It began instantly
As soon as the decision had been made
I wanted to binge
Reaching for humous and lentil crisps, takeaways and food I don’t even usually eat
Pulling towards me that which I am about to let go of
One last time I keep telling myself
One more bag of crisps (trying to justify that they are ‘healthy’ crisps)
One more mushroom madras
One more portion of Dominic’s AMAZING sweet potato chips deep fried in coconut oil

I witnessed the EXACT same behaviour that I’ve displayed when letting go of all of the other substances that I have been addicted to; alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, sugar, caffeine, codeine, the list goes on…

Coming home from London I ate vegan sweet chilli tofu with rice and noodles on the train
BINGE
I didn’t even enjoy it
It was slimy and tasted of chemicals
But I ate it
Even though I knew there was sugar in it
Even though I knew there was most probably MSG in it
Even though I knew there was other unsavoury ingredients in it

It was like another Jo had taken over my brain
I was out of control
BUT
I did all of this with permission
As I did notice what was going on
Even writing about it at the time of eating
To capture the energy of what I was doing
It was okay
I recognised the behaviour
And knew it would pass
In fact
It may even push the date forward for my year of raw

I couldn’t eat the last few mouthfuls of the sweet chilli tofu
It was congealed into a lump in the corner of the takeaway box
And I saw it for what it was
Utter rubbish
And it was exactly this that I was so longing to be free from
For good

The parallel of this and my alcohol journey is astounding
And I’m intrigued that I feel in the exact same shoes as I did nearly seven years ago when I was about to take my last drink; the binging, the fear, the panic

I laughed at how difficult I sometimes made this passage of life!
Always taking the complex path
Oh Jo
Why remain on the hard bus, when the easy and even magic bus is waiting for me to jump on

I thought at the time that this was going to be an ongoing pattern for the month leading up to the date I’d set to go raw for one year (13th May), but the very next day I popped out the other side of the BINGE! I’d learnt what I needed to from it, so no longer required hanging around in that space. That is the thing about when you ‘get’ the QS way of living life; once you ‘get’ why you’re doing it, what the pay-off is, once you’re worked out your ‘why’ you no longer have to keep going around and around in that circle again. Life can now get easy…