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Pieces of Mind

This happens every time I have a week of travel.

By the time Sunday rolls around, I reach a point in the afternoon where I sit in the chair by the living room window as my brain cracks into pieces. I feel a buzz, even though I’m sober. I feel some bloat, even though my eating has been clean.

Mood music: “Ace of Spades” by Motorhead:

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I feel like a wheel that’s spinning so fast that it looks like it’s completely still.

I feel the need to go into hyper-active mode, even though that’s the last thing I should be doing today.

It’s been a good day. Good Mass this morning, a fun Lego run with the kids this afternoon, and the weather is spectacular.

But I’m preoccupied.

I’ve gotten to do a lot of writing the last two weeks and now I’m looking at a week where there will be a lot more editing than writing. Deadline for the May print edition of CSO Magazine is coming up soon and I got a week behind while I was in California. There are guest columns to edit and post, and a book proposal to tweak.

During the RSA security conference, an editor for a security book publisher approached me about writing a book. But my idea veers too far from their normal content, and I’m doing some tweaking to fuse my idea with some of what they’re looking for.

If it doesn’t come together, so be it. But until then, I’m going to preoccupy myself with ways to come up with something they can sell.

One way or another, the book is going to get written. It’s in my head and will scrape the inside of my skull until I let it out.

Then there’s Source Boston, one of my favorite annual security conferences, which is coming up the week after next.

My want is to work the conference hard each day and write a lot of articles from it, but that aint happening because Sean and Duncan are on school vacation that week. It’s also Sean’s birthday and there will be a kid’s party to help pull off somewhere in there.

It’ll all work out fine. It always does. But planning how to balance the work thing with family has always been a challenge for me.

In the end, Sean’s birthday will win out. It’s more important than the other thing. Wife and kids come first.

All these things are examples of me obsessing about things beyond my mortal ability to control.

I manage that instinct a hell of a lot better than I used to, but it never fully disappears.

The fear-anxiety part did disappear, and that’s made each day a gift.

But lying around care-free? Not gonna happen unless I fall asleep.

Ah, the life of a control freak.

As long as I keep it from becoming a control freak-out, it’s all good.

Welcome to my world.

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Sticking it to Kids Who Are Different

The author on why the school sports mentality is leaving kids who are “different” in the dust.

Mood music for this post: “Mandocello” by Cheap Trick:

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how schools tend to deal with kids who are different. Kids like the one I used to be.

The school we send our kids to, a private Parochial school, is wonderful on many levels. My favorite thing about it is the other families who send their kids there. Many people who have become dear friends. Most importantly, the kids are getting a daily dose of God there, which is something Erin and I care deeply about.

But I see something there that bothers me. But it’s something that’s a problem in a lot of schools.

It’s the sports mentality. The idea that the ONLY way to measure a kid’s potential is by how he or she does in sports.

My children are not much into sports. Both are more focused on art, science (especially Sean) and music (Duncan’s passion).

Some might call that different. And because sports is such a huge deal in their school, I don’t think their talents are being put to the test as they should be.

There’s practically no music program to speak of. Sure, someone comes in to teach the kids songs and put on a musical performance each spring (though that teacher was cut loose for this year because of budget woes), but there’s nothing more than that. This is where Duncan misses out.

Last year, Erin pitched the idea of a “Mad Scientist” program for kids who love science. The program would cost the school nothing and the principal expressed interest. But then it went nowhere. Kids like Sean lose out on this one.

But the sports. Oh, how the school is passionate about its sports. The teams win big. And that is encouraged at all costs, even if it means only a quarter of the kids on a team get to play while those who “aren’t good enough” spend all their time on the bench.

The goal is to win. If you’re not good enough to make that happen, you take a seat. Not the best way to challenge kids to reach their full potential, even if their potential doesn’t look like much to judgmental, competitive eyes.

This isn’t just a problem where my kids go to school. Everywhere you look, it’s all about the sports. The football team. The softball team. The hockey team. The basketball team.

Sure, sports are important. Sports bring out the best in many children, and can be as important an outlet for troubled kids as music was and still is for me.

The problem is that sports isn’t for everyone. And a kid should never be set adrift because sports isn’t their outlet. Yet that’s what happens.

