Warning: Wedding Ahead
Posted July 12, 2009

Weddings are wonderful events full of excitement, promise and hope.

And, they're full of danger.

We went to a wedding yesterday and I was with another recovering alcoholic. It was the first full Catholic wedding I've attended. The ceremony was surprisingly informal among all of the ritual - very meaningful.

And, then came the reception.

My wife and I, along with my alcoholic friend drove a short distance to the reception. When we walked into the hall, my friend said, "Whoa!" On the far end was a bar. Not a cash bar. Not a limited bar. A Full bar. And there was more, between where we stood and the bar was a table filled with cheese and fruit. To the right, through a set of double doors, stood more tables. These had meats, pastas, desserts. Lots and lots of really great looking food.

Danger was lurking in all directions.

It's because of times like these that I spend a great deal of time thinking about the tools for getting better. If I only think about them when I'm suddenly confronted with all this STUFF and is lethal for me, but that a part of me wants to consume, I'm likely doomed. I cannot wait for those times to begin thinking about how to stay better. I have to go into the defense mode automatically, without thinking.

The first step is to stay away from the bars and the tables. Just don't go there. Don't get near them, at least for a while. Give myself time to work through some strategies. In this situation, my best tool is to carry it through to the end. Some people say to play the tape forward. Imagine taking a drink. Remember those awful two weeks of detoxing. That's where I'm heading again. Don't think I'll do that.

The food's harder. That's because my food bottom wasn't nearly so hard. It occurred while I was laying on a table, feeling pretty good from Demerol, and seeing the lump in my heart on the TV screen. Not nearly so dramatic as the alcohol deal. Still, it's pretty strong. I don't want to go there again.

After a few minutes, I look around again. The table with fruit and cheese. I LOVE cheese, but don't need the calories or saturated fat. Not any that's unplanned, anyway. But the cantaloupe, melon, and grapes are a different story. I can do those. I take a plate and put a few bites of each on it. I take that, and a glass of water, to the tables. Eating slowly, I am satisfied.

And, here's the good part. A hour and a half later, as we're leaving, I see a guy loosening his belt. His belly's hanging over it. I had noticed him during the past ninety minutes. His plate was always overflowing. My belly feels good. The food looked great, but now we're leaving and I had a very pleasant time and I'm guilt free because I've taken care of myself.

Another lesson applied: Be prepared, play the tape forward, and be filled with greatitude in the end.

How to Get Started
Posted July 18, 2009

Throughout my schooling, the first thing I did with a new textbook was to flip through it. Check it out. See what was in store for me in the class. That was fine with English, history, or science books. Not so fine with math texts. When I looked through those, I panicked. The first few pages looked doable. That was usually review of what I already knew. (Or was supposed to know -- at least it looked familiar.) Much past that and the words and problems looked like Russian. Just impossible. I knew I would fail.

As it turned out, in every case but one, I passed the course. In fact, I usually did OK in them. Even got a couple of A's. During the last math courses I took in my doctoral program, I finally figured that out. Even before my "getting better" time seven years ago, I figured out that it would be better if I didn't look through the math textbooks ahead of time. That was discouraging. Instead, I took it one step at a time. One day at a time. That was much, much better.

One of the hardest parts of getting better is getting started. I experience that each day when I set out to run. It's a rare day when I look forward to that. It's a hard thing to do and I want to avoid hard stuff. It is discouraging to look ahead to five miles, so, I try not to do that. Instead, I think about the first mile and give myself permission to quit after that if I'm just miserble. So far, I've only been miserble enough to quit one time and that was because of a major cramp. That's once in six years. A friend says her getting started routine for exercise is to simply get dressed for it. Instead of sitting around thinking about how hard the exercise is going to be, she just takes the first step: put on her exercise clothes. Once she's gone to the trouble to get all dressed up, seems kind of silly to waste the effort. She goes out the door.

If we want to lose weight and envision a month, six months, or a lifetime of not being able to eat all the stuff we love whenever we want, that's discouraging. If I'm going to skip the pie today, that's a easier to handle.

There was a time when the thought of not drinking alcohol seemed impossible. Can't be done. Not for me. I didn't become successful at not drinking until I decided not to drink for the rest of the day. That, I could do. Same with cigarettes.

