You are right.

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t; you are right.  –Henry Ford

I thought quote was appropriate for where I’m at right now.  I am back, climbing my way back up onto ‘the wagon’.  There is finally a face to face meeting where I live.  I am so grateful for that.  I’ve been attending 2 meetings a week since mid-May.  It’s been good.  There are only a handful of people in the group but it’s still good.  We each have varying degrees of experience with 12-step programs, so we compliment one another well.

With the start of a new quarter, there is a new ‘Working the Steps’ study group that I am participating in online.  This is only week one, studying step one.  Tonight I did the assignment - it was telling.  I found myself writing things and coming to new realizations that I’ve never made prior.  I had forgotten the power of writing.  I need to use this tool - for me it is very powerful.

I have two sponsors now - one for step work and one for food plan - I imagine they will cross over and that is fine.  One is online one is face to face.  I’m excited about beginning my journey again…

God,
Tonight I am grateful
for the opportunity
to begin this journey
again and tonight
I pray only for willingness…

 

90:90 #1

I’ve decided to *try* to do 90 meetings in 90 days.  I think I need it, I think it will be good for me.  I was reading a book today and the author’s opinion that meetings are one of the most important tools.  It makes sense to me that if I can get to 90 in 90 then I will be much more focused and engaged on a daily basis in my recovery.  I need that - I’m such an ADD scatter-brain these days!  Only time will tell if I can do it! 

The topic this evening is Step 10:  Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

While I’m only just beginning Step 4, it fit since the 4th is about taking our inventory.  As always it doesn’t really matter what the topic is - or if I’m there yet.  I always get something out of a meeting.

In thinking tonight about Step 4 and Step 10, I realized that I have been naturally progressing to Step 4 for some time.  I did a bit of sharing here on this blog about past relationships - and while I wasn’t completely focused on my inventory or Step 4 at the time, I did some searching and sharing and understanding of self naturally.  It makes me feel good to believe that I’m on the right track - without even trying.  It gives me so much faith in myself and how I am working in my recovery and faith in this program.

I am looking forward to exploring myself completely and giving it all to God…and being able to take my inventory everyday and giving it to God everyday.

 

Step Work: Miscellaneous Q&A

 STEP ONE: 
We admitted we were powerless over food - that our lives had become unmanageable.

 ========== 

What have I tried to lose weight?  God knows I’ve tried to fix these things in the past, with many different mainstream diet plans/clubs/books/makeovers.  Each time I was met with failure.  I was plucking the dandelion, only to see another pop up, over and over again.  I never dug up the root…  I know, now, and believe in my heart that God can do for me what I cannot do for myself.  No plan, no club, no book and no makeover.  I am convinced that OA and God hold the key - not to losing weight - but to healing my hurts, which is what I really need.

==========

What foods give me trouble - what do I binge on?  Sugar and breakfast foods. I believe that I was on the right track by eliminating sugar in my initial food plan.  Sugar is a biggie for me and it has been the constant comfort and struggle throughout my life.

==========

How do I use food to escape life’s problems?  

From a very early age, I learned food to be comfort.  One of my earliest and bestest memories is getting to stay up late to wait for Mom to come home after a late shift at the hospital.  When she got home, we made popcorn and as the corn was popping, we  warmed our hands on the lid of the popper.  It was one on one time with my mom.  It was special.  When we moved from the east coast, mom started a day care.  This was her job - but among other things, that woman cooked all the time.  Three meals a day, plus she had to feed the kids a snack, so every day after school, there was always a snack waiting for us.  At home I was safe and there was always food.  Home = safe.  Home = food.  Safe = food. 

I supposed now, since mom died, I view food as a connection to her.  She taught me to cook.  We spent many hours baking and cooking - those were our special times.  We didn’t spend special time bike riding or hiking or sewing or reading or writing or coloring.  Our special times revolved around food.  Not always, but more often than not.

