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.
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