My Cat Taught Me Something about Addiction

I've had Maggie for 7 years. When I got her she had just given birth to 3 kittens. She was thin---so thin I fed her extra food to help her gain weight. I didn't have a scale then and when I took her to the vet's a year later she was 22 pounds! Way too heavy for a cat......she should weigh around 10 pounds at the most.

I knew her history---she was found at Disneyland, lost, and someone in my town who worked for the local cat shelter picked her up and brought her back to my town. She had to scrounge for food at that time in her life. That's why since then (it's my guess anyway) that she has to eat so much and clean her plate and her "brother's". Because she has those old memories of being hungry.

I think we're like that a lot too.....we react now and eat or drink or take drugs because of something that happened to us years ago. Something to think about.......

Why is Self-Control So Difficult Sometimes?

I was out last night with a group of friends and I was talking to a woman who is in her 50's and trying to "lose her stomach." She also had a problem controlling her urges to eat crap. We were talking and she had just finished eating 2 pieces of birthday cake. She shared with me that when she was young her mother told her "she was fat and shouldn't eat food that made her fat."
She looks back at the pictures now and she sees that she was NOT fat at all. She was at a good weight and she's carried those words of her mother into her adulthood. She finds it very difficult to control her eating now.

What I thought after we stopped talking was ......how sad for this woman---she seems to not have self-control NOW in her adult life and it probably stems from when her mother lied to her and told her she was fat.

The "other woman" in my friend's marriage

I talked to a good friend this morning. We made plans to meet at the gym so we could talk after our workouts. Her husband of over 25 years has had an alcohol problem for years and recently hit a parked car while drunk. Laura saw a letter from the DMV, opened it and it said Steve's license would be taken away for 3 months.

The lying starts again. Steve said it's not true, it's all taken care of. He hates that he can't control his alcohol and even installed a breathilizer gizmo where he has to blow into the "thing", pass the test or the car won't start. He tells her when he is straight that he's afraid the power of alcohol has over him. He says he can't live without it.

But I said to my friend....is this a life? How ironic---the thing he thinks he can't give up is NOT giving him joy, rather it's giving him pure HELL.....