Best-Laid Plans

I looked at the tiny refrigerator, carefully reserved in advance at the hotel and now fully stocked, and thought, Fifteen meals? Uh-oh!

Everything was going so well up until now. This was the first prolonged time my wife and I had spent outside our home in 17 months, due to circumstances beyond everybody’s control. We had to postpone cruises, forego trips to see four of our grandchildren, and in general spent too much time in the house. I love my home but it was easy to project just how much more I would appreciate it after a week at the beach.

The only possible flaw in this plan was that I had joined FA less than a month before, and radically altered my eating patterns.

My sponsor, for some reason, was not wildly enthusiastic about our trip. We spent several days discussing the details, and it made me think about the last time a girlfriend had broken up with me. Was this going to end badly? Our trip had been set in something like stone—wet cement, at least—for nearly six months. My wife needs to have every minute detail of a plan worked out, far in advance, before she can sleep at night. This trait has meant a lot of lost sleep for both of us, but now I was appreciating the results, and bragging about them to my sponsor.

I was bringing along dry foods, canned foods, produce, and an ice chest. I not only had access to the tools of recovery, but I was also bringing my other tools: measuring spoon, microwaveable dishes, can opener, and portable scale. I reassured my sponsor that everything was going to be okay. It had to be okay because I was going anyway.

Day one was great. I called my sponsor with my day’s food plan, then ate my abstinent breakfast before we left. At the halfway point of the drive, we stopped at a fast-food place so my wife, who does not have food issues, could get lunch. She ordered a meal inside while I prepared mine in the back of the car, weighed and measured. Then I brought my containers inside and we ate together at a table. This franchise was very hospitable to a non-customer in the company of a paying customer. I even got a free glass of water.

The traffic was manageable (in LA!), the hotel was beautiful, and the front desk upgraded us to a partial-ocean-view room. At dinner time, I ate my weighed and measured meal, warmed in the tiny hotel microwave. Then we went to the restaurant, where my wife ordered a nice meal and I sipped an unsweetened beverage and a glass of water while we watched a radiant sunset on Santa Monica Beach. For once, I got to dominate the dinner conversation whenever her mouth was full.

On day two, my sponsor call went well because I had stayed abstinent for a full day away from home, and I had everything on my food list in our hotel room. I ate breakfast in our room while my wife dressed. At the restaurant, I sipped my beverage (without sweetener, 100% sponsor approved) while we chatted and my wife ate. Already, I was running out of things to say to her.

My wife and I walked on the beach down to the boardwalk. The smell of fried foods from the restaurant and food stands was a little overwhelming, but no longer a fierce temptation for me. And my wife had never been a fan of fried foods. We found a healthier place a few blocks away. My wife had lunch and I had another hot beverage, then went back to the room for my meal.

Mini-fridge, cooler, and microwave were working fine and I began to feel that, in my sponsor’s words, I could take this program anywhere. The only misgivings I had were that I was getting tired of watching other people eat at a restaurant.

On day three, we made a few planned visits to friends and a cemetery and scheduled them between mealtimes. But my produce was getting withered, one food item ran out, and I discovered I could not stomach another item for one more day without variety. I looked at the long view—something I had avoided because I did not want our trip ruined by logic—and began to see the flaws in my master plan. Five days meant 15 meals, each of them with at least three food items. That was 45 different weights and measures of 45 portions. What was completely manageable at home, with multiple stores a few minutes away, I now recognized as a logistical nightmare. Once again, I was surprised at how quickly I could travel from mild annoyance to full-fledged panic.

I tried to solve it myself. I asked the waiter at lunch if the chef would prepare a few special dishes if he knew in advance; no sauces, no oil except for a quick shot of cooking spray, no sugar or flour. The man was very accommodating, enough so that I wondered how many food addicts in recovery had been there before. He even said I could bring my food scale into the restaurant.

Even though he promised full cooperation with my food plan, I had one further problem. I had not cleared it with my sponsor, and what I would be eating was not precisely what I had committed. That afternoon, I did two unfamiliar things. I prayed about the problem and I took it to my sponsor.

I called him expecting the worst, being told that I had broken from the plan, dismissed as his sponsee, and doomed to an overweight life and grim death. (Did I mention panic?) I was very pleasantly surprised as he explained the concept of an abstinent meal out. I had feared that I was forbidden to eat restaurant food ever again. Instead, I learned that I could, with the help of my Higher Power, order simple food without any ingredients not on my plan. My measurements did not have to be as precise as they were at home, but I had to be careful not to eat more than my usual portions. My intention, he assured me, was just as important as the food. As long as I prayed to remain abstinent, made my needs known to the waiter, and was cautious, I was okay.

Innocently ignorant, I was later to learn that I had already broken two of the rules of eating out abstinently. To quote from Living Abstinently, “...we don’t take our scales or measuring spoons with us... we don’t take extra food into a restaurant.” Because I had cleared it with the restaurant in advance, however, it was okay. And I don’t do those things anymore.

It’s hard to convey what a relief my sponsor’s words were to me. Once the hotel restaurant knew about my dietary needs, I was able to eat most of the rest of my meals there with a clear conscience. The rest of our trip was a pleasure, and I kept my abstinence for that week and the six months that followed.

Fun fact: a common fruit that sells at my grocery store for 19 cents each—a quarter if you want to go organic—retailed at the restaurant for $8.00! We were so amazed by this that it became a standard of measurement for the rest of the trip, as in, “I need to put about five fruits worth of gas in the car for the trip home” and “The service was so good I left him a two-fruit tip.”

I learned a number of lessons which have served me well in FA. Don’t try to figure it out all by myself. I have fellows to help me. Trust God and my sponsor. Bring extra fruit or extra money.