I don't want to be blogging right now, but I realize that I need to update the previous post, about my being in relapse, 'cause for today anyway, I'm not anymore. I can't have such a dangerously misleading headline being what readers see first.

For 46 days, I've been abstaining from foods and food behaviors that are unhealthy for me. In early December, I went away to Acorn Food Dependency Recovery Services, a Florida-based group from which I've sought help for more than 20 years, and I've been better since.

I came away with a renewed conviction that I *must* practice the disciplines that have brought me so far. (I'll list them, again, some other time.) They'd become "optional" over the past couple of years, and my relapse is proof again that they are what keep me from falling into a trough of food and despair. And, I can only keep them green when I ask for help, accept it, and offer it to others.

I'm spending more time on these things, and oddly, I find I have more time, not less, because I'm not mooning in front of the TV. I've returned to the gym (five times so far, and expect to go today), am doing more cooking for me and the family, and in general things are looking up. I have no guarantees, except for the one that says I will — typically, though certainly not exclusively — experience the results of the choices I make.

For today, I'm making healthier, more sustaining choices. Decades of experience tells me that with help, I can continue doing that — but that I can also fail to continue, if I let it slide.