At the Beginning

Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over food, that our lives had become unmanageable.

Three years ago, I came to OA, and I was powerless over food, my life was out of control, chaotic, far from manageable. Right now? I'm just as powerless over food as I ever was, and I cannot manage my life one twit. The difference is that now I know I don't HAVE to manage my life and that being powerless over food is just fine as well as I'm NOT managing my life. When it's turned over to my Higher Power whom I call God, when I admit sometimes on a second-by-second basis that good's pull is still as strong as it ever was, that the control over the food, the power over food comes -- from without, or from the God within me, however I choose to envision it at the moment. It's not as though it's imposed on me, but God's very internal. And he's not a puppeteer, not pulling strings from the inside or the outside. Turning my life and will over to my higher power doesn't take away my own ability to control. But when I rebel and act on my own -- in defiance, in doubt, in fear -- then I plummet back into the abyss of my old unmanageable life. I don't like it there.

I came into OA three years ago. For a while when I do chips, I've talked about time in program or abstinence. I know I have been fudging because I wasn't clear about my own position, and that made me sound less of a hypocrite to myself. From now own, I'm going to say it exactly like the script says it.

And I haven't taken my third year chip. I didn't take it on Dec. 16, the day before my abstinence date, and I've missed the last two meetings because my kids from out of state came in an hour before the meeting the 23rd, and they left the morning of the 30th. But I would have felt really ambiguous about accepting the three year chip then. I'm abstinent today, have been yesterday and the day before. I will never take that third year chip. I don't know on in December of 2010 whether I'll take a 1 year or 4 year chip, but I know I've taken the first step one more time and this time my life's out of my hand, and I won't take it back. With God's help and your support.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve 

Why write a Christmas poem? 

After two thousand years 

the subject's saturated, 

glorious songs by 

Handel, Wesley, the bigs. 

Besides, why me? I've 

decked no tree these last few years. 

Writing checks passes for giving 

and keeps me out of malls. 

It's Christmas Eve – I sit 

with my computer. But earlier 

I went to church, sang carols, 

felt "in." And I care. 

In a grinchy kind of way. 

I'm thankful. For computer 

peaceful nights, for people 

I care enough to write 

checks to. For an account 

that doesn't cringe. 

For God's love, as much tonight 

as last night, last month, a week from 

Tuesday. I'm glad earlier years 

torn between competing parents 

have passed, dissipated, ended. 

I'm glad for hope for peace on 

earth for me, for others, for 

people who let go and let 

God grant us glory. For the Word 

that's God who gives us words. 

For Grace. Thanks, God.

Thankful

I committed a week ago today to make a gratitude list daily, and I made a half-hearted attempt to do it for a couple of days, then life got in the way. I'm sorry. And this Thanksgiving week should have certainly been an easy one to start the habit. But today's a new day. And I am grateful for the ability to start now, for the new day. I'm grateful for:

• Time together the last few days with people I love.
• Being surrounded by people who understand what I'm doing, that tasting everything they've cooked isn't the only way -- or even a very effective way -- of proving my love to them.
• A very special conversation I had on Thanksgiving Day.
• Abundance.
• Challenges.

I started the month participating in an online challenge to write a poem a day. I fell behind, but I think I'll use today's prompt to complete my thought here. The prompt is to finish the phrase "through this" and use that as the title of a poem. Okay. Having now written the poem, it's not what I expected to come out. And it makes this a disjointed blog entry, but here it is:

Through This Feasting Season   

We gather 'round the table,

tradition thick, families collected,

loving, but the love flavored with resentment,

caring, but scarred and scared

the past may stream flaming

through the door, carried high like

baked Alaska.

We gather 'round the table,

sitting back afterwards, grateful

for abundant food

and for learning once again

the feast that is love 

remains and reigns.

Redefining Tools?

The eight tools of Overeaters Anonymous are a plan of eating, sponsorship, meetings, telephone, writing, literature, anonymity, and service. 

With many others these days, I rely on the computer for a great many of my connections with other OA's outside the weekly meetings I attend. It's easy to figure all the literature was written years ago, before the computer age, and to assume the computer via email, online meetings, and Internet groups count as a tool as well. Certainly, they're helpful. But computers don't substitute for the tools -- or for any of them. I, and others I sponsor, seem to shy away from that 500 pound monster, the telephone. Personally, I don't rely on the phone as much as many other people, not just for OA but in life situations in general. Today I was looking for information I needed. It had been suggested I get the information by phoning a particular organization. I didn't want to. That recommendation was made last Thursday. I finally called it today. I just don't like the phone particularly. 

I also called my sponsor. And I'm going to continue to do so. From this point on, I'll use all the tools, including the 500 pound phone.

Dealing with resentment

When a person offended we said to ourselves, "This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."

