A Big Bowl of Cookie Dough

There’s a bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough in the refrigerator right now.

My daughter made it earlier before going to a friend’s birthday party. She took it as cookie dough, rather than baking it. After all, everyone loves cookie dough, right? And, they did. They all devoured quite a lot of cookie dough. But she still brought a lot home and now it is sitting in the refrigerator.

I’ve been aware of it ever since she put it in there – nearly 9 hours ago. She gave me one glorious spoonful of it – SOOOOO not on my diet – and I savored every bit of it. I have a real weakness for cookie dough, you see.

She said she will make cookies with it tomorrow. I jokingly (although if I am to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t really joking exactly…it was more in the direction of…testing) said, “if I don’t eat it all before then. She said that I should feel free to do as I wished, but pointed out that eating that much cookie dough would probably make me sick. I smiled.

The sad truth is that it probably wouldn’t. I mean, not in a way that would stop me, if I were of the mind to eat all that cookie dough. I wouldn’t throw up or anything. I would maybe feel a little crappy for a day or two but most of the effects (blood sugar spike and plummet) I would simply sleep through. I mean, if I were to eat it now.

And, you see, I could so easily eat it now.

The good thing – the thing I am most thankful for in all of this – is that I don’t really want to eat that cookie dough. I know it is there. I am very aware that it is there. I can imagine, in great and perfect detail, the bliss I would feel if I gave in and just ate and ate and ate and ate until that bowl was scraped empty and my spoon was licked clean. I’d probably watch something when I did it. A crime show from Investigation Discovery most likely, since I have a real weakness for those. But, I don’t really want to do that. Not anymore.

There was a time when I did. There was a time when I wanted to do that sort of thing so strongly that I was pretty much powerless to stop myself. I was deep in the throes of compulsive overeating and there was no stopping me when I was in the mood for a binge. And I was pretty much always in the mood for a binge. I would binge on cookie dough or cookies drenched in milk or melted ice cream or brownies or bowls of cereal. I would just shovel that food in – almost like a fucked up meditation – one spoonful after another – filling my mouth up so much that I experienced a taste bud overload explosion of flavor that was practically orgasmic. I would completely bliss out on the deliciousness to the point that, for that period of time at least, I didn’t think about all the things that hurt. I didn’t feel all  the things that shamed me. I didn’t worry or fret or feel shitty or guilty or lonely or sad or anything negative at all. I just blissed out on the deliciousness and felt peaceful.

I suppose that one could argue that in a way, that was even good for me. I have certainly dealt with my fair share of incredibly fucked up stuff in this life. Yeah, I know, everyone has problems – yadda yadda yadda. But seriously, you have no idea the stuff I have had to deal with in my life. And the biggest bitch about it was the sheer relentlessness of it. For years. The simple truth is that most people in my situation would have probably found some way to self comfort. I happened to choose food as my “drug of choice.”

Through a LOT of hard work, I learned to stop “using” food. Overeaters Anonymous was a remarkable thing for me and I am forever grateful for the time I spent going to meetings once I found the right meetings to go to. The help they provided was immeasurable and I learned a lot. I don’t go to meetings anymore. I don’t need them anymore – except maybe on rare occasion. They got to the point where they were causing me more harm than good, so I had to stop. The sad reality is – sometimes addicts don’t really do the healing work – they simply swap one addiction for another. I am NOT trying to sound judgmental or mean when I say that…I am not judging or thinking badly at all. We are talking about scary fucking work here, you know? And if someone figures out a way to stop the truly destructive behavior, I applaud them – even if it means that they’ve substituted that destructive behavior with meetings where they complain about their lives and commiserate with each other while applauding each other for not participating in the destructive behavior. Seriously, that is still a big step.

But I’ve never been good at that whole discipline sort of thing long term. I’m not up for white knuckling my way – I fail most of the time. If I want something bad enough – I am GOING TO HAVE IT. I have to take big steps to not have it until I can learn to not want it anymore.

So – I had to actually work on things until I didn’t want to choose self destructive behavior so easily. And I worked really hard on that – on changing my way of thinking and healing much of what drove me to reach for food in the first place. It was long and it was hard and I will try to share it as best I can – at some point. It is some heavy shit to get into, honestly.

Bottom line though – there is a saying – “Once an addict, always an addict” and I suppose that might be true. But – there are different levels. Some addicts are still owned by their addiction – white knuckling their way through life while the same “stinkin’ thinkin'” haunts their every move. And some of us – we might be aware of how good that six pack – bowl of cookie dough – might make us feel – but we also know how shitty it would make us feel after that. And – no amount of pleasure is worth that crap.

Bright Blessings!

Spirit Dancer