Region 5 of Overeaters AnonymousHave you had a time where you were lost in program? How did you find your way?
When I started program, I had committed to stick with it since it was the only thing that had ever worked. I’ve lost over 100 pounds and have kept if off for 12 years. It’s the last stop for me.
— KB
Have you had a time where you were lost in program? How did you find your way?
I’ve been in major relapse twice in the 21 years I’ve been in program. I have never left program but the way back was always program and MORE program. I would commit to 90 meetings in 90 days, wrote every day, make 3 phone calls a day, commit my food to a sponsor daily and weighed and measured my food – and prayed.
My recovery is visible in many ways. I have lost 100 pounds and gone from a Size 20 to a Size 10. People say I look younger, but I don’t think that’s just about my appearance; they see that I am more active, agile, and confident. My doctor can surely see my recovery. My weight loss and increased activity have lowered my blood pressure and blood sugar, and I have been able to eliminate prescription drugs for those conditions. My family is grateful for my recovery because I now participate in physical activities without fear, dread, or embarrassment. But nobody but me knows about some very special evidence of my recovery.
My mom died eight years ago. I inherited all of her jewelry. Some of the pieces were valuable, but all were precious to me, especially ones she bought while traveling. She was partial to turquoise jewelry made by Native Americans. I loved her silver and turquoise bracelet that had a very unusual design.
It was too small for my large wrist. I am just big boned, I said to myself. I tried to wear it several times, but the magnetic clasp gave way as soon as I flexed my wrist. I lost it once for weeks until I found it under my car mat. Another time, a neighbor found it on the ground in our parking lot. I finally decided it was just too precious for me to take a chance losing it again, so I put it in my jewelry box.A couple years into the program, while I was maintaining my weight loss, I came across the bracelet and I tried it on. I was amazed when it fit! I wear it all the time now. It is a precious reminder of my mother and my recovery. Mom had always worried about my health, and she would have been so happy to see the new me.
I wrote a poem of gratitude for the miracles that I have received for persistently “coming back” these last 38 years in OA:
The Past is littered with resentments.
Fear haunts the Future.
The Present is a Gift, safe and joyful!
The Road to Humility is paved with Surrender mixed with Acceptance.
The Destination is Sacred Awe.
— Beverly B.
I used to run in circles all the time. I had to get this done and that done; be here and take someone there; and all-in-all I never caught the tail, but I was proving I was good in the chase. No more. That tail can remain at the end and be at peace. I am kinder to myself. I am accepting of what I can and what I cannot do. I find “no” is okay to say.
I can allow myself to feel frustrated, and then “Let Go”. I can be angry, justified anger, feel it, and then “Let Go”. To not “Let Go” means I wallow in it and I refuse to do that. Recovery. No tail chasing for this ol’ gal.
— Debi S
We all have hopes, dreams, fears, and insecurities. I would look at thin women and believe they had the perfect life. Years into my life, I understood everyone had issues. Those thin women also had hopes, dreams, fears, and insecurities. I thought being pretty and thin would make my world perfect. HA!! Even though I was tall, big, and felt like I stood out like a sore thumb (By-the-way, why does a sore thumb stick out?). I was with most other people in wishing my life could be different. Thin, tall, fat, short, every color, and/or every lifestyle. We all wish, at some point our lives, that we could be different. Just if? What if?
We are one big orchestra, all playing our parts. Each person filling a space with their own concerns.
It takes a long time to get to acceptance of ourselves. To see how similar we are to all those that we used to fear. Humility. No less than and no better than. Today I accept who I am and my limitations and I do what I am able to do to play my part.
Life is good!
— Debi S
“You need to develop your own concept of God” my first sponsor said to me. That was quite a 180 for me. I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian community. You didn’t define what God was, you were told what God was. If you didn’t agree, that was your problem. Developing my own concept of God seemed awfully close to heresy.
Besides, I already had a concept of God, the one I grew up with. The only trouble was that God did not seem to help me as I was killing myself overeating. The God I grew up with was kind of schizophrenic. I was told God loved me dearly, but if I didn’t toe the line morally, he would send me to burn in hell for eternity. Needless to say, it seemed like a good idea to not get too close to this God. I mean if you were one of his chosen, maybe he would send you away to be a missionary. Yes, it was best not to get too close.
Before finding OA, I felt like I was the only person in the world that did the things with food that I did. As a teen I imagined that I was some alien space baby that had been marooned on this planet and there was no one else like me here. Maybe someday my people would come and take me home.
Then one day it happened! I found OA and learned I wasn’t alone. There were so many of us that they could print books for us! Not only wasn’t I alone anymore, they said they had a way to recover from the overeating! At that point, I decided that there must be a loving God, because he brought me to OA when I was so alone and so desperate. OA taught me about a loving God that cared about me and wanted good things for me.
I couldn’t decide how to reconcile my two God concepts. Finally, I decided to hold the two mutually exclusive God concepts for the time being. I wouldn’t worry about which one was right or how they would be combined.
