I love my dad. Most of the time, I enjoy spending time with him. However, he's also the person who can most likely trigger me to dive head-first into a vat of something unhealthy. It used to be worse. I used to run for cookies every time he called me up drunk. Eventually, I learned not to answer my phone past a certain time of night, and to only call back if his message was sober. In addition to avoidance, I started separating out in my head his drinking from my long-programmed responses, and truly realized that eating didn't help.

However, when he shows up drunk, and continues drinking, and goes off on a rant about how my mother is a horrible person and "ruined" my life, and when he and I get into a two-hour long argument about things that we just plain will never agree on but he won't let go .... well, sometimes I'm still okay. Other times, like last night, I'm not.


I actually held off the urge for a couple of hours. I talked to a friend, I read a blog, I watched some television. But by 2 in the morning, even though I was consciously thinking "eating will not help, and I know it will not help", I ordered a pizza. It wasn't all that tasty. It was just pizza. I didn't binge on the whole thing, which is also progress. In fact, I feel fine today, not bloated or fuzzy-headed, so apparently I still came in under whatever my carb tolerance threshold is. So I'm not going to worry about it.

Basically, I don't think I'll ever be able to completely exile emotional eating from my life. It's worth trying, and it's not my first-line coping mechanism anymore (thank god), but I think it'll always be an option in my head, and sometimes, like last night, I'll take that option. And I'm not going to beat myself up for it, either.

Food's better than crack, right?