I feel strongly about this because as a troubled child, I was often dismissed by educators as a troublemaker who was on the road to nowhere.

Some wonderful teachers did note my affinity for art and encouraged me on that score. And for a kid going through a lot, that encouragement kept me going.

But in junior and high school, the sports thing kept me in a box. I sucked at every sport out there. I was different. And so I was tossed into the group of so-called C-students, the ones who had a tendency to come up short and some of whom were trouble.

Other talents, like writing, lay dormant until after high school. Giving a kid guidance on writing is never done with the same zeal as encouraging kids with sports.

Now for what really burns me: A lot of children with mental disorders — I was one of them — tend to get dumped into the troublemaker bucket. Talents that can help them build character and find direction are not nurtured. Being good at a sport is really their only hope.

I call that failing kids who are different.

Educators should focus like a laser beam on those differences; not as a problem to complain about, but as something to cherish.

It’s those differences that make each kid special and beautiful, even if it means they have trouble focusing or sitting still in their chair. Or sucks at sports.

That’s one of the things I like about the Montessori concept. I’m going to borrow this description from Wikipedia, because it works in this case:

The Montessori method is an educational approach to children based on the research and experiences of Italian physician and educator Maria Montessoriwhich happened in the process of her experimental observation of young children given freedom in an environment prepared with materials designed for their self-directed learning activity.

The method itself aims to duplicate this experimental observation of children to bring about, sustain and support their true natural way of being. It arose essentially from Dr. Montessori’s discovery of what she referred to as “the child’s true normal nature.”

Applying this method involves the teacher in viewing the child as having an inner natural guidance for his or her own perfect self-directed development. The role of the teacher (sometimes called director, directress, or guide) is therefore to watch over the environment to remove any obstacles that would interfere with this natural development. The teacher’s role of observation sometimes includes experimental interactions with children, commonly referred to as “lessons,” to resolve misbehavior or to show how to use the various self-teaching materials that are provided in the environment for the children’s free use.

I don’t think this is a perfect concept. I think kids also need to be taught boundaries and to play by a certain level of rules, and the Montessori concept unfiltered can be a problem in that regard.

But boy, it sure is good for the kids who are different. Not bad, not even troubled. Just different.

This post will piss some people off. I don’t care.

No education is perfect. No teacher or principal is perfect. Nor should we expect them to be. At my kids’ school there’s an abundance of love for every kid, and I adore many of the teachers there.

Most of them are doing their best with dwindling resources.

But as a kid whose path was littered with minefields, I know that the cookie-cutter approach to education leaves a lot of good kids in the dust.

Sports should never be the be all end all in determining a child’s power to shine.

If the sports is all a school cares about, it will ultimately fail.

God made us all complex and loves us all, even though we don’t fit nice and tidy into perfect little boxes.

We could learn a thing or two from that.

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Scenes from the Airport

The author finds airport amusement where he once found hell. Here’s what happens.

Mood music for this post: “Learn to Fly” by Foo Fighters:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VQ_3sBZEm0&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

I sit here at 6:23 a.m. San Francisco time, sitting at the gate for a flight home in an hour. Considering what I just passed through, I got here pretty quickly and calmly.

Let’s back up.

When I got here, the TSA line was as long as I’ve ever seen. Directly ahead of me in line were 40 or so tweens headed on a trip to Gettysburg and Washington D.C.

Finding MY food was more trouble than I expected, but I found what I needed. I also found some coffee that was made following my friend Ken White’s recipe.

A few minutes later, I found a Peet’s Coffee stand and things immediately started looking up. I tossed the “White” blend in the trash and got my rocket fuel.

All things considered, I’m in a chipper mood. I keep thinking of airport disaster movies and it makes me laugh. I find myself searching Youtube for some Lynard Skynard videos. Some of you might remember that half that band went down in a plane crash. That’s how my gallows humor works.

I have plenty of reasons to be happy. I’m going home to my family, who I miss. Our security conference was a smashing success. And each night here I caught up with many of the cool people I’m connected with on Twitter.

The weather has also been pretty brilliant, though strangely cooler than it was back home this week.

But there are other reasons to feel this way.

For one thing, I stuck to my plan of recovery and kept my strict alcohol-flour-sugar-free eating program intact. I also didn’t feel the edge around people drinking booze that I felt on the last trip.

