Monday, March 28, 2011

Counterintuitive

I just came back from the OA Region III Serenity at Sea cruise, a week aboard the Carnival Conquest. One of the participants told of talking to her doctor, telling him she planned to cruise with OA. His response was to ask if that wasn't counterintuitive. Short answer? NO!

It was a very meaningful experience, and a really spiritual one. Abstinence wasn't tough. It was actually easy, not because it was a cruise, not in spite of the fact it was a cruise, but just because. My abstinence had been tough for a long time, but since late January, that has changed. Would I have stayed abstinent had I been struggling with it when the cruise started? Probably. I would have been so aware of all the other OA people around, the fact I couldn't "hide" food by stuffing it inside me. But abstinence has nothing to do with what's around us. I can be abstinent in a bakery or a grocery or a restaurant or anywhere - if I'm going to be abstinent anywhere. I can also break my abstinence in a vegetable garden with nothing but green stuff available by any possible means. Abstinence on a cruise isn't counterintuitive. OA is. All of our best minds had tried all the things that made any sense. We couldn't find relief from compulsive overeating. We tried giving up, admitting defeat. And we found recovery. Now THAT is counterintuitive - and miraculous.

1 comment:

memoirs of this binge eating triathlete said...

awsome post!

I want to go on an OA cruise!