Sweet Denial

Geri Borcz

I am not an addict.

I go to the farmer's market for convenience, as a social pastime, everyone does. The smells, the textures... everything there is fresh... fresh fish, fresh veggies, fresh clerks. So what if I used to shop monthly, then every couple of weeks, then every week, then twice a day until I felt as creamy as frothed milk and couldn't squeeze in another minute for anything except food, glorious food.

So what if my friends cooled around me, my landlord simmered about the rent, and my boss grilled me on my whereabouts. I ignored them all. At night, I dreamed of ways to get to the market. And the more I dreamed, the more I wanted. Then I whipped up the perfect plan.

I'd go at four in the morning, when the boats came in brimming with all those slippery finned bodies--tuna, halibut, salmon, sockeye, mackerel, cod, and the crabs, king crab, snow crab, crabby appleseed, I loved them all. I was in taste bud heaven, until one day I sat down to my zucchini surprise and got a surprise of my own. The chair crumbled beneath me. That's when I realized I was four hundred and seventeen pounds and hadn't had a date since Christ was a corporal; and there on the television was a lady talking about an overeaters support group, and I thought, me, she's talking to me. So I joined that group.

We met monthly at first, then I thought if I drove to the group in the next town, I could meet twice a month. And I liked that idea so much, I searched for more towns and more groups until I found them. Yes! I could meet twice a day, except I was spending more time on the road and less time at work, and I got fired from my job, and I got sued for back rent, and they cut off the water and electricity, and I was smelling sort of ripe, but the support groups were helping me because I was shedding the weight; then one day, when I was feeling very low, my sponsor suggested a therapist. So I went to see her.

And the therapist helped me right away. She recognized my problem, said I had an addiction to support groups and assured me it would take only a few therapy sessions to wean me off my support group habit. I liked this woman. I saw her once a week and saw my support groups ten times a week. She went on vacation, so I couldn't see her then; instead, her assistant held clients' meetings, where we sat around on bean bags and pigged out on munchies and talked about the therapy we were doing to rid us of our therapies, and the assistant said this wasn't working out, that we needed hobbies to fill our time. I said I liked to cook, and all eyes turned toward me. Go to the farmer's market!

But I'm not an addict... a dozen eclairs sometimes, and then only when I'm depressed.

Copyright ©1998 Geri Borcz. All Rights Reserved.

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February, 1998 Issue #22

512 Words

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