I wasn’t perfect. I drank A LOT of caffeine, even by my standards, and smoked more cigars than I normally do. Maybe that’s why I didn’t feel the edge around the liquor.

Ah, addictions. You put two of them down and three more pop up.

But when I think of how much I’ve polluted myself on past trips over the years, this is pretty good behavior.

There’s actually an even bigger reason I’m in a good mood: Trips through airports used to terrify me. It was one of the top freak-out items on my OCD-anxiety itinerary. I’d live the weeks leading up to a trip worrying about whether the plane will drop from the sky. Long lines would send my blood pressure soaring until my head was ready to go supernova.

Sitting on the plane for five or more hours was pure hell because closed-in spaces triggered anxiety attacks, the kind where you have trouble breathing and you see spots in your vision.

I would get home and collapse from the exhaustion.

So here we are, years after I started the therapy and found the 12 Steps of recovery. Oh yeah, and Prozac.

The TSA line doesn’t freak me out anymore. I chatted easily with the fellow overseeing the traveling tweens and with a couple of the kids. All the kids were actually very well behaved and polite.

Being on a plane now brings me peace. I look out the window and see how vast and amazing this country is. If the weather is gray, the pilot will fly us above it to a sky of blue.

photo-by-mbshane

Maybe I’ll get some sleep. Maybe I’ll listen to my music or read, or some of each.

Then I’ll land in Boston and get a ride home from a good friend.

Then I’ll see my wife and kids, who I’m eager to see again.

I was talking to a good friend at a meet-up last night — Ed Bellis, chief information security officer for Orbitz — and he asked me if I ever return to the darker feelings of my past.

Sure I do. Managing a mental disorder and its related addictions is hard work and you never stop feeling the ups and downs of life. Nor should you.

I still feel anger and even a little fear sometimes. But instead of those things controlling me, they are now more minor occurrences.

I still get tired. And with addiction, you’re always half a second away from potentially slipping on your darkest habits.

And I definitely go through a day here or week there where depression sets in. That’s normal.

But I told him — truthfully — that there are some things about the old me that will never and can never return.

I can’t see ever having the anxiety attacks and fear I used to have, though I suppose anything is possible.  I’ve seen too many of the things I missed to ever turn back. Even if I lapse back into periods of anxiety (I hope not!) there’s no turning back.

My eyes have been opened to a whole new world and going back to the dark room — which is something I used to crave — is now one of those things I’d dread instead.

Another friend, Jen Leggio (@mediaphyter on Twitter), asked me how I manage to write something new in this blog every day while maintaining the writing load I carry on the work side.

My answer is simple:

Back when fear, anxiety and depression led me to binge eat and spend 80 hours a week working out of fear that I might not please everyone (Man, that was fucking dumb), I was constantly wiped out. I would sleep all the way through my weekends.

As a result, writing was hard and stressful.

Now that I’ve learned to get out of my own way, writing comes easily, whether it’s here or in the security realm. I can write a lot more because I don’t feel the least bit of stress about it. I love it, so I do it.

The other thing I chalk it up to is Faith. As my Faith in God deepens, I realize that the things I used to freak out over are trivial items that I can’t take with me into the next life. So getting worked up about them seems pointless.

I know there’s always the chance I can slip backwards. Indeed, setbacks are a natural part of recovery. I like to call those moments growing pains.

But yeah, in the big picture, I’m one grateful SOB.

Now to board the plane. I’m in the middle of my annual reading of Helter Skelter, so I guess I’ll do that until I happily pass out.

End music: “Times Like These” by Foo Fighters:

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A Suicide

The author’s message to some people mourning a friend’s suicide. He’s been there, so maybe these words will help.

Mood music for this post: “Murder in the City,” by the Avett Brothers:

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Some acquaintances in the information security community are currently dealing with something I know about all too well — a friend taking their own life.

I don’t know these people very well, and I never met the woman they are now grieving over. But given the road I’ve traveled, I wanted to say something that might be helpful. Here goes…

You’re probably feeling kicked in the guts by this. You may have known your friend was depressed, even suicidal, but it never really clicked in your brain that this friend would actually DO IT.

