This is a really big day for me! I couldn’t be happier than I am right now, even though my political favorites took a serious beating yesterday; my job is completely insecure at this point and I won’t know whether I ‘ll get to continue past January, and our retirement funds have taken such a thorough beating that retirement is not an option at the moment. So, why am I so happy?

Because twenty five years ago today, a Saturday in November 1983, I was able to make it through an entire day without taking a drink of alcohol or using any other mind-altering chemicals!  That first sober day, my recovery birthday, was spent in a treatment center in Wichita Kansas. That’s probably the only reason I didn’t drink that day– I was locked behind doors of the treatment facility, in a hospital, and that’s where I stayed for 28 days.

I must tell you that I was anything BUT happy the first day I walked into that place. I was unable to see that it would help me. I was an angry, self-pitying, sarcastic and unhappy guy, and I just knew it was everyone’s fault but mine! As I walked down the hallway to my room, with a nurse escorting me, I remember distinctly thinking, “This is it–my life is over.”  How crazy it seems to me now that I was unable to see that this would be my salvation, and that an entirely new life was possible beyond the curtain of alcohol that I had been living behind.

I want all of you to one day be able to say the same thing about your battles with food. See, I know for most of us that Body for Life is about much more than just battling a few pounds of fat and putting on some muscle. For most of us, it is a desperate attempt to reclaim our lives and the joy we once had. That joy, for many of us, is long gone and sometimes seems like it’s never coming back. If we are honest, we would admit that we use food just like I used to use alcohol, to get us through pity parties, to help us avoid feeling those uncomfortable emotions–things like fear, anger, resentment, jealousy, envy. The list goes on.

And Body for Life is not really the vehicle to reclaim your life, but it is certainly the place to start. If you are faithful in your exercise, your eating, and your journaling, you’ll find a new life for yourself. That is, you’ll find it IF you make a conscious effort to change your entire outlook and attitude. That takes cleaning out your closets and really looking carefully at the relationships you’re in, the habits that have overtaken you, the attitudes you have copped, and the denial that has swamped your life. If you’ll do that, and then go ask for forgiveness from those you have harmed, and sever any toxic relationships as well, you’ll find a new life for you.

Best news of all is that it is simple, not easy, to make this change. Your faith will see you through, if you have faith. If you don’t, then just do the next best thing and act like a person who has faith. In recovery, they call that “faking it until you make it.”

One last thing. Be good to yourself during this transition time. Your attitude will improve if you treat yourself better, and talk nicer to yourself.  God bless!