 630

San Jose Tuesday 7PM

Sunnyvale  Wed 7PM

San Jose Friday at 630

Mtn View 8:30AM SAt

San Jose at 10 AM on Sat

do just one Bill

just check it out

you got to attack the mind on this

working out is great...but you got to figure out why you're doing it

Just do one for me

Hey..I have another idea

talk to one of the sponsors on the phone"

 

I responded with: I will look into it I have to get an email out for work, which was true. 

 

He Said: okay..report back

no escuse

 

I responded with: I said Saturday at 10 a.m.  

 

He Said: actually....that's in spanis

they have one in Newark at 10:15

or sunnyvale at 9

Sunday in Mtn View and Santa Clara around 9

 

 

I responded with: looking into it. 

He said:  they have on line meetings...you just dial into....don't even have to talk

 

I responded with: that sounds fancy!

 

He Said: you got 30 minutes to think about what next step your committing to

1PM PST...I want you to tell me what you're doing

  

your gonna call that woman today...or you're gonna attend on line

or you're gonna commit to go to a meeting

that's what I'd prefer to hear..jump in w/ both feet to at least 1 meeting

stay open

the only thing you have to lose is weith

weight

alright I'm out....1PM jack

one last option

https://oa.org/podcasts/

 

this might be good to..it's about half way down on that podcast link...

Sound Bites from Overeaters Anonymous: A 12-Step Solution to Compulsive Eating
 

“Sound Bites from Overeaters Anonymous (OA)” was an Internet radio show that aired October 17, 2012 to January 9, 2013 on VoiceAmerica.com. It is dedicated to educating you about recovery from compulsive eating using OA’s 12-step program, so you recognize the symptoms and find the support you need and a program that works to help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight. (In keeping with Tradition 6, OA does not endorse nor is affiliated with Voice America.)

 

Introducing Overeaters Anonymous
Compulsive eating, or food addiction, can wreak havoc in your life in so many ways. It affects your weight and your health, your relationships, your job, and your self-confidence and self-worth. In our first episode of this series, we will explore the symptoms of this disease and talk with Overeaters Anonymous members who, after years of misery, yo-yo dieting, obesity and other health issues, have found recovery using OA’s 12 steps and group support, not only achieving weight loss and long-term maintenance of a healthy weight; but transforming their lives in ways they never could have imagined.
Listen Now - Introducing Overeaters Anonymous | Download

you could listen to these on your commute alright you can obviously see I'm a misplaced therapist....I've got the codependent gene

Just tell me to back off when you had enough...I won't take it personally

 
I responded with: I am going to do a call at 10 p.m. tonight.  

 

He said:  okay cool.....

I think this will be a strong step

lets talk tomorrow....I want to hear about it

 

i have to admit, I was pretty impressed with how much work he did without being prompted and just to help me out.  That is a pretty good friend.  I felt pretty good about that.

 

Plus I took the next step as well. I dialed into the call.  I spent over an hour over the phone just listening. 

 

I learned that there are a ton of people out there who have issues with food.  I also learned that I think there is a lot I can learn from attending some meetings.  It is a much better experience than what I had the first time I attended a meeting. I also decided I would attend another meeting.  

So much for a typical Monday.  It was a great first step and a great start to the week!