Hi All,

My birthday is a day apart from one of my best friends birthday, and we celebrated in a big way yesterday. My friend was turning 50, and I 51, My guess is there were over 50 people attending the party. The party was catered with Jamaican style food. Not much in the way of raw food, but the food was fresh and well prepared. My favorite was the pineapple coleslaw.

Rewind to five hours before the party. The big test, of course, would be the cake. Would I eat any? The funny thing is I am very picky about what kind of sweets I like, and the reality is I'm not really crazy about birthday cake. Something inside me was rebelling and I was thinking "It's my day, my birthday, and I'll eat some cake if I want to. Just this day. If it's chocolate I'll at least try it."

Then the phone rang. It was a friend from OA just calling me randomly to say hello. I didn't say anything about the fact that I was thinking about eating sugar on my 14th day of abstinence.

Wow. Talk about divine intervention. God doing for me what I could not do for myself? Talk about feeling like I was getting caught, too, just thinking about eating sugar. My old Catholic guilt started kicking in. After all, the thought was as good as the deed, right?

I felt blessed to speak with my friend. She was bright and cheerful, just checking in. I told her it was my birthday and she of course told me to have a good time and that she hoped I was having a great day. That was about all to the conversation, but boy did it shake me up that I didn't tell her I was romanticizing breaking my abstinence and eating a sweet I didn't even like.

When it was time for the cakes to be cut, one for me and one for my friends. I stood aside and watched. They were huge, beautifully decorated. Yes, one of them was chocolate. It also had coconut in it which I think is a great way to ruin anything made of chocolate. So there it was: I'm not crazy about birthday cake, I'm not crazy about coconut. Again, God doing for me what I could not do for myself?

Bottom line? I decided it wasn't worth it. I didn't eat cake. I wonder what I would have done, however, if it was one of my favorites like mmm, flourless chocolate cake?

Well, it wasn't flourless chocolate cake.

When I'm ready, I'll stop by Arden's garden and get some of her delicous carrot juice with cocoa. No sugar! Right now, I just don't want to trigger myself with anything.

As of today, day 15, I am giving myself permission to heal.

All the Best,

Andrew.