Hello, I’d like to exchange my Overeating for some Overdrinking please.

Since family time and Holidays are upon us, I wanted to explore the toggling of addictions or behaviors.

: toggling

1.COMPUTING switch from one effect, feature, or state to another by using a toggle.”the play/pause button toggles between those functions”
2.provide or fasten with a toggle or toggles.”our horses were hobbled or toggled before they were turned out to graze”

One of my favorites was swapping out my binge eating for bingeing alcohol. It worked like a charm!

Beer served to satiate me so I ate less. In fact, I just drank first and then if there was any room left, I may have some food. But not usually.

Since I was often in a buzz, I didn’t feel my body as much and actually found it more attractive through the alcohol lense.

I repeated this festive behavior over and over, continued to lose weight , and didn’t really experience hangovers till about 8 years in.

I have recently launched a podcast with focuses on overeating but can be applied to all the “Overs.

Available on Apple, Anchor, Spotify, etc

https://anchor.fm/alexandra-hoover

The episodes are short, less than 15 minutes. So please take a listen if you’d like to a voice to go with these words.

I’ve listed a lovely before and after photo. The first at 19-20 years old , the second at 50 something, after I stopped both binge behaviors (mostly).

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts if you are on or off the struggle. We are not Alone. Mostly.

Resentment was the new Orange Former Resentment Vampire

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I went to the DRIVE IN with my mask and boyfriend in July.

We saw RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Impeccable casting.

I had forgotten how resentful Karen Allen/Marion is at Indiana Jones/Harrison Ford in the bar scene.

“What you did to me! To my life!” she wails.

That surprised me. Marion was written as such a warrior and then, after 10 years of living a new life for her to say that? To blame him after 10 years?

There is no Expiration date on Resentment. It’ll keep.

Resentment, Victimhood, Grudge, Aversion.

Delicious.

Immediately Delivers the sweet burn. And then its gone and you need some more kindling to keep your resent-a fire burnin.

I’m not going to write the poison metaphor; you already know it.

I was dope sick on resentment against her and him and that and them. Then I graduated from that/thems and just resented MYSELF. Its seemed somehow a higher Art.

So I dove into the resentment of self since 2016 or so. I’ve done some writing, some facing, some weeping. I’ve done work. I gave myself a very small ration of compassion. Wouldn’t do it that way again.

But behold! Today in August 2020, most of the sweet shock of Resentment has fizzled. Not the same snap or high. Its not as catch-my-breath adrenalized as it once was. Some days I can still get roided up on R but its less and less because I’m onto myself. And you cant un-know once you know.

This is what I know: My Resentment (not my discernment -thats a different post) seems to be a False Flag. Sometimes. Not always. But a lot. This still surprises me.

Example: I have a writing deadline or I have to study something. Or Maybe before it was a social thing. Its a dry ,un-fun seeming, scary task. I don’t want to do it. I want to go home.

No problem. I can convert that “don’t wanna ” into a scraggly resentment to distract from the drudge. So SNAP! And now I’m in a spin about how old I am and how many years I wasted on: compulsive eating, being hung-over, in fear, giving fucks, over spending etc, etc. What a waste of years. I really resent myself hard. It’s over for me. Nothing charming will ever happen to me again.

Uh huh. I’m not buying it. On a clear day I (aha!) catch myself in the fake spin and realize: this ick feeling is perhaps not what I think. Is it possible I am wasting more time right now thinking about how much time I wasted?

To myself I ask: “What if I give you a full 30 minutes to ruminate on how awful you are after you do this task before you.”
Audible exhale. “Fine.”

I still relish in the Resentment DuJour. I just don’t marinate. I don’t live to swim the waters. I live on land but occasionally need to jump in once in a while to give a nostalgic shock to my system.

photo from “The Only Lovers Left Alive”

10 Versions of my Higher Power. Starting with Tilda Swinton

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When I need connection with GOD or Grand. Open. Discussion.

I find the list below . Feel free to share your joie de vivre.

header image from article n The Guardian – A Bigger Splash: exclusive clip featuring Ralph Fiennes and Tilda Swinton

1) Tilda Swinton

photo credit @davidehrlich article on INDIEWIRE

2) This Poem by ee cummings

what if a much of a which of a wind
gives the truth to summer’s lie;
bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun
and yanks immortal stars awry?
Blow king to beggar and queen to seem
(blow friend to fiend: blow space to time)
— when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,
the single secret will still be man

what if a keen of a lean wind flays
screaming hills with sleet and snow:
strangles valleys by ropes of thing
and stifles forests in white ago?
Blow hope to terror; blow seeing to blind
(blow pity to envy and soul to mind)
— whose hearts are mountains, roots are trees,
it’s they shall cry hello to the spring

what if a dawn of a doom of a dream
bites this universe in two,
peels forever out of his grave
and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?
Blow soon to never and never to twice
(blow life to isn’t; blow death to was)
— all nothing’s only our hugest home;
the most who die, the more we live