Now you’re beating yourself over it because you’re certain that you saw the signs in hindsight and should have done something to help this person. You feel you weren’t the friend you should have been. Or brother. Or sister. Or parent.

Your brain is spinning like an old record, skipping as you replay the last few months in your head, over and over again. “How could you have missed the signs?” you ask yourself.

As everyone in your circle second guesses themselves, tensions and hard feelings bubble to the surface.

It can be too much to absorb. And the hurt will be there for a long time.

But things will get better. They always do.

Here are some of the things I’ve learned in the nearly 14 years since my friend’s death:

–Blaming yourself is pointless. No matter how many times you replay events in your mind, the fact is that it’s not your fault. For one thing, it’s impossible to get into the head of someone who is contemplating suicide. Sure, there are signs, but since we all get the blues sometimes, it’s very easy to dismiss the signs as something close to normal. When someone is loud in contemplating suicide, it’s usually a cry for help. When the depressed says nothing and even appears OK, it’s usually because they’ve made their decision and are in the quiet, planning stages.

–Blaming each other is even more pointless. Take it from me: Nerves in your circle of family and friends are so raw right now that it won’t take much for relationships to snap into pieces. A week after my friend’s death I wrote a column about it, revealing what in hindsight was too much detail. His family was furious and most of them haven’t talked to me since. They feel I was exploiting his death to advance my writing career and get attention. I was pretty screwed up back then, so they’re probably right. In any event, I don’t blame them for hating me. What I’ve learned, and this is tough to admit, is that you’re going to have to let it go when the finger pointing starts. It’s better not to engage the other side. Nobody is in their right mind at this point, so go easy on each other. Give people space to make their errors in judgment and learn from it.

–Don’t demonize the dead. When a friend takes their life, one of the things that gnaws at the survivors is the notion that — if there is a Heaven and Hell — those who kill themselves are doomed to the latter. I’m a devout Catholic, so you can bet your ass this one has gone through my mind. What I’ve learned though, through my own experiences in the years since, is that depression is a clinical disease. When you are mentally ill, your brain isn’t firing on all thrusters. You engage in self-destructive behavior even though you understand the consequences. A person thinking about suicide is not operating on a sane, normally-functioning mind. So to demonize someone for taking their own life is pointless. To demonize the person, you have to assume they were in their right mind at the time of the act. And you know they weren’t. My practice today is to simply pray for those people, that their souls will still be redeemed and they will know peace. It’s really the best you can do.

— Break the stigma. One of the friends left behind in this latest tragedy has already done something that honors her friend’s life: She went on Facebook and directed people toward the American Association of Suicidology website, specifically the page on knowing the warning signs. That’s a great example of doing something to honor your friend’s memory instead of sitting around second guessing yourself. The best thing to do now is educate people on the disease so that sufferers can help themselves and friends and family can really be of service.

–On with your own life. Nobody will blame you for not being yourself for awhile. You have, after all, just experienced one of the worst tragedies there is. But try not to let it paralyze you. Life must go on. You have to get on with your work and be there for those around you.

Don’t take what I’ve just said as Gospel. It’s based on my own experience and no two experiences are the same. But if there was something in there that’s helpful, then I’m grateful.

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In Defense of Patrick Kennedy

The youngest son of Edward M. Kennedy has often been criticized as a lightweight Congressman who gets away with things other people would get arrested for. But the author salutes him anyway. Here’s why.

Patrick Kennedy, the youngest child of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, announced yesterday that he won’t be running for re-election to the Congressional seat he has held since 1995.

US Representative Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island announced that he will not seek reelection, capping a 16-year career in politics. Patrick, the son of the late Senator Edward M. 'Ted' Kennedy, said his father's death caused him to do some soul-searching about his future. With Kennedy's departure, this will be the first time in more than six decades the Kennedy family will not have a member in Washington. Scroll through this gallery for a look at how the Kennedy lineage has impacted politics and public life.

Some will tell you it’s just as well. The Congressman, after all, hasn’t done much except for living off his family name and crashing cars into roadside barriers while high on narcotics. That’s often what I hear from my more conservative friends, who hate everything having to do with the Kennedy name.

Stew Milne/AP Photo

But as someone recovering from OCD, depression, a binge-eating disorder and other addictions, I have plenty of reason to defend this man.

