Goodbye to food---at parties

I have at least 5 parties to attend over the next 3 weekends and I'm going to have to attend them without having food as a crutch. I'm going to have to bring food and not eat it. I have to talk to people without relying on food to allay my social anxiety and fear of putting my foot in my mouth in one of my impulsive, ADHD moments.

I won't be able to gorge myself on foods I would never have in my home or buy for myself. That's the thing about parties. I love to go to parties because of the food, and I hate to go to parties because of the food.

At my church we're into celebrating everything, and everything involves food--delicious food and lots of it. At school people bring special treats for everything. At weekly faculty devotions, the leader is supposed to bring a treat.

If my husband and I want to do something special, we go to a cheap restaurant in order to stay within our budget. Family get togethers are dominated by food.

I really don't know how to talk to people without food smoothing the way. Alcohol has never appealed much to me--its always been food.

The food is killing me. More insidiously than alcohol or nicotine, it is still killing me. But unlike alcohol and nicotin and other addictive substances, I need it to live.

How can something that God created so good, become so evil for me?

Imagine a world that sin had never entered. Where genetic alterations that make some people prone to addiction had never happened. Where celebration never turns into debauchery--of any kind, either by choice or by uncontrollable compulsions and cravings. That's what paradise would look like, and what it will look like when Christ comes again to establish his new heaven and new earth.

Party!