When my uncle died in ‘87, we were all sad and people brought us food.  So we sat around, mourning for a week and eating.  People brought us food to make us feel better.  They didn’t give us a shoulder to cry on, they didn’t sit down and talk to us about how we were feeling.  They just brought food - and lots of it.  People did this every time someone died.  So I guess, as a youngster, it was easy to make a correlation - when you’re sad you should eat a lot of food.  I don’t think I ever conciously made that connection, but sub-conciously I certainly did.

So if food can make you happy when you’re sad, then it can probably make you happy when you’re mad too.  Hell - food just makes me happy.  So - as a child I learned that food = happiness and for that reason, what better way to escape feeling anything but happy.

==========

These Step Work topics courtesy of “The Twelve-Step Workbook of Overeaters Anonymous”

 

Step Work: Compulsive Eating History II

STEP ONE: 
We admitted we were powerless over food - that our lives had become unmanageable.

…continuing a first step inventory of my compulsive eating history…

After I lost all that weight near the end of my high school years, I kept it off for several years.  I did it with a combination of binging and starving.  My most clear memories are when I worked in a state office.  I would skip breakfast, then mid-morning a few of us would take turns each day running to McDonald’s for breakfast.  I often volunteered to go - and it wasn’t because I was nice.  When I was the runner, I would buy myself 2 breakfast sandwiches.  I would eat one on the way back to the office - I’d wish for red lights so I didn’t have to eat it fast but if I got greens I’d just gobble it up - barely taking time to breath.  Upon returning to the office, I would stash the evidence under the seat, then innocently return with my one little sandwich and no one was the wiser.  This behavior is still with me today.

Next I met AB - he was a jock from high school and he was interested in ME.  I was so blinded by the fact that the fat girl could get this jock, that we quickly hooked up and moved in together.  Now this one, aside from drinking too much, too often and occassionally doing drugs, he also could not hold down a job.  I supported his ass while I desperately tried to fix him.  I was a single mom supporting my son and a 20-something year-old man.  It was too much for my little salary from the state and my part-timing at a retail store.  I started stealing $ from the store just to get by.  I finally dumped this one when I lost my job because they suspected the stealing.

After that, I dated a lot (hell - I was hot - why not take advantage of it!?) - looking for all the wrong things in all the wrong places.  This is also when I sort of turned things around in the relationship department.  I was tired of being the one getting hurt and used and I was determined not to let it happen again.  It was MY turn now.  I would literally walk into the bar on the weekends and some weekday nights too with enough $ for one beer.  After that I flirted and used my way into free beers for the rest of the night.  I was good at finding the suckers too…shopping trips, clothes…whatever I wanted I could pretty much get.  I ended up hurting some guys that probably deserved it, but there was one that didn’t deserve it at all.  When he confronted me, I recognized the look in his eyes.  I knew what he was feeling.  To this day I remember the look and I still feel guilty about it.  His name was Shane.  He is such a good guy and deserves so much better.  Perhaps one day I will have the chance to tell him how sorry I am…

My drinking continued and I changed up my relationship methodology again.  I tried to convince myself that I was in control - but I wasn’t.  I was completely out of control.  It was the no-strings sex stage.  If there were no strings [feelings] then no one would get hurt.  Not me, not my conquest.  Problem solved (or so I thought).

Then I met Cap.  We became the best of friends.  We hung out together every. single. day.  He would come over around 6 and we’d just hang out - watch TV, play with B, play video games, play guess the moldy food as we cleaned out my refrigerator.  I really liked him - but he was nothing like anyone I’d every been out with.  He was very shy, very innocent, not very outgoing in the romance department and he was just a nice guy.  He was there because he liked me - not because he wanted sex or a free ride or someone to take care of him.  He was just there to enjoy my company.  Strange…  So we continued on as friends.  We both wanted more, but I was fast, he was slow and we just never really sync’d up.  Then I heard that he was going to move to Chicago.  At the time I didn’t know that it was just a bunch of talk - he had no real plans to go.  BUT - it hit me and it hit me hard.  I was devastated.  I thought I meant something to him and now he was leaving me.  We didn’t ever talk about it until years later, but this is when I decided to run…I didn’t have anything or anyone to stick around for.  When I left, Cap felt the same way I had - that I had abandoned him and our friendship and he up and moved to the west coast.