3) Conan’s Star Studded Charity Song Famous Helping People Video

Famous Helping People - "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" - YouTube

4) Kate Bush

5) Gigi Hadids Childhood Home

Photography by Coldwell Banker in Architectural Digest

6) This Lavender Field

7) The color of the sky in “Land is the only thing that matters” scene in “Gone with the Wind”

Full video here

8) Nina Simone’s Cover of “Isn’t It a Pity”

AUDIO

9) The Idea (not reality) of the Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham relationship

10) Xanadu

ELO, rollerskates, Gene Kelly, Olivia, The Fashion, The Muses The Tone!

IM ALIVE VIDEO click here

Minus- The script and relationship

When your 11-14 year old self fears rule your life. Again.

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This pandemic flavored sobriety has its perks. I can hunker down and withdrawal/taper, go on crying and laughing jags without a major audience.

But oh Boy, the Junior High fears that fire up are debilitating. Tapering of Benzos combined with being in quarantine has been heightening recall of Junior High survival skills. But then again maybe Junior High survival skills are especially being echoed right now with the wolves of divisiveness constantly nipping at our screen doors.

It was 1982 and I was the new kid in school. In Michigan . I was tan (just having moved from San Diego where I was a winner of several Disco dance contests) Before major boobs, Before fear of the Male Gaze.

When incest just meant romance in a V.C. Andrews book.

Fear is Fear is Fear , like I’ve mentioned in the post “Stop Grading your Problems”– your adrenal glands, cortisol levels, limbic system are all talking to each other the same way whether you are in danger of falling off a cliff or you’re 11 years old being terrorized by the girls in your new 6th grade class. It shock/hurts. It feels like poison.

Of course I had lied before. But conforma/lying really escalated for me during this time. The type of lies that ensured my safety and ascent on the Junior High Popularity scale. This scale is now called Facebook /social media platforms.

Back to Ms. Kinzers class in 1982 in pasty Michigan. First day. New Girl – Tan – Only the nerd girls are nice to me.

After class 2 boys approach me. One is a total fox , one his sidekick (unfox).

Hubba Hubba

The Fox: “What kind of music do you like ?”

Tan me: “The Village People”

The UNFOX: “Wrong ! ( makes sound of buzzer) You are so moded right now.”

What is moded? I guess Im not in Disco San Diego any more.

The UNFOX: “Disco is Dead “

FU&K ME! I have ruined my chances for favor with anyone ever again. Hello 12, Hello 13, Hello shame.

Tan trembling me: “What kind of music do you listen too?”

The Fox: “The Knack, Billy Squire”

Tan Trembling: ” Oh yeah, I know them.”

The Fox: “Yeah?”

Beat

I don’t think the Fox is totally done with me yet.

But they left me. Maybe the word “spaz” was uttered. Their exit is blurry due to my Caucasian flush.

Lesson learned. Do not lead with what you believe. It could get you shunned.

No doy.

When Gratitude isn’t Just a step to the left. Saditude b4 Gratitude

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Some days are “tra lala lala” effortless. Some are “Are you fu@king kidding Me!?”

When dealing with the latter, I don’t fall victim to immediately gratitude journaling. I need a bridge and a guide to Kumbaya. OR a river, a creek , a balloon, whatever. I need help with the transport feeling to get me to gratitude. I can’t Time Warp or Wrinkle in time there. This bridge step is un-skippable when Im ultra agitated or sad. I cant be all like, “Presto! Silken Scarves of gratitude surround me now!”

If you are glaring at an Instagram picture of your friend holding a yoga pose and you think “I believe in Peace Bitch”. Know that :

1) Tori Amos says that same sentence in The Waitress and 2) I’m with you.

So I grant ye permission not to be grateful for 20 minutes or 20 days. You will most likely slide into home plate of grateful much more easily without the pressure.

Take however long it takes to do what you need to do to move in the direction of true North/Namaste.

This bridge could be: bitching, writing, feeling, scream-singing, punching, crying, cleaning, smooshing, chopping, swaying, hanging, breathing, dangling, kicking ,sleeping, gerund, gerund, gerund.*
It could be none of those.

Who says you have to end up at a journal unless that works for you.

Some call this acceptance, but to me it seems a titch more dynamic than that word.

Finally you may arrive back where Gratitude is actually“just a jump to the left and then a step to the right.” *Oh!, and sleeping

Be Ferocious in feeling your feelings. Give yourself the shot.