However, the more I was in OA, the more I had little spiritual experiences that showed me that God loved me and was bringing good into my life. Then one day it hit me! I could choose to believe in the schizophrenic God I had been told stories about growing up, the one that was defined by interpretations of writings from 2000 years ago. Or I could choose to believe in the loving God that had brought me to OA and that was continuing to bring good things in my life. Given a choice between believing in stories about God and my own personal experiences with God, I decided it only made sense to rely on my firsthand experience with God.
My relationship with God is definitely a work in progress. Habits learned over decades are not instantly removed. But I am learning to trust HP and the people he brings into my life more every day. Thankfully, God doesn’t show me everything I need to know at once. That would probably burn me out and leave me hopeless and demoralized. God seems to know I need to go one step at a time, one layer of the onion at a time. Maybe sometimes I would want more but in reality, one bite at a time is all I can handle.
— K.G.
I came to OA because I was sick and tired of compulsive overeating and I was grossly obese. Nothing had worked for the long haul and here I was told the nature of my disease and that there was a solution to a problem that had plagued me my entire life.
I was told that I had to find a Higher Power that would solve my problems. Hmmm, I thought, that should be easy. Having a clergyman, as a father and being a church musician and deeply immersed in the theology of my faith, I thought this would be a cake walk.
In the early stages of my recovery, I did the perfunctory prayers and meditations, and it was smooth sailing for a while. Eventually, I began to struggle with my food and weight. “What was wrong?” I asked God for help each morning, but it wasn’t working.
Alas, the fear of another relapse and a 100 lb weight gain (from the other one I’d had) gave me the gift of desperation. I began a serious study of the basic text, that stated on page 45, “Lack of power, that was our dilemma.” We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power? Well, that’s exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve “ALL YOUR PROBLEMS.”
So, I had to reflect on my Higher Power and acknowledge that it was the one given to me as a child. The God of my Sunday School, the God of the sermons I heard attending church, and not simply a God of my understanding. My disease forced me to let go of childish notions and to begin to seek, as I continue to do, a relationship with a God of my understanding. I did not have a personal relationship with the God of my youth. I respected and feared God, but HE had no utility in my life. He was just there watching and recording my bad deeds and to be worshipped on Sunday and special days.
As I have found a God of my understanding, many of my religious tenets I have re-embraced as they have personal meaning to me today. I have a personal relationship with my Higher Power that is ever-evolving and My God (FATHER/MOTHER GOD) helps me in all facets of my life. I have not abandoned the faith of my youth, for I love the music and the sense of community I feel there. But my relationship with God is personal and irrespective of any religious dogma. I can truly say, I found GOD in OA.
— Nancy R.
I grew up believing God was all-knowing, all-powerful, and ever-present. However, it wasn’t until midlife, with the removal of the food barrier, that I felt loved by Creator God. Through the Twelve Steps and the camaraderie of other recovering compulsive eaters, I experienced God’s mercy, His greatest attribute.
While reading in “We Agnostics,” I became aware that the scale was my golden calf. I had been going to the scale every day monitoring the fluctuating ounces that would determine my self-worth for the next 24 hours. I was devastated! I had become a slave to the scale. I want to note that this incident was 26 months after I stopped that behavior, because at my first meeting I learned I had a disease and God would take care of my food and weight, if I let Him.
The God of my childhood is the same God in my adulthood, but with more mystery and majesty. I am so grateful to have experienced God’s mercy and been relieved of an oppressive disease.
— N.J.
When I read the topic for our newsletter this month, I automatically thought of page 55 in the Big Book. In the chapter We Agnostics it explains that God (my Higher Power) was always there, but He was blocked by three specific things. The Big Book says, “…for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there.” If we look at these three things individually, we can see how the inventory process helps us become unblocked.
The first is calamity or bad things that have happened to us. I know for myself, growing up in an abusive home, there were many harms done to me. I was able to put all of the resentments down on paper and heal from it by continuing to work the 12 Steps on a daily basis.
Then there is pomp, my ego, or my self-importance. By working through the last column of the resentment worksheet, I am able to find my part in anything that’s disturbing me. It’s really a gentle way to level my pride and remember that I will never be more than a flawed human being, just like everyone else on this earth.
Lastly, there’s worship of other things. This one can be very sneaky. I like to think I don’t worship other things, but I do. I’m worshipping other things any time I’m putting something before God. Sometimes it’s as simple as my time, money, or activities. I like to believe that I get to decide what or how to spend these currencies. The truth is that none of it is mine. It’s only on loan and I need to worship the Giver, not the gift. These, I find, usually come out in the fear part of the inventory. I’m afraid I won’t have enough time, or enough money, or afraid I won’t be able to do what I want to do, and I’m gently reminded that self-reliance doesn’t work. I must surrender all to Him.
Therefore, after finding our Higher Power, may we all remain unblocked from our Loving Creator by continuing the inventory process on a daily basis. And as my sticky note next to my prayer chair says, “There is God, and the rest is just clutter.”
— Jodi C.