We avoid retaliation or argument. We wouldn't treat sick people that way. If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful. We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and everyone. (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 67)

She said, "Sorry for the late notice." But I want to tell her just how sorry she really is! It feels like I'm doing more than my share already. I know I'm a "volunteer." I know I'm doing more than I should because I don't ask for help well. And I'm about to go eat in a place both for breakfast and for lunch where my ability to control and eat within my food plan will be challenged. Heck, for the second, I'm in charge of bringing the desserts! 

I heard a couple of weekends ago that courage to change the things I can means from my skin in; serenity to accept the things I can't is those things skin out. So I'm sitting here working on the skin in, planning for skin out.

I came to the 5th chapter today to find a different passage, one I need:

We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. At once, we commence to outgrow fear. (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 68)

I jumped up and left this when I realized what time it was this morning. The day went well. The restaurant had food I could eat abstinently, as did the meeting at noon. I've had a good day, and the resentments didn't drive me to the food and now basically are damped and dying.

I listened to OA speakers driving today, and one notable quote was that forgiveness means giving up our dream of a different past. Neat quote. Good day. And good night.

Connection

I am personally convinced that the basic search of every human being, from the cradle to the grave, is to find at least one other human being before whom he can stand completely naked, stripped of all pretense or defense, and trust that person not to hurt him, because that other person has stripped himself naked, too. This lifelong search can begin to end with the first A. A. encounter. (pamphlet: A Member's Eye View of Alcoholics Anonymous)

I visited last night with a woman I sponsor. The loss of her beloved cat has cast her into the depths of depression, even to entertaining suicidal thoughts. We spoke of the blessing, mixed though it may be, of actually having loved to that depth.

I had the privilege of meeting John K at the Region III Assembly/Convention this weekend in Albuquerque. His message is a powerful one, and one I will absorb again and again from the tape of that keynote address as well as from others I've found of him at the www.oalaig.org site. I liked him first as a geek willing -- no, eager -- to work with others to carry the message as addressed by the Information and Technology Committee there at Assembly, that before I knew he was the speaker that evening.

I heard him "stripped naked" and exposing my own nakedness in statements like

• I managed to fall in every pitfall imaginable in this program and screw it up in every possible way.
• Every diet works. For the first time. Then I've learned the way to manipulate it.
• You're going through the hardest part over and over again when you slip and slide. It's like moving a stalled car a few feet, letting it stop, then starting to push again, then doing that again.
  
• We have a weight we know we'll never let ourselves become, one that if we approach, surely we'll get control and stop. But we get a few pounds higher at a time and incrementally get to that point we would never consider reaching.
  
• He talked about really seeing overeating as a disease, long after "calling" it that. We don't have to feel guilty about this any more than we would about having cancer.
  
• I don't want a donut, the disease wants a donut. It just sounds like me because the disease is a good mimic.
  
• Do you really believe you're powerless? We know we're powerless over a bullet in a gun. We don't flirt with that one. We don't really acknowledge that we're powerless over food. We assume we can come back and get abstinence.
  
• In the small version, I am powerful, because I know I can pull myself back. But that sets me up for the next one, slip or relapse one at a time, again and again forever.
  
• If you think that food might ever be an option again, when you get to a crisis and it's food or pain, food's always going to be the only option.
  
• My disease is good at not only mimicking me but in doing a god impression.
  
• Maybe it's time you start beating yourself up. Cut the crap.
  
• Turning it over is not so much that as just getting my own will out of the way, keeping it from being an impediment. 
  
• Skin in, you can change. Skin out, you can't change.
  
• The steps are in order, the steps are discrete, and you do them one at a time. Eight/Nine, for instance, is not a step.
  
• if I choose the easier softer way of recovery, I'm going to get the easier, softer recovery.

Connection can be tough when it's somebody who knows you from the inside out. But connection can be wonderful when it's somebody who knows you from the inside out.

Moving Boulders

The reading today in For Today talked about cleaning house inside, talked of our Higher Power removing stubborn defects I can do nothing about. The mental image I had was a family story. My grandfather was born in 1888. The summer he was 14 he spent alone, in a 40-acre field, with his assignment for the summer being to till the fallow land of Erath County, Texas. He got that 40 acres ready that summer.

He was tall, strong, an athlete -- pole vaulter -- and macho. And a few years later, as a Latin teacher among other things, he took on a school where several mature and cocky young men as students ruled the roost. They'd already driven off a couple of teachers that year before Pop took over. A field behind the school building seemed a place where team sports might redirect the young men to better pursuits, and he allowed the use of school time to clear the land for that purpose. The boys liked the project and worked hard, quickly getting it ready -- except for a large boulder they tried and tried to move and could not budge. Pop could. He picked it up and carried it to the edge of the field, and that feat sealed the deal. He could then teach them Latin and the classics, reading and arithmetic, and whatever else he had on his agenda.

I can't. God can. Thank God!