TODAY I AM "NORMAL" By Charles Richards, Licensed Counselor

 

Charlie and I met in Boy Scouts over 60 years ago. He’s been a friend, a brother in Christ, and a counselor to me as well. He’s always been perfectly normal in my opinion, but his writing reveals more.

This post has been a long time in coming. 

As long as I can remember, I have been overweight.  When I graduated from High School, I weighed 245 pounds; college 265.  Being the overachiever that I am, throughout my life, I gained another 100 pounds, reaching 365 pounds.

In the early 1990's I had weight loss surgery.  I got down to 214 pounds, but gained some weight back, stablelising at 245 pounds for a number of years.

Shortly before the pandemic, I was teaching a graduate counseling class in addictions.  One night, I was lecturing on Harm Reduction, which is where we teach those with an alcohol addiction to drink responsibly, i.e., you can have a beer at a party, but you don't need to get drunk.  As I was talking, I realized I have always rationalized my addiction to food...it goes like this:  "As a person addicted to food, I still have to participate in my addiction."  Driving home from that class, I decided to stop rationalizing and take control of my addiction.

Since that time, I have lost and maintained in the 170-180 RANGE.  Recently, I was looking up the ranges for classifying weight.  I was pleased that I have gone from MORBIDLY OBESE, to OBESE, to OVERWEIGHT.  I then saw that if I lost an additional 5 pounds (from the 170) I could be in the NORMAL range for my age, gender, height.

Today, I weigh 164 pounds.  I tell you that, not to gloat, not to say "look at me", but to say if I can do it, so can you!!

Addictions are hard, but through support and those in our tribe that cheer for our successes, we can do it!

I hope this is an encouragement to you.

See more at cdrtherapy.com. Or search for CDR COUNSELING.