We hear catch phases and they're so common, we tend to let them fly right by us. If you want to get started getting better, don't do that. Catch phrases are familiar because they work. One day at a time works. Or, one minute at a time. Use that today, and you can get started.

Don't Let Pain Defeat You
Posted July 25, 2009

In More About Exercise, I suggest not letting pain defeat you. That could have happened to me this week. Here's what happened:

When I ran Tuesday, my right hip hurt when I started. As I ran the pain diminished. Wednesday, my right hip hurt again. This time it hurt a lot. This was not the "hurt" I talk about in More About Exercise. This was pain.

I begin my run by running for a minute, then walking for a minute. We live at the end of a dead end street next to a creek. I have no choice but to begin each run with a steep uphill segment, andI learned early on that it takes my lungs a little while to get going. Maybe it's the 31 years of two-pack-a-day smoking, though the pulminologist who said I didn't have emphsysema complained about the same thing. Maybe it's just an old guy thing.

Actually, now, on my normal runs, I run to spots, rather than by time. (When I'm running in unfamiliar territory, I run in six minute segments, minimum, then walk a minute. I never stop on an uphill portion, so sometimes the segments are longer than six minutes, never less.) Last Wednesday, the first minute was excrutiating. Not just uncomfortable. Really hard. I was greateful when I reached my minute mark.

After the minute walk, I started again. More pain. I've had hip pain in the past, but it was always when it began getting cold. (See more.) It's not cold now. Far from it. I kept going. I did the second segment about fifteen seconds slower than usual because I was kind of hopping while I was running. After the minute walk, the pain began to ease. I'm in the second mile now. By the end of that segment, the pain was pretty much gone from the hip, but had migrated to just above the back of the knee. That pain wasn't debilitating. As I was running, I was thinking about what's going on with my hip.

I hear it over and over. People say, "I used to run, but . . . " and they tell me how something got painful, so they don't run anymore. Or exercise at all anymore. It would have been easy to hobble home, sit down, and say, "OK, I'm done. I guess I've ruined my hip joint." I didn't do that, though. I thought about why my hip would go from OK to bad in a day. It came to me during the last mile.

My shoes.

I just put a new pair of Brooks Beast running shoes into service. I've learned that shoes are incredibly important. I'm a severe overpronator according to two podiatrists. Both recommended the Beast, and so does every review of running shoes I've seen. They're not cheap, but to run without the proper shoes are a disaster. I have two pair and alternate day to day and put a new pair into service every three months. With the mileage I run, I have to buy a pair every three months.

The first time I wore the news shoes, last weekend, I noticed an immediate difference from the old ones. I have a bunion on my right foot. It hasn't changed in five years. Not a bit. But, in these shoes, I could feel it when I ran. It was uncomfortable. Turned out in the new model, Brooks raised the side of the hard rubber on the lower sole and instead of pressing against fabric, as in the old model, my bunion was pressing against hard rubber. It didn't feel good. During that run, I realize now, I changed my gait to relieve the pressure. When I did that, I believe I irritated my hip.

Thursday is weight day with a short run. I tested my theory on that day and paid attention to how my feet were falling. The pain was lessened. Yesterday, back to a five mile run, the hip was better during the first segment and diminished quickly during the second. I concentrated on being sure my right foot went through the complete motion that it should during running. The bunion was still somewhat irritated, but better as the shoe is stretching. Next, I'm off to a shoe repair shop for professional stretching.

Exercise is critical to losing weight, maintaining weight loss, glucose control, lipid control, and our mental health. And, to bust a myth: Long time runners have fewer knee replacements than nonrunners, not more.

The exercise you do, whatever it is, needs to be hard -- something to make you sweat -- but not so hard so that you never want to do it. It's easy to give up because of pain. Now, chest pain isn't good, especially a vice-like pain, squeezing pain, and all that. If you have that pain, stop and call an ambulance. But don't let pain like my hip pain stop you. In the six years I've been running, I've experienced pain like I've had this week now and then. Early on, I saw my orthopedist about it. X-rays showed no hip damage and no knee damage. The pain always went away. If my hip pain remains after a couple of weeks, I'll go to the doctor. I don't want to be stupid and to permanent damage. But, so far, the pain's always gone away.

I'll let you know.