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Oh God. Feel your feelings. Sort of Ewww. Gross in a from the neck up psuedo-spiritual way and just cliche gross but it Fu&*ing works. I have proof it leads to relief. Empirical data, repetition.

Ive been using this quarantine to soften or let go of some behaviors. Delivering my mind and body from habits is ALOT easier when I face the feelings that hide under the habit. Focusing on emotional waves is also a lot easier when I’m laid off and have my head all to Myself. I have the luxury of being an NON essential worker.

This type of ferocity ala Shirley MaClaine is a good illustration of how I binge drank .

Intention: Binge feelings with same ferocity in which I binge drank.

When I “process” my emotions, my burning desire to buffer with Food/alcohol/control/drugs/sex/shopping/add your own fades away. FADES AWAY. Not will power, white knuckling or pretending it ‘s not there , but a cleared feeling of “I can take it or leave it”.

If I am consistent in my attempts , I can actually get a HIT off the release.

There are varying methods with which to do this and I have tried a lot of them. I’ll list some of them at the bottom of this post.

What seems to work best for me is :

locating the physical sensation in my body and allowing the story to unfold -the who or what the why, the feeling – is it Sadness , Grief, Shame, Or I don’t know but It sucks.

Letting myself tell the story and feel the feeling . This is no time to be the ethereal witness, be your kid self. for 1-5 minutes. I set a timer.

Drop the story (the aforementioned who, why ,what ,where) and focus on the visceral energy or weight of the feeling. 3-10 minutes depending on how much time you have.

Feel the feeling in the body. Is is a fat slug sitting in your throat? Or maybe a cuter animal in your Solar plexus? Your stomach? is it leaking out of our eyes? Whatever the weight or energy of it is, give it its due. Ignore it at your own peril. This feeling is a Golden Ticket to more freedom.

The sensation will unravel or it wont . Either is ok.

This can be exhausting but not as exhausting as binge drinking, 3 day hangovers, and years “lost” to inertia and fear paralysis.

I’m doing this to experience more joy not be “nice’ or “good’.

Here’s a list of some techniques , articles, ideas that have helped and if you can afford a coach or therapist – all the better!

Brene Brown excerpt

UFYB Kara Loewentheil podcast

Sarah May B podcast Help Me Be Me

Sedona Method

10 songs to cry to if you’re Gen X and no stranger to Musicals

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I’ve gotten very versed at the different types of crying. From the slight leak to keening.

Today is Day 30 for alcohol-free ness. Day 4 for benzo withdrawal.

I wont go into all of the cries in my collection. At least I can suggest some Melodic backdrop to enhance the experience for your own slight leaking or full on keening.

1) Johanna -from Sweeney Todd

2) Old Man River -from Showboat

3) Some Enchanted Evening – from South Pacific

4) Camera -REM

5) Unlovable – The Smiths

6) Perfect Circle -REM

7) We Kiss in a Shadow – from The King and I

8) Climb Every Mountain-from The Sound of Music

9) Insider – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

10) Track of Time – Anna von Hauswolff

Im not new to sobriety but I am newish to not really caring how many times a day I weep. To be transparent, this acceptance started way before the pandemic and has only served me.

I know about the stacked cry/or Pyramid cry . This one starts with catching myself in the mirror and appears to be about jowls or some compartment of my body but then I ask , “”wait what’s really going on there?” Breath. Tears are released and so are Tiers of the cry.

Here is a cry pyramid I experienced lately. Its starts out relatively banal and dysmorphic then levels down to more acceptable crying material.

Body image- usually some version of “you are UGLY”

grief over being so risk averse and creating a smaller life. Shame.

friends, time and experience lost over alcohol abuse/anxiety/fear/

A general feeling that Enchantment is gone and nothing joyful ever happen again

Biochemical release or the Ativan Cry

I thought I was going to be on Broadway now Im 52. I better get on “Real Housewives of Anything” and become in influencer so I can go to Broadway by the time Im 55.

There is no Broadway right now

Im not a a housewife

Oh sh*t, Covid 19

My Father is dead.

I drank thru 9-11

I ate thru Rodney King

Where is my tribe?

Im not safe

Nothing is safe

Plant Based Spiral -Animal keening

Looting

Curfews

I miss my father

My mother is starting to forget things

Im not hungover

smidge of compassion

So I have to parent myself now

RESULT- window of heart opened, smaller pores, and always awe and awwww of music.

Great blog post on the Holly Hunter Cry

Check out benefits of crying. I think we all can call BS on the stats for” how often people cry “in this article.

Benzo withdrawal stuff:

Jennifer Leigh

Jennifer Leigh’s site

Benzo Buddies

And please feel free to comment and let me know your own songs !

P.S Enlightened with Mike White and Laura Dern is a Masterpiece