In my view, this fellow has gotten some pretty unfair treatment. Let’s start with Laurence Leamer’s book, “Sons of Camelot.”

In this book, Patrick is described as a spoiled kid who has accomplished nothing in Congress other than repeatedly winning re-election. He’s described as someone who blindly follows the Democratic leadership.

Some of that may be true. But Patrick has done some courageous service for those who suffer from mental illness.

Kennedy has been open about his own struggles with bi-polar disorder and the addictions that go with it. He has been in and out of addiction treatment centers and once noted how his addictive behavior could latch onto anything from pain medication to something as simple as cough medicine.

What’s more, he did one of the hardest things people like us can do: He lived in the spotlight as a public servant, where critics can be cruel and a lot of people like to hate the Kennedys just for the hell of it.

Patrick has carried a lot of pressure being a Kennedy. There’s the pressure to match his father’s towering legislative record and live up to the legendary stature of his uncles.

Some would have dropped to the floor long ago, curled in a fetal position, over the pressure. Some would not have survived. One of Patrick’s cousins, David Kennedy, one of RFK’s sons, didn’t survive the battle with the demons. He died of a drug overdose in 1984.

RFK Jr. also struggled with addiction. So did Christopher Kennedy Lawford, who wrote an excellent book of his own on the subject: “Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption.”

I loved Lawford’s book for a variety of reasons. He recounted his sordid tale with humor and was brutally honest about something addicts are all to aware of: When you quit the thing you’re addicted to, it doesn’t automatically turn you into a good person.

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In fact, recovering addicts often become big jerks before they find their footing. They’re learning how to behave in public without being drunk or high. A deep depression often sets in because years of abuse leaves the brain with deep chemical imbalances that hit you like a brick to the head once the booze, food or narcotics exit the picture.

Patrick has dealt with all of these realities and still carried on in public service.

He continued to show up for life when life was at its most unbearable.

It gave people like me a little inspiration when we needed it most. So as Patrick prepares to exit the public stage and embark on a new life, I thank him for his service and wish him the best.

It’s easy for people to pass judgment on him for his flaws.

But people who do so often forget about their own flaws.

None of us are truly without sin. But we like to cast the first stones anyway.

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When Pain Drips from the Mind to the Body

The author on why it’s true that mental illness leads to physical sickness.

Mood music:

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I’ve heard a lot of people argue over whether this person’s or that person’s aches and pains were “all in their head.” You know the types: Never any real underlying disease, but they’re always calling out of work with a headache or some intestinal discomfort.

It’s all in their head, you say?

Well, yeah.

It’s called psychosomatic illness, when mental anguish leads to physical sickness.

http://www.rodale.com/files/images/458870.jpgI’ve been there. Migraines. Brutal back pain. A stomach turned inside-out.

But it wasn’t always clear that what ailed me was in my head. Childhood illness confused matters. A huge chunk of my digestive track was in flames and spewing blood because of  Chron’s Disease. I’m told by my parents that the doctors came close to removing the colon more than once, though I don’t remember that myself; probably because the doctors had that conversation with the parents instead of the patient.

To throw it into remission, they used the maximum dose of a drug called Prednisone, which caused another kind of body blow in the form of migraines. You can read more about that in “The Bad Pill Kept me from the Good Pill,” but the bottom line is that these headaches came daily; always making me sick to my stomach.

Later in life, I developed severe back pain, the kind that would knock me onto the couch and keep me there for weeks.

All legitimate physical problems. But at some point my brain lost the ability to differentiate a real Chron’s flare-up or back spasm to an imagined one.

In the end, though, it doesn’t matter. It may as well have been one of those things. Because when the mind thinks it is, it has a habit of BECOMING real.

I found an article in About.com that describes the problem better than I ever could on my own:

Any illness that has physical symptoms, but has the mind and emotions as its origin is called a psychosomatic illness. Although you may be told that it’s “all in your head”, these illnesses are not imaginary. The aches and pains are very real, but because your doctor is looking for an actual physical cause, they are very tricky to diagnose and treat. The key is to look for a source of stress in the person’s life that the person is not coping with. By treating the underlying stress and depression, it may be possible to heal the physical problems as well.

