Yeah, What Chuck Says

I set out in January to read through Chuck C's A New Pair of Glasses. Truth is, I didn't do very well in getting through - like precious little - not did I feel I was fully living the blessings of Recovery in January. Today I picked up the book again, still in the first chapter, and found some things that pull me, touch me, nudge me. Chuck talks about his "bottom" saying "everything dear to me in life was gone, and should be gone, and ... I was not entitled to have it back." (p. 17)

It occurs to me the reason I haven't reached the heights of recovery promised is that I never got to a low enough bottom, and that feels absolutely ridiculous. My Hell Year (basically 1997) began and ended with a son having surgery. (October 1996 and November 1997) Between there I turned 50; my father was hospitalized for seven weeks, some of the weeks on a respirator in ICU, with Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Younger son, because of a slight by a coach and other reasons, chose to graduate at 16. Older son and I went to visit my dad, now home from the hospital, and the pillar of strength was having panic attacks. I was so stressed worrying about son left at home with husband and their proclivity to temper and anger at each other, and about my parents, I severed my rotator cuff in an instant with a mild movement. I had that surgery and wore a brace for twelve weeks. The doctor had said it would be six weeks then at the end of that said he'd known with my weight it would be more. In October I was hospitalized again with a blood clot, then the older son had the November surgery. My solution to all of it was the habitual -- not just habitual -- one of eating. In the spring I weighed 300 pounds. I felt a total failure at marriage, at parenting, at pleasing people, at everything except my job. And I remember looking at another woman who got her job the same way I did, by appealing to the voters, and thought fat women shouldn't run for office. I weighed at least a hundred pounds more than she did. I was a miserable failure.

Was that not rock bottom? Did I have to fail at more? I did start up from there, start taking care of myself. I lost weight and never got back to that point again, though I was still morbidly obese. I worked with a wonderful massage therapist who healed my mind with my body. I sought out counselors, did what I could to take care of myself, but I wasn't fixed.

I didn't come to OA until December of 2006, and I was instantly home. I found the program, I got the program, I got recovery. Then I got lazy. I got complacent. I'd lost enough to be comfortable, mended relationships enough to be amazed, found self-respect I'd abandoned many years before...

So, what else does Chuck say?

• "From that moment of commitment until right now I've never had a drink or pill. This is one of the reasons I believe so completely and totally that there is only one road block between me and you and me and God, and that's the human ego." (p. 18)
• He talks about his chair, how he spent years of hell there and years of heaven there after abandoning the human ego and says, "Heaven was always in that chair." (p. 18)
• "I have the thing I was looking for in the bottle... That king-size hurt is gone." (p. 19)
• "I'm not fighting me, or you, or life, or God or the devil. I am at peace with me and with you and with my very own God. That's the only reason I'm not drunk." (p. 19)
• "I have lived in total expectancy of guidance and direction for twenty-nine years, and I get it... 'How do you know?' ... I never had it so good." (p. 20)
• "Of course, if we want to get real simple, the whole thing will boil down to obsessions of the mind, which is the ego... But if I have to spread this dirty linen out before another human being, if I've got any ego left after that, I haven't done it! That's an ego buster." (p. 21)
• "...you and I have to do this without getting too serious about it." (p. 24)

I certainly identify with the fact my ego is the problem. I try to be really honest. I pride myself in being honest...yeah, that's the problem, huh? I am honest when honesty makes me look good, seem righteous, appear to "have it." Then there's the "act as if" and such. And there's the getting too serious about it. I can't WORK this program. I can't structure it. I can't control it. I can follow it. I can show up and take orders. I can abandon ego.

God, help me to act as if I have no ego until it's true. Let me finally release the huge hurt.

The Winter of Our Discontent

Shakespeare wrote:

Now is the winter of our discontent

made glorious summer...

and was looking past the winter of discontent, which was in the past, and the "now" was made glorious. It certainly is winter, now. From Texas to New England, we've been socked in by snow since Monday night - well more than 48 hours now. And at least in my corner of Texas, the snow has nowhere near melted, the temperature now, 18F, is about as high as it's gotten, and being alone or - worse? - with family is rubbing raw. I've gotten out twice already for pure stir-craziness. Why would being in the same place since Monday evening seem so confining?

