One Day at a Time, Today

Good morning. I've been frustrated about not being able to blog my Overeaters Anonymous experiences because of the necessity of anonymity. I visited some AA blogs last night and realized this morning this was my forum to declare a wondrous even that just happened. First, I'll introduce myself.

I'm 60 counting years on earth. I'm almost 9 months abstinent in OA. December 17, 2006 changed my life forever, thank God! I'd been teaching the same Sunday school class over twenty years, and as was my habit, I stopped at a convenience store and got a cappuccino and a sweet roll. I'd been given the book Overeaters Anonymous and had read it. I'd been working with a counselor familiar with 12-step programs. I'd been going to Metabolic Research Centers for years and was down about 12 pounds from the starting weight, on my way back up. I needed help. I got into the car and said, "This is stupid." I guess that was my prayer that led to God's taking away my compulsion to overeat. I've been abstinent since finishing that snack. Like I've heard Chuck Chamberlain quoted, "If I'd known that was going to be my last drink, I'd have had two." If I'd known it was my last sweet roll, it would have been a great one. But it was.

Since that day I've released 43 pounds. My highest weight ever was 300 in early 1998. My weight this week was 210.5. You may notice the difficulty of starting a new program of sane eating a week before Christmas Eve. I know. But I was abstinent and it felt MARVELOUS! Besides that, I fell in my kitchen on December 24, hurting my rotator cuff rather badly. I know it was a rotator cuff, because I'd severed the other one in 1997 which led to the surgery which led to the blood clot which led to the coumadin which led to the 300 pounds, along with the pure stress that caused the severed rotator cuff in the beginning. I didn't go to a doctor with this one. I could have, of course, by going to an emergency room. Or I could have gone on Tuesday, the 26th. But on the 27th I was flying from Texas to London, UK, and I wasn't about to have a doctor say I couldn't go. My husband was already ill and couldn't make the trip, and I was going with my older son and daughter-in-law who hadn't used passports before and hadn't had the time to prepare to be their own tour guides in London. The plane trip was agony. I had a window sheet, separated from the kids, and couldn't use the arm to get in and out of the seat. But I survived the trip, abstinent.

On that Sunday the 17th I had gotten on the computer and found The Recovery Group, joined, and found a food buddy and several other friends. Every time I could find an email cafe, I sent a food report to them and my counselor. I did have bread pudding twice on the trip, and under my present definition of abstinence that would not have counted, but it was a thoughtful decision and when I weighed again after Christmas and the trip, I weighed the same as the Tuesday after my 12/17 birthday. I worked through the steps, releasing my first sponsor in March and not finding another until July 1, but I used my counselor as a substitute sponsor in the meantime. With my new sponsor, I've started back through the steps, completing the 6th step last night with an emotional tidal wave cleansing me in the process.

And that brings us to this morning. Almost. While abstinence hasn't been a problem, the longtime self-description I've used of "serially obsessive" remained obstinately true. Sometimes my obsessions have been decent. The best one was writing, and I still write. No, I write again, for I'd been coasting for a long time, calling myself a writer but not really writing. Others included genealogy, research into medieval royalty, knitting, crossword puzzles, and the latest and perhaps most troubling for the sheer uselessness of it, stupid computer games. Well, on Friday night I basically did steps 1, 2, and 3 as to stupid computer games, and I've been abstinent from them since that point. This is my third day, which is amazing considering the huge volumes of time I was spending on them. Well, I've allowed myself to do the sudoku puzzle in the newspaper, and I was working on it and got stuck. It was a simple one, and I'm good at sudoku, but I'm used to the pristine clean puzzle on the screen, not my scratchings on paper. I got stuck. I knew I could put the puzzle into an internet site and it would show me the stupid mistake I was making, but I knew that wasn't anywhere near where I needed to be. I prayed about it. Yeah, I know, I would have said that was a silly thing to pray about--before Decemeber 17. It's not, now. I asked to either be able to release it unsolved or to find the box that would make everything fall into place. No, I wasn't that specific. I just prayed to not let the delimma throw me off. And that square presented itself to me and I had the puzzle finished in less than a minute more. God cares. Even if what I'm worrying about doesn't make a whit of difference, he cares!

I've got a graduate degree in Christian Education. I'm something of an expert on things religious. But the spiritual? That came through OA. I've learned more since December 17 than in the almost 60 years before that about relationship with God. I didn't have friends before OA, just admirers or detractors, at least in my eyes. But wow, do I have one POWERFUL friend now--and lots of others many of whom are being restored to sanity, one day at a time.

Can I be of service to you?