For me, it was easy to separate the Chron’s episodes from the tricky stuff described above, since the disease was sitting there for the doctors to see. I was always told mental stress could trigger flare-ups and I guess they did, especially when my parents divorced 30 years ago and a lot of stress over custody ensued. I’m fairly sure the after-effects of my brother’s death set off the last real flare-up in 1986.

But the migraines and back problems seeped seamlessly into the things that were going wrong with me mentally.

Anxiety attacks felt essentially the same as a heart attack, complete with the pain shooting from the chest to the neck and down the arms. Migraines followed. Work stress often sparked migraines and back pain.

While it was difficult to separate other legitimate physical problems from those stemming from mental distress, I can tell you that dealing with my underlying OCD, depression and addiction made a lot of ailments go away.

I’m not sure I can credit it with ending the back problems. Though mental illness most likely enhanced the back pain, that problem was eventually diagnosed as three out-of-whack vertebrae the chiropractor knocks back into alignment every other week. No more imprisonment on the couch.

But these things have gone away — and have not returned — since I got a handle on the OCD and related binge-eating disorder:

–Puking up stomach acid in the middle of the night

–Numbing of the feet

–A strange poked-in-the-eye sensation that would hit me early mornings and leave me with blurred vision for a day or more.

–A dull ache in the left hand, which often got worse as my mind spun out of control with thoughts that it MIGHT be a heart-attack.

–Fatigue that would cause all my joints to ache unless I were to lie down and go to sleep.

–Heart palpatations.

All disappeared once I started to attack the core problem.

The ultimate take-away from all this is that something in your head can cause real, physical pain.

And when you deal with what’s in your head, the pain in the rest of your body can be eradicated.

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Helter Skelter

The author admits that his OCD behavior includes an obsession with the Manson Case. Here’s why.

Ever since I was a kid and I first saw the 1976 TV movie on the Manson Murders, I’ve been fascinated. I’ve read “Helter Skelter,” the book by Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, dozens of times.

I own the 1976 and 2004 versions of the film on DVD, along with a documentary called “The Six Degrees of Helter Skelter,” where host Scott Michaels, keeper of the popular Findadeath.com site, takes the viewer on a tour of places connected to the case, including Cielo Drive, scene of the Tate murders:

Why the fascination with such an awful tragedy?

Not because of the brutal nature of the murders. I’ve seen the crime scene forensic photos, and they made me sick to my stomach.

It’s really part of my fascination with history. Like it or not, this is a piece of American history. It’s a snapshot of everything that went wrong in the 1960s, where a counterculture born of good intentions — a craving for peace in Vietnam and at home — lost it’s way because there were no rules, no discipline and there was no sobriety. I agree with those who believe the promise of the 1960s died abruptly in the summer of 1969.

I’m also fascinated because it shows how easily seemingly stable people can be brainwashed and controlled to the point where they would willingly heed orders to commit the worst of sins.

I’ve learned from my own struggles with mental disorder that when a person is at their lowest and they’re looking for purpose, even the sweetest among us can fall prey to a monster like Charles Manson.

It shows the dark path someone can take without help from the right people.

That’s not to say I see myself in these people. I don’t. I could never embrace what they embraced, even when I was at my lowest.

But the bottom line is that these people were controlled, that a defect of the mind allowed this kind of programming to happen.

It has nothing to do with my own struggles with OCD. But since that struggle has forced me to do a lot of homework on the brain and what makes it tick, I can’t help but be drawn to these cases.

This one is a lesson in history and mental disorder all wrapped into one.

How could I resist?

I just hope others who are fascinated by this case are sucked in for similar reasons and not because they glorify what happened.

Unfortunately, the latter certainly exists in society.

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Regulating Addictive Food: A Lesson in Futility

As an obsessive-compulsive binge eater, the author feels it’s only proper that he (cough) weigh in (cough) on the notion that regulating junk food might help. Here’s why the answer is probably not.

Since I know what it’s like to be deep in the muck of a binge-eating addiction, my wife thought I might find interest in an article from The Environment Report suggesting that the regulation of foods that are bad for you — same way as with cigarettes — might help some sufferers.