It's not, of course. My home is comfortable, warm enough with plenty of things to do - everything I might need. Well, perhaps I need program people. Certainly I need program people, but they're on my computer screen and the telephone works just fine. So why stir crazy?

They call it a geographic - the impression that just being in another place makes you more content, better into recovery, cures all the problems. It doesn't, of course. Now, changing places or jobs or other aspects of your life can make sense, as long as it's not running away, but my real problem - myself - goes with me everywhere.

The apostle Paul said, "I have learned to be content anywhere I am." I realized a long time ago - in the early 1970s - that I'm basically happy in any town, in any job. But even with that, I'm not happy with me, not with no interaction with anybody but me except through the computer. So, what do I have? I have the tools:

• a plan of eating
• sponsorship
• meetings
• telephone
• writing
• literature
• anonymity
• service
• action plan

I'm using the writing tool now, have already used literature and a plan of eating today, and have the ability to attend a meeting online or by telephone almost any time. Service and sponsorship I'll be doing later in the day. I've got all kinds of tools waiting for me to use. There's no reason for me to stop at "Now is the winter of our discontent" but I can move on to what it is that does make it glorious today, each day, one day at a time.

Divested of a Crutch

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. ~ James Baldwin

Wow. I don't need to add anything. I just need to come visit this and remember it every five minutes. What crutches do I rely upon?

• Food.
• Anger.
• Resentment.
• Procrastination.
• Gossip.
• Passive Agressive Getting Even.
• Stupid Computer Games.
• Taking His Inventory.
• Okay, Taking Her Inventory.
• Not My Job - Somebody Will Do It.
• Excuses - But I'm Busy! But I'm Special! But I Didn't MEAN To.

Wow. Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. ~ James Baldwin

God, make me willing to let go of my crutches, today, right now, every time I can. And make the "can" come more often. Amen, so be it.

Grasping

The Big Book speaks of "grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty." (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 58) My dictionary says grasp means to seize and hold firmly. How do you grasp a manner of living?

I'd decided to do more program-related reading this year, and I picked up Chuck C.'s A New Pair of Glasses. Though I've bought the book twice, I guess this is the first time I got this far (10 pages?? Something like that) reading it. But I've spent lots of hours listening to Chuck C give the speech next to my ear. And this is early enough in the book/speech I was usually awake. But I never "grasped" this part of the message. Chuck said this was essential, that without grasping and developing the manner of living of the Twelve Steps, we fall back into the chaos from which we came. So, it must be possible to grasp recovery. How do I go about that?

1. Well, I read program literature.
2. I act as if when I don't want to deal with the program.
3. I start each day reflecting on where I am, where I'm going, and Who is going with me. Amend what. Who I'm going with.
4. I get really serious about the Tenth-Step stuff "on retiring."
5. I realize when I'm not rigorously honest, I'm not grasping and developing the right "manner of living." The proof is in the pudding, in other words. Well. Not the pudding, unless it stays on the shelf. And that's another issue for me. I've been finding too much comfort in sugar-free pudding. When I get rid of the stash in the pantry I'll..... No. No more pudding when it's not part of a meal shared with other people. No private puddingfests. I don't like this number.
6. We've got nine tools now in OA: abstinence, meetings, phone, writing, anonymity... Looks like I need to work on using the tools when I can't even list them. They are: a plan of eating, sponsorship, meetings, telephone, writing, literature, anonymity, service, and action plan. I do pretty well on the plan of eating at this point (well, pudding not included), and I'm working on adding to the Voices of Recovery and For Today I normally read each day. I'm determined to blog weekly as a way of writing as well as of service. I call my sponsor and I sponsor regularly. I go to a meeting regularly, could add other meetings but don't. Anonymity I've got down. Service I do fairly well. An action plan? I ordered walking shoes yesterday. And that ton of a telephone. Sigh. Okay. Use the tools. Nine of them.

I think I have the picture. And believe me, this is an example of rather rigorous honesty. Sigh.

The Next Day

So. I've read what I wrote last night. And I've remembered the night. But I remember no startling revelation.

Okay, sitting here, what comes to mind is the idea of "Don't look at me." The last month has been an embarrassment because I was making a major change in my life and I've been praised by people I barely know, gifted by people I'd rather not be indebted to, in the limelight way too many times. I don't like the limelight. That's funny. I certainly enjoy public speaking. I have been a public figure for years, intend to be for many more - and perhaps in an even more ostentatious format. But when I speak, when I appear in a public setting, I'm in charge, in control. If I were small? If people whistled at me? How ridiculous. I'll soon be 64 - not exactly whistle bait no matter what I might weigh, ten pounds less than my goal weight or even more! (Or does that count as less??) I couldn't possibly be hiding from such, could I?

