| day I was born. I’ve been able to do a lot in my life, but my sugar compulsion has been the one thing I could never seem to get ahold of. And I was tired of beating myself up over it. I felt ready—and had nowhere else to go. I couldn’t do another diet if I tried. I was ready to lay down my sword. As I delved in, I was surprised to learn that it wasn’t a dieting program. It’s a spiritual program. I have a problem, a disease actually, one I have been failing miserably to control because I CAN’T control my addiction to sugar. It was counterintuitive. All this time I’d felt there was something so helplessly wrong with me. But all along, that was the answer. I can’t. And the program is based around the admission of that fact, acknowledging that I am powerless over it, and turning it over to a power greater than me. IT’S GOD’S PROBLEM NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS! And something in the surrendering, as anyone who has worked a 12-step program knows, is so freeing—it’s like a weight comes off of you (pun intended). There is peace in knowing you can’t do anything. For an ambitious perfectionist, this is both revolutionary and excruciating. But what a goddamn relief. Joining was so humbling and terrifying, but that was actually the hardest part. It’s being taken care of for me. I actually have to do very little. And the miracles I had been |
all stopped talking, barely breathing. There was a ruckus in the kitchen and then Red Serpent flung the door open again, almost tearing it from the hinges. She was carrying a (very large) coffeemaker under one arm in a football hold, the cord dragging behind her. In her other hand was a bag of coffee. She slammed the coffeemaker down on the ground next to an open outlet and jammed the cord in, angrily pressing the different buttons to get it brewing. “I think it needs water,” one of us said. “I’ll grab a filter,” someone else offered. We all waited until we heard the familiar rumblings of the machine starting up. It gurgled, and finally, the first drop hit the cup. And with that, Red Serpent finally laid down her metaphorical sword and began sobbing. No one moved to wrap her in a blanket and rock her. Two days later, Heidi sent out a group email asking how everyone had “landed emotionally from the weekend.” Everyone wrote back what fun they’d had and how much they’d grown. Red Serpent was the last to respond and when she did… it was in the style of Beat poetry: BLACK. black as the blackest dark roast, the all-too-familiar Spiraling Darkness. it drank me deeply. home. cream added to coffee. black yielding to light brown. collapse. a bracingly chilly walk to a * vista*. the long view. 360-degree clariTEA. processing, witnessing, tears, revelations. Grind the beans. Drink the cup and be filled. Powerful stuff |
