Reflective Essay On My Abstinence Experience

Working with my classmate, Spencer, was helpful at the beginning of my abstinence journey. He had asked about how my abstinence was going at first. It was helpful at the beginning because the initial period is always the hardest period to relapse and it made me report my abstinence journey to someone. It helped in that I held myself more accountable that I had to recount my eating patterns and felt more obligated to abstain. Then it progressively decreased until none existent. Working with my classmate would have been more beneficial had we stayed consistently touching base. One thing I did find it helpful was that we both provided very broad definitions of our addictions that we found it hard to stay abstinence the first few weeks. We both …show more content…
In addition, there were cues associated with junk food and fast food everywhere that made this activity challenging. I was used to eating dessert after my dinner meal, which usually would be cookies or pie, so I associated basically every meal with sweets. There was also a cultural influence on my appetite regulator, such that part of my culture is huge on celebration for just about anything and food is a big part of these celebrations. During those family gatherings those were the days I relapsed most often. Moreover, our society promotes unhealthy eating habits, thus play a fundamental role in eating disorders. Consequently, there is advertisements for fast food …show more content…
I found that abstaining from fast food places was easier than abstaining from junk food. Originally, I thought both of those two would be just as problematic. I believe the reason that fast food was easier is that fast food places are clear cut what they are and would entail me driving there. However, not only my behavior changed but also my cognitions about fast food. I kept in mind how unhealthy fast food places are such that the food is not fresh and all the unsanitary things that go on in fast food places. On the other hand, junk food was harder to define. Not only that, but things like condiments, for example, adds flavor to the food and we unknowingly incorporate those daily to our foods. Things that I did not think about when deciding to cut out junk food would meet criteria for the definition. Junk food is everywhere at the house, which made it accessible and triggers