The cattle prod for this item is a new book called “The End of Overeating.” The author is David A. Kessler, MD, and a former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration under presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. I actually have a lot of respect for this guy, whose tenure included the successful push to enact regulations requiring standardized Nutrition Facts labels on food. That, in my opinion, was a huge win for those of us who want truth in advertising.

In “The End of Overeating,” Kessler makes a compelling argument: Foods high in fat, salt and sugar alter the brain’s chemistry in ways that compel people to overeat. “Much of the scientific research around overeating has been physiology — what’s going on in our body,” The Washington Post quoted him as saying in the story “David Kessler: Fat, Salt and Sugar Alter Brain Chemistry, Make Us Eat Junk Food.”

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The real question is what’s going on in the brain, Kessler says.

His theory on food as an addictive substance is as on the mark as you can get. Trust me. I’ve lived it. Binge eating is all about addiction for me. It’s tied directly into the same corner of the brain where my OCD resides.

He is also right that sugar, salt and fat are addictive substances, though for a lot of people, the components of our poison boil down to sugar and flour. Of course, most of the food that has flour and sugar also tends to be high in salt and fat.

The first and most important tool in my OA recovery program is a plan of eating. Flour and sugar are off the table — period. Almost everything I eat goes on a little scale. 4 ounces protein, 4 ounces raw vegetable, 6 ounces cooked vegetable, 2 ounces potato or brown rice, etc. Every morning at 6:15 I call my sponsor, someone who hears my food plan for each day and gives me the necessary kick in the ass.

But salt and fat are not forbidden for me. In fact, I’m allowed to substitute 4 ounces of meat with 2 ounces of cheese or nuts.

To some, this may sound like a typical fad diet, but people in OA have used a plan like this since the beginning. And the plan isn’t the same for everyone. If you have diabetes, for example, removing every scrap of flour from the diet isn’t usually an option. No matter. The only requirement of the program is to stop eating compulsively, no matter how you get there.

This isn’t something I pursued to drop 65 pounds, though I did lose that amount pretty quickly. This is a food plan for life — a key to my getting all the nutrition I need and nothing more. Just as an alcoholic must put down the booze or a narcotics addict has to put down the pills, I have to put down the flour and sugar.

This is the plan that got me out of the darkest days of addictive behavior and I’m a true believer.

Flour and sugar mixed together becomes a toxin that knocks the fluids in my brain out of balance. Kessler’s research is definitely in line with what’s happened to me.

But the idea of regulating food the same way as something like cigarettes? It won’t do much good.

It certainly couldn’t hurt. The nutrition labels at the very least gave us an education on what we put in our bodies, and it’s been especially helpful to parents who are trying to raise their kids healthy. Regulating cigarettes has certainly made it harder for minors to buy them.

But for the true addict, regulation is a joke.

Knowing what’s in junk food won’t keep the addict away. I always read the labels AFTER binging on the item in the package. And the labels have done nothing to curb the child obesity pandemic.

If you smoke, it’s certainly more expensive to buy a pack than it used to be. But if you crave the nicotine, you’ll find a way to get your fix. It’s the same with drugs, and with food.

I’m going to read Kessler’s book because it sounds like he has  some breakthrough findings that can help make people better.

But when someone suggests regulation as a solution, don’t ever believe ’em.

A suffering brain will always find a way to disregard the rules for the three minutes of rapture that follows the binge.

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Even Dobermans Get The Blues

I’m taking Sunday off from writing on here because some of my readers say they need to catch up. But I can’t resist sharing this article, flagged by my good friend Ann Ball, about how dogs battle a little of their own OCD.

Guess I should have abstained from faking the throw all these years. But what’s done is done.

Here’s that article:

Scientists Learn Why Fido Circles the Bowl

By Jeremy Kaplan – FOXNews.com

Ever wonder why your Doberman circles five times before sitting down or eating? So did the researchers at Tufts and UMass, who spent about $70,000 to find out.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/07/scientists-learn-fido-circles-bowl/?test=faces

Andrea Hoffmann/Wikipedia

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Fear Factor

In this installment, the author describes years of living in a cell built by fear, how he broke free and why there’s no turning back.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt

This morning I led a meeting of Over-eaters Anonymous, a task that included standing before a room of people for 30 minutes to tell my story of OCD, addiction and recovery.

