I’m back into a stretch of abstinence from flour, sugar, and quantities of food and leaning into a vegan life. It feels wonderful. The food fog is lifted. Work is getting done. I’m happy and peaceful.

It all began during a recent 12-step study group meeting. I had been struggling for and against abstinence over several days. It was an inspiring meeting and afterwards I said very candidly to the friend sitting next to me, “I’m going to have trouble on the way home. I know I’m going to want to stop and get something.” My friend told me to call for a conversation. Flippantly, I agreed and said, “I promise not to stop.”

As soon as I got into the car the struggle began. I didn’t make the call to my friend. During the 20 minutes up the pike, my mind was circling around and around over the plan to stop. I would pass that last turn towards home and go to the restaurant where I could sit at the bar and have a quick, sugary drink. What would satisfy me? How quickly could I drink it so that I could get home before Gregory started to wonder why I was late? I promised my fellow not to stop, but what’s a promise? It’s just a word. A promise is just a word. A promise is just a word.

Suddenly, out of the blue, my marriage vows came to me. I made those promises to Gregory. He’s my husband. This would be lying to him. It would be a lie out of the intoxicating infatuation with sugar. It would be something like taking a step into an affair.

And then the war stopped. I made the turn towards home with immense gratitude and relief.

Thinking of Gregory and our marriage vows was my Higher Power’s way of re-connecting me to my Higher Self, my 12-step fellows, my program, and to Gregory. My promise was no longer just a word. it meant something because I made it person-to-person and to myself.

My sponsor’s sponsor recently asked me to think about what it is that wants to be nourished when addiction calls its siren song. It’s connection that wants to be nourished. For whatever reason I’ve disassociated and the connectivity has failed.

How have I been nourishing connection since she asked me that question? Conscious contact. I’ve been practicing conscious contact with my Higher Self and G-d through 30 minutes of daily Quiet Time and daily prayers; conscious contact with Gregory through 30 minutes of daily Sharing Time; conscious contact with friends through phone calls and visits; conscious contact with Program through meetings; and conscious contact with Nature and with Miranda, the Labradoodle, on our three-times-daily walks.

Perhaps it’s the connection with Nature that’s supporting a lean into the vegan life. It just seems to be happening.

So far, so good. Thank you, G-d.

Here’s a poem by Mary Oliver.

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Why I Wake Early, 2004)