Occasionally, Animas Corporation puts on free seminars about the insulin pump or about diabetes in general. Today I attended one of those seminars. In attendance was an older man who liked to talk about his experiences, One lady who has had diabetes for about 12 years, two moms and an eight year old boy newly diagnosed (last 6 months). The seminar was to be on advanced pump training. We covered a little bit on that but, as usual, my attention was directed to the person who needed the most acute assistance. And that was the boy. I felt so much empathy for his mother and the other mom who was there to get as much information as they could. There is so much to know. The context that is given people is more useful to the medical profession than it is to the people who need to deal with diabetes every day. I have been searching for a way to develop this context. I got a flash of insight as I was driving home from the class. All of my yoga, meditation and “spiritual” study and work have revealed to me that diabetes is a disease that mirrors disharmony. The disharmony in ourselves, our family and our society. The whole object of the game we must play as diabetics is to manually create harmony. Yoga, meditation and spiritual endeavor lights the path for this game and may be the ingredients needed to create a more useful context for all the knowledge and skill that must be acquired to become a master of the game. As with life so with diabetes. I gave the two moms my blog site and hope they get to read some of the posts on diabetes.

I have sometimes used the concept of addiction as a metaphor for Type 1 diabetes. Think about it for a minute. We, as type 1 diabetics, must inject insulin daily. If you are still taking shots then you might have to partake in a “fix” up to 8 or more times a day. If on the pump we are constantly “hooked” up to our drug of choice. But, Michael, we don’t crave insulin?? Try not taking it for a day or two and see if you begin to crave it. But, Michael, it is good for us unlike being addicted something like drugs or alcohol?? Yes, it may be good for us but we are addicted to it. We need it. And without it we will have symptoms of withdrawal. What I am asking you to do by contemplating being a an addict by being a type 1 diabetic is to hold a mental perspective that you perhaps may not have thought about. When thinking of our disease as an addiction there are a few pathways that may open up. Explore these. Think about the people around you. Are they acting like co-dependents or enablers? Are you treating them like co-dependents or enablers?  Do you hide your disease? What is it that caused the addiction in the first place? Do I own any responsibility for the onset of my situation? Is the goal to overcome my addiction? Check out the 12 steps of AA. The first step says…..”We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.” Does having diabetes imply we are powerless over something and that our lives have become unmanageable? What is the something that we are powerless over? For sure the goal is manage our disease. If we don’t our lives do become unmanageable. I don’t bring this thought exercise out to be provocative. No, my intention is to offer a momentary shift in the way in which you see your disease so you may obtain additional tools to combat it. I have had type 1 diabetes for 35 years now. I can tell you with 100% certainty that if you are able to increase your level of acceptance you will increase your ability to respond to your disease on a moment to moment basis. Denial is one of the hurdles in the recovery of an addict. The opposite of denial is acceptance. Work on acceptance and the quality of your disease control will increase.