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I was at a meeting recently where the topic was cravings and God. Almost immediately, I was like, “Huh? What do those two things have to do with each other?”
Luckily I just sat and listened for awhile before I shared. Because it turned out to be an incredibly valuable combo topic.
I forget sometimes how overwhelming a craving can be for an alcoholic. Don’t ask me how I forget, because I routinely get a craving for peanut butter cups or watching three more episodes of a TV show after my normal bedtime, and I usually succumb to the cravings. So I still struggle with it.
Yet I forget sometimes that I used to get a craving for alcohol or drugs, and then completely buckle under it. The cravings would be so strong, and I had no plan to battle back, and I would just grab a pill bottle or vodka bottle. I had no chance.
As people shared about cravings, I found myself nodding my head and flashing back to those days. And then people would inevitably share about how they don’t have cravings for drugs and alcohol any more, and that they attribute quite a bit of that to their higher power.
By the midpoint of the meeting, my opinion had completely turned around and I was 100 percent in agreement. As much as I would like to think my hard work, good looks and charisma made my cravings go away, it’s simply not true. I for sure played a part in doing the right actions to reduce or eliminate cravings.
But cravings are mysterious and illogical, and I don’t think any amount of action could completely wipe away the strong ones I used to feel. And yet, they’re gone. So I know something bigger than me played an important part in letting the air out of those cravings a bit.
That’s probably going to be the formula on any future cravings, too. I have been struggling with late-night eating, and it’s because I get a craving for something and I last two minutes trying to fight it. And for the record, the cravings I get for late-night food are not for apple slices and lettuce—it’s cookies, donuts, peanut butter cups and other terrible-but-delicious garbage. It’s probably going to take action on my part, plus reliance upon something bigger than me, to adjust. I’m working on it.
In the meantime, all this talk about peanut butter cups is causing quite a craving…
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
Heard at meetings:
“I always wanted to control everything. But as an alcoholic, I realize I’m uniquely unqualified to rule the world.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, June 2000, Dan S. from New York, NY)
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