This has been open several hours. My answer is, "I don't know." But I know I can't do it. I know God can. And I know I intend to let him.

God bless us every one.

Impediments in My Mind?

I weigh a hundred pounds and change less than I ever weighed. But a part of me feels like a fraud since I wrote Slender Steps to Sanity really quite early in my tenure in OA, after I'd lost this weight, but before I'd reached an ideal weight for my size. I still weigh between 195 and 200 - but LESS than 200. That wasn't true a couple of weeks ago. My abstinence has been solid since Christmas Eve. But before that, spotty. My sponsor pointed out I could get 30 days but pretty soon after that, I slipped. The slipping got rather drastic during this fall in the midst of some stressors. That's no excuse. Well, it is. It's an excuse, not a reason. It's a justification for not being who God would have me be, who I would choose to be.

But would I choose it? Do I really want to be an ideal weight for the first time in sixty years or so? I know when I was 13, about 1960, Mother took me to a doctor who prescribed weight-loss pills. So I was on a diet from then until I found OA December 17, 2006. When was I an ideal weight? I remember about 1957 playing "Red Rover, Red Rover" and running when someone called "Let Fat Domino come over." I wasn't mad at him. I was mad at me for running. And for failing to break through.

I was asked today just what I'm trying to protect myself from in not moving the rest of the way to what I would swear to you I want - to weigh something near 140 or 145.

She said it could be just obstinacy. That for so long I put up my hackles when all these well-meaning people told me what I should weigh, what I should eat, how much I should exercise, how much better I'd look if I just...

Am I that stubborn? Darned right I am. Have I really thwarted myself all these years? Obviously. Have I done it intentionally? Define intentionally. The dictionary says "done on purpose, deliberate." So?

The other question she asked is what I'm afraid of if I were to weigh that. I don't know. I'd answer no, but I do recognize the prevalence of fear, the pervasiveness of fear.

I sit here, having had three meals and nothing else today. That should be the norm. It has not been. I've been having something after supper. And still losing. But I knew - said to my food buddy last night - that wasn't something I should be doing. As I sit here knowing that - at 11:07 PM, I want to fix it. I want to get what I deserve. I deserve food. Baloney. Well, no. I don't eat baloney. I don't need it. It's cold, we've been in the bedroom, heating only one room, so my behavior differs than when hubby goes to bed and I'm left up, alone. It's not hunger that leads me back to the kitchen. Boredom? Not really. Entitlement. "That which is morally right, just, honorable." It's not. It's not morally right, not honorable. Why do I feel entitled to it?

Auburn has won the national championship. So what are they entitled to?

I don't know the answer. God, give me the answer. Relieve me of my fears and show me who you would have me be. And I'll continue this tomorrow, answers in hand.

Beyond Resentment

The resentment's not new - no, it's ancient. I've overcome it before, grown past it. I can do it again, will do it again, am doing it now. It's a justified resentment. I have not always known than, tried for decades to become the person who wasn't treated so badly. In the process, I was told I was passive aggressive, the first time I'd ever heard the term way way way back when. It was defined then for me as "I don't get mad, I get even." Truth be told, I never got even by doing poorly what I was ordered to do, by thwarting through seething anger. I never really found peace until I found the Steps. In the rooms of recovery, I learned I didn't have to accept anybody else's opinion of me, that I could be more than he thought I was, more than I thought I was. I am not limited. God is not limited.

God, give me the serenity to accept what I cannot change - him, his opinion of me, his treatment of me. Give me the courage to change what I can change - me, my opinion of myself, my treatment of him, my attitude toward him, my rejection on his attitude and opinion of me. Give me the wisdom to know the difference. That's happening, again. I went to sleep listening to Joe and Charlie, came back to bed to the discussion of unearned (they used some other word) resentments. So, God is giving me the wisdom I need. Again. I will release the weight of resentment, and I firmly believe that weight has been making my knees hurt. I claim good health and happiness for this, my new day, my new year, my new life, resentment free. Thank God. I will not be mad, not even even. I'll soar past and fly.