It was my third time “qualifying” at an OA meeting this past year. Meanwhile, I did a fair amount of public speaking for my day job as senior editor of CSO Magazine. I sat on panels at security conferences and did solo presentations in front of various information security groups around the country.

Five or so years ago, the notion of me getting up to speak in front of people would have been laughable.

I was too busy hiding in my cage of fear to do such things. Fear will rob you blind, forcing you to avoid life and retreat into the sinister world of addiction.

Breaking free of it was a gift from God. But it took a long time to figure out how to unwrap it and realize my potential.

For me, fear was one of the many byproducts of OCD, something that went hand in hand with anxiety. It kept me away from parties. It scared me out of traveling. I turned down a lot of living in favor of lying in my bedroom watching TV. There are a couple examples in particular that I’m not proud of.

1991

One summer night I was hanging with two friends in front of Kelly’s Roast Beef, a popular eatery on Revere Beach. As we started walking the mile back to my house, we noticed we were being followed by some 15 punks. It was clear they were looking for trouble. I panicked and ran to a nearby bar. As I looked back, I couldn’t see my friends.

The punks had circled them and started kicking and punching their guts in. I called the police and the beatings ended quickly, but I couldn’t get over the fact that I ran away. Worse, it marked the end of my walking along the beach at night for many years to come.

It was a huge fear-inflicted injustice. I grew up on that beach and loved the place. I walked its entire length daily. It gave me peace and clarity. And I allowed some punks to scare me away.

2001

A week after the 9-11 attacks in New York and Washington, Erin and I were scheduled to fly to Arizona to attend a cousin’s wedding. The night before were were supposed to leave, I gave in to my terror at the prospect of getting on a plane and we didn’t go. It’s one of the biggest regrets of my life.

There are smaller examples in between and in the years after, but those are two of the more vivid memories.

Fear also fueled the binge eating and kept me from standing up for things that were right in the family and workplace. It was better to keep my trap shut, I thought. To do otherwise would put my job in danger or have me blackballed.

Then there was the fear of loss I wrote about a few blog posts back — fear that if I didn’t overprotect my kids I might lose them to some imagined beast; that if I spoke my mind during a spousal spat my wife might walk out on me. In hindsight, these were foolish ideas. But in the grip of fear, you think this way and act on it even though you really know better.

When I began getting treatment for the OCD the fear actually accelerated for a while. If a toe went a little numb I’d think I was suffering from a blood clot. A headache would leave me wondering if a tumor was growing inside my skull. A pain in the chest became fear of a heart attack.

I can’t remember when the fear finally began to lift. I think it was in early 2007, shortly after I began taking Prozac. Once the medicine untangled the chemical imbalances in the brain, situations I had feared suddenly seemed manageable. It was pretty weird, actually. I didn’t know what to do with this new feeling. Or maybe it was the year before, when I converted to the Catholic Faith and increasingly let God into my life. When you have God on your side, there’s really nothing to fear, right?

Then little milestones came along. There was a business trip to California that would have consumed me with worry a few years before. There was the first time giving a presentation in front of a room full of security people who were almost certainly smarter than me. The computer holding my PowerPoint presentation went on the fritz and I was forced to present sans slides. I told the audience that I was just going to wing it and that broke the ice.

Today, I look for opportunities to give talks in front of crowded rooms. I have work to do on my speaking skills, but I want more. The more I do, the more my confidence grows and the smoother and more organized the presentations get.

I look for opportunities to fly as well. And though I work hard on the business at hand, I ALWAYS make a point of building in a day to go out and explore, especially if there’s a piece of history to see up close. I want to see it all. Staring at the hotel room TV will no longer do.

Sometimes I worry that the fear will return and I’ll again retreat to my old cage. I don’t think that’s going to happen, though, for one simple reason — the world has been opened up to me. I’ve experienced too much joy these last couple years to go back to the way I was.

I couldn’t go back if I tried. Not that I would want to try.

To be clear, I still worry about things. But I don’t let it shut down the rest of my life. Instead of being engulfed, I can put the concern in its proper mental compartment and move along with my life.

There will be difficulties ahead, I’m sure. That’s life. But I feel more ready to deal with what may come than I’ve ever been before.