More Step 1

It was easy to see the critical nature of alcoholism. Over a period of time I could no longer be a good mother. I could no longer earn a living. I could no longer be present with what was happening around me. I could no longer face the world. I no longer wanted to live. In fact, with the help of alcohol and a few other mind altering substances, I lost my health and all of a normal life. It was a long climb back from the abyss that couldn't have been done without the help of AA.

Now that I am dealing with overeating, I am not faced with the same dire set of circumstances. But I am affected just the same. My health and well-being are both affected and both will suffer with more weight gain. The more I try to control my eating, the more I cannot control it. Dieting and exercise consume my thoughts but not my actions. The bigger I get, the more I want to stay in my home and hide. I don't want to buy clothes. Nothing feels comfortable. Discouragement waits for me at every corner. That is because I am impatient and want immediate results. I just want the problem to go away on its own. If I ignore the problem, maybe it won't be there anymore. I want to blame other things for my weight gain such as the stress at work and the unavailability of healthy food in the vending machines. If I wasn't so tired from work, perhaps I would have more energy for exercise and planning meals, etc. Work is a good thing to blame but life is not stress free. If it is not one thing, it would be another.

I can trace my weight gain to a couple of factors. I gained weight when I got a car and no longer had to walk either to my destination or the bus stop. I gained weight when I started to take lithium. I gained weight when my job became more sedentary. Of course my consumption of junk food has gone up gradually over this period of time. I feel myself want to withdraw and have done that to a certain extent.

"Under the lash of alcoholism, we are driven to AA and there we discover the fatal nature of our situation. Then, and only then, do we become as open-minded to conviction and as willing to listen as the dying can be. We stand ready to do anything which will lift the merciless obsession from us." (12 & 12 pg 24)

I made the decision to go to OA. After having experience in AA and seeing it work in my life, I thought why not give the 12 steps a try again. I have seen the obsession to drink lifted from me. If that can happen, why not the obsession to overeat. I have tried everything I can think of to lose weight. I am open to doing this.

Questions

1. Write a history of your compulsive eating beginning with the first time you can remember food related events. Discuss how much weight you have gained and lost, what medical attention you have sought for the problem and your attempts at maintaining your weight losses.

These questions that I am going through come from an OA member.

I remember as a child always eating my yummy food faster than my brother. Then I would want his and I would beg him. He would just eat his slower and torture me. At one time I believed smoking kept me thin. I would also drink tons and tons of coffee to dull my appetite so that I could eat a very minimum of food (during a particularly anorexic phase). Unfortunately I didn't pass very good eating habits onto my girls. Drinking also helped numb feelings and distracted from eating but that became a very troublesome habit too and ended me up in AA. When my children were small I quit smoking, I wasn't drinking that much at the time and I ate and I gained weight. This was prior to my anorexic phase. My anorexic phase thrilled me to no end. My weight plummetted to my lowest ever. Then I started eating more and I gained a little weight. The last couple of years have seen me really develop strong cravings for sugar that I can no longer manage. My weight is creeping up and is now at the highest it has been since that last weight gain when my kids were small. I can spend tons of money in the vending machine at work. If I buy cookies at home, I will eat them in short order. The saving grace is that I rarely buy anything like that for home. I always have the intention to eat healthy and avoid what triggers me. If it is yummy and it is in front of me I will eat it. I don't know the meaning of moderation. Bread, granola bars, fruit loops, ice cream, maple syrup, so many good things. I can eat a bowl of yogurt with fruit and eat it and go yum yum but not want to eat more. I can't do the same thing with donuts. I can feel sick and still want to eat donuts. And I feel embarrassed when I eat too many donuts. What is a girl to do?

Here I Am Once Again

I have been thinking a lot about the 12 steps, Buddhism and mental health lately. I found a great workbook on a 12 step site (www.12step.org) and I want to share some tidbits of upbeat information that I came across. Here they are:

Three Spiritual Gifts from Practicing the 12 Steps

1. The Awakening to the Presence of our Higher Power and to be in conscious union with this presence.
2. The Awakening to the Love that we are, that all of us are.
3. The Awakening to the individual Self we were created to be, with purpose and meaning. In other words, to consciously live our Heart's Desire, God's will.

"We have failed many time, but we are not failures. We have been foolish, but we are not fools. We have done many bad things, but we are not evil."

"We will repeat the same problem until there is real healing."

"Watch out for the termites, the little day-in day-out stuff. This is a real present danger. These little guys undermine the foundation of every relationship. Termites destroy more property than all the fires, floods, wind and hail and so it is with relationships. With the "big" problems, we are forced to do something about these or run away. With the little stuff we don't have to do anything about it, or it is not important enough. In one way or another, we often stuff these. One termite doesn't matter, but when they build up in numbers, watch out. It is best to deal with all problems ASAP."

I just started to go through the work book and I already found these tidbits. I can hardly wait to read more.

I also bought a new book called The 12 Step Buddhist. It is right up my alley being an AA member and a person interested in Buddhism. There is also a website associated with this book http://the12stepbuddhist.com. I even felt compelled to write a lengthy letter to the author. Isn't the world wide web grand?

Now I just have to find someone in the mental health field to help me and I will have all the bases covered.