So at this point I’m in a different city.  I met a guy, KC, and we moved in together.   It was a doomed relationship from the start - I was just lonely and needy.  He, like men from prior relationships, was an addict.  This time it wasn’t drugs or alcohol, it was porn.  For me, with such low self-esteem myself, the porn was really a kick in the teeth.  I saw it as an addiction, and having been familar with the 12 steps and codependency, I knew I couldn’t fix him, but I tried anyway.  We quickly drifted apart.  The move, the relationship, it was all too much change for me and this is when I began to put on weight.  There was also something else here between me, KC and God that I, to this day, haven’t resolved in my heart and it weighs heavy on my soul.  The bottom line is that I ate and ate and ate, and grew and grew and grew.  All the time I thought it was him and that if I just fixed HIM everything would be okay.  Today, I realize that it was my self-hatred, insecurities, shame and depression.  I hated myself and I hated my life.  I continued with the binging and I dropped the periods of starvation that balanced everything in some sick way.

Nothing has changed since then.  My depression has lingered, my self-hatred is still here, I have a lot of guilt over a lot of things.  I eat so I don’t have to feel these things…  It’s time to begin feeling the feelings and dealing with the feelings.

 

Step Work: Compulsive Eating History

STEP ONE: 
We admitted we were powerless over food - that our lives had become unmanageable.

My earliest memories of food issues are from grade school.  Occassionally, I would buy Tic Tacs or any other candy that came in a handy little container of sometime.  I don’t really remember buying it for the candy - it was for the container.  I would sneak certain things from the kitchen and put them into the container.  The stuff I snuck out of the kitchen?  Sugar.  I remember putting Tang powder, Jello powder and eventually I just used pure sugar and then added an envelope of Kool-ade for flavor.  I would take those little containers to school, out to play, and I would dump the sugar straight into my mouth.  All day.  I remember hiding at recess with a couple of friends as I shared my sugary stash with them.  I don’t remember who the friends were - but I think I was like a little drug pusher.

I remember the first time I made the Kool-ade mixture.  I used cherry or fruit punch or something - it was red anyway.  When we returned to class after recess, I apparently had some bright red lips.  The Kool-ade had stained my mouth!  My teacher asked what was all over my mouth.  I remember feeling embarassed.  I hadn’t considered the staining the Kool-ade would do!  I learned.  I became better at hiding my little secret concoction.

After 5th grade, we moved.  It was a hard move for me - I was at one of those ages, aside from the fact that I was fairly shy and introverted.  I remember always having candy in 6th grade.  I remember hiding candy and eating it secretly from 6th grade and for years to come.  One of my favorites was Tart’n'Tiny candies.  They were these little cyliner shaped sweet tart type candies.  Just smaller then the eraser on a pencil.  I used to dump boxes of these into my pockets before school.  I would eat them all day long.  I would casually put my hand in my pocket, place a candy or two into my hand, security them between my fingers, closest to the palm.  Then I would cough and politely cover my mouth, and use my tongue to pop the candies into my mouth.  Simple.  Stealthy.  Just more hiding, just more sugar.

Now - with all this talk of candy, you might think that my parents were horrible to buy me such things - but they didn’t buy it for me.  See, we always had a newspaper route.  From the time I was like 8 - we delivered newspapers and earned money for ourselves.  It wasn’t much at all - but to us it was a fortune.  My brother always banked his money (and he’s a banker now - go figure) and I always spent mine - mostly on candy (and I’m fat now - go figure).  Pay attention kids - there’s a lesson in there…

It was after we moved when I really started putting the weight on.  Before then, I always was thin - but I also played outside everyday - riding bikes, having dirt-clod fights, cowboys and indians, the Dukes of Hazard, A-Team.  My brother and I and the twin boys from down the road were always outside playing, always on the go.  After the move, I didn’t have anyone to play with.  And coming from a small little town to a big city - we couldn’t just go run around like we did before.  AND - we were really sheltered culturally - I didn’t know anything but Dolly Parton and the Oakridge Boys existed as far as music was concerned.  I again remember being embarassed - because I wasn’t ‘in the know’ like all the other ‘cool’ kids.

I was 12 by this time and made friends easily enough, but that was 6th grade.  The next year we all moved up to the junior high - so we were dumped into a school with 100s of other kids who had come from other schools.  Again I had to make friends and it was even harder this time.  Some of the better friends I’d made ended up going to the other junior high.  It was much harder to make friends now - there were so many changes.  I really clammed up.  My clothes weren’t ‘cool’ enough, I wasn’t pretty enough, and being an introvert, my personality just wasn’t brilliant enough to make others overlook those things.  I also experienced death for the first time.  My mother’s brother was hit by a train and killed.  I wrote in detail about it in this post.

During (and even before) the gradeschool sugar feasts, I can remember sneaking spoonfuls of sugar, dumping decorating sprinkles into my mouth, eating toothpaste, chewable vitamins and baby asprin.  I remember going to see my aunt when she worked for the gas company (or maybe it was an insurance company) and snatching sugar cubes.

After years of teasing from my classmates, siblings, cousins and one particular uncle, I had had enough.  I stopped eating.  I worked at Pizza Hut one summer, and besides running my ass off as a waitress, I would get up and exercise (my own little routine I made up) every morning, skipped breakfast, went to work and would snack a piece of canadian bacon here and a breadstick there - never eating much.  I didn’t count calories - I was just too busy to think about food and I was determined to get them to stop teasing me!  I lost so much weight - like 80 pounds that one summer.  It was insane - but I was loving it!  People would tell me I was too thin - that I looked sickly.  I didn’t see ‘thin’ in the mirror though - all I saw was that fat girl that I didn’t like much.  When I returned to school for my junior year - I was IT (or so I thought).

I lost my best friend that year - at the time I thought she’d abandoned me because she was jealous of my weight loss and the new attention I’d been getting.  I honestly can’t recall if that is true or not.  For all I know, it was me.  Maybe I changed and she didn’t like who I’d become?  Maybe I did something mean to her or said something I shouldn’t have.  Is this something I need to know?  Should I try to contact her and hash it out?  I’ll have to think on that one…

I maintained my low weight though my senior year and into my 20s.  I wore a size 1 prom dress - I weighed 110 pounds.  I still didn’t like myself.  I still wouldn’t wear a swimming suit without a t-shirt over it.  I still hid myself in bulky, baggy clothes.  I just didn’t realize back then how much I didn’t like myself.  And this is where Relationship Memories #1 and #2 come in.  Those memories really show how much I didn’t like myself.  What I thought I was worth.

So - there were lots of things going on there - and that’s when it started.  Unfortunately, my obsession with sugar still exists.  My poor self image still exists.  My inability to deal with difficult changes still exists.  I want to change these things.  This exploring is good for me…but now I’ll probably go cry for a bit…since I never did it then…

 

Prompts to work the steps?

I need something.  I need some writing prompts.  I need some questions to spur my thoughts.  To help me dig into my psyche.  Into my memories.  To uncover the issues that are planted deep within my heart and mind.

So I’m off on a search…if you know of a book, a workbook, a website…point me to it.  I need it.  I know from much experience that until I love myself and determine my triggers and work through those issues that I will continue to fail to make progress.  Healthy progress.  Lasting progress.

 

I never let it go…

I went to an online meeting tonight.  As I ‘listened’ to the shares, a tear rolled down my cheek.  I don’t know why.  Something touched me though I can’t say just what it was.  If I close my eyes and just feel, I think it’s because I felt like I was home tonight.  Like I was where I should be…

The focus tonight was on step 3.  I think that is where I am at.  I think I’ll always have work to do on all the steps - but Step 3:  Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him.  Yes - that is what I need to work on.

In my post back at the end of October, I said that I’d decided…and I had.  I decided for just that one day.   I did not turn my life over to my God.  I turned over one day of my life.  I realize now that I couldn’t let it all go.  I realized tonight that I simply waited for my God to take my compulsion, to take my appetite.  And while He did take it that night, I never let it go.  I never let it go.  I held on to it.  I kept it.  And so here I am.

It’s like when someone gives you change - they don’t hold their hand out and wait for you to take it.  They put it in your hand.  I don’t know that it’s a fair comparison, but to me it makes sense.  Maybe I’m over-simplifying, but when we give anything to anyone we don’t hold it out and wait for them to take it - we put it in their hands.  I have to put this in God’s hands and stop trying to hold onto it.  I have to stop trying to control everything myself - because - well - because I’m not very good at it. 

So I’m back [again] and ready to get busy.  I’ve already got Bill B.’s book sitting beside me.  I’m going to read before I let my head hit the pillow.  I think I have some support this time - which I’ve never had before.  I’m going to shoot for 3 meetings a week - more if I can - but I think that 3 is doable for me.

 God,

Grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change,

The COURAGE to change the things I can,

And the WISDOM to know the difference.

–Amen

 

Restoring my sanity…one day at a time

I guess it’s been a couple of weeks ago now…maybe even a month or more ago.  I began reading and ‘working’ the steps.  Then, I got scared.

The first step was done.  I’ve known for some time now that I had a problem with food.  Only recently though was I able to really see it as an addiction.  I conciously admitted to myself and others that I have a problem.  That my relationship with food is out of control.  That I need help.

I began reading Compulsive Overeater by Bill B.  I read the intro, his experience with step one and then on to step two.  Step Two.  Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.  I thought about that.  About my God.  I’ve never been a very religious person.  I do believe there is a greater Power.  I just don’t know that it is the sam God that I learned about in Sunday School as a youngster.  I believe in fate and angels and that the feather that fell before me only days after my mother’s death was a sign from her.  I believe that I can feel my mother’s spirit in the wind.  It was windy the day she died.  I’m getting off track here - but I do believe in so many things.  Perhaps it’s the rebel in me that can’t believe that which others have preached to me.  I believe that which I have experienced.  That which feels real in my heart.

I expected from the beginning that I would have problems with this step since I believe a lot, but nothing specific.  AFter reading the Bill B.’s experience with step two, I felt at peace.  He warned that it would be hard.  That many struggle with this step.  The I read that God would restore my sanity if I chose to let Him.  Got would remove the insanity.  He would remove my appetite.

I remember wondering is it really THAT simple?  Just choose.  Just choose to allow God to remove my appetite.  I was skeptical.  But I have believed in stranger things.  And, when I finished that chapter, I decided not go on to the third step.  That I wanted to give myself time to take in step 2 and really feel like I had a good grasp on it before moving on.  I decided that I would read some of the miscellaneous chapters toward the back.  I was tired though, so I climbed out of the bathtub and went to bed.  As I laid in bed that evening, I made my decision.  I decided that I wanted God to remove my compulsion.  Remove my appetite and restore my sanity.

I slept good that night.  When I woke in the morning, it was just like any other morning.  Until I thought about breakfast.  Then, instead of asking Cap to run to McDonald’s or Sonic, I decided that I’d like to have one of those breakfast Lean Pockets that Cap had gotten for me to try.  Then I realized that I didn’t want 2 of them like I usually did.  I just wanted one.  I was slightly confused.  Then I remembered the choice I had made.

I was amazed.  I was scared.  This is real.  It works.  I felt as if I’d struck gold!  The entire day was the same way.  I was different.  I wasn’t consumed by thoughts of food.  I didn’t eat constantly.  The following day was the same.  I did it!  I was cured!

NOT!

I don’t know how I could have been