I have long railed against going to bed on time. When I was kid, my mother had to scream to get me up. Into adulthood, my three alarm clocks did the same. I hated to go to bed even though I was tired. There was always one more television show to watch, one more book chapter to read, or one more snack to eat. When I joined FA ten years ago and began to call my sponsor at 6 am, it became clear that I’d need to change. I could no longer drag myself to bed at midnight or 1 a.m. and expect to stay abstinent from addictive eating. Being overtired is one of the easiest ways I know for my hands to grab for sugar and flour products.
Before I joined FA, at 5’5” and over 200 pounds (91 kilos), I found that, at the end of the day, all I wanted to do was watch TV, eat dinner, and then graze on desserts and snacks until I nodded off on the couch. Once I was in FA and not eating late at night, I still fought going to bed at a reasonable hour, and was resentful that I felt pressured to turn in earlier. With clicker in hand, I would lay on the couch surfing from one satellite channel to the next, all the while telling myself to get up and go to bed.
The next morning, when I dragged myself out of bed to call my sponsor, I’d say to myself, “Tonight it will be different. Tonight I’ll go to bed on time and I’ll feel better tomorrow.” But I didn’t. Just like I had done with the food, I lied to myself, and my life continued to be unmanageable. I struggled to be bright and chipper on the phone with my sponsor. I fell asleep during quiet time. I was short with my husband.
I kept saying that I was willing to go to any lengths for recovery, but getting enough sleep was a challenge. I had a full-time job with an hour commute and two part-time jobs editing a journal and teaching an online university course, plus I had an ill, elderly mother. By the time my day was over, it was always 10 p.m. or later and I was exhausted.
A few weeks into recovery, I knew I had to change and finally began to use my food addiction tools on my bedtime problem. I wrote about how my life was unmanageable and asked my sponsor for advice. She suggested I use the tool of writing and develop a schedule so that I could identify activities I might delete or move around. She reminded me that language is powerful and suggested I try reframing the idea of going to bed on time into simply stopping my day instead.
With a thimbleful of willingness, I asked my higher power for help, picked up my 4” x 5” spiral-bound food notebook and wrote out a schedule, working backwards until I could see when I needed to stop my day. I saw I needed to stop my workday two hours earlier‒between 5 and 5:30. I learned I needed to stop my Sundays by 4 to get to my 6:30 meeting on time. I could also see that I’d need to look for ways to reduce my part-time jobs and trust that their income would not be missed.
And it worked. I had a clear picture of why my way wasn’t working and some options of how it could work better. All this came from just being open to something new and changing the language in my head. I no longer chide myself that it is “time to go to bed” but simply remind myself that it is “time to stop my day.” Such a simple shift is all it took to begin the process of providing my body with a healthy amount of sleep–its night-time recovery. Eventually, I let go of my two part-time jobs and scaled back my full-time job so that it better supported my abstinence, too.
Today I am grateful for a good night’s sleep. There are no circles under my eyes. I stay awake during AWOLs and meetings. I don’t feel guilty about how much I get done or don’t get done. My life is no longer booked every single moment. I have (some!) discretionary time today, and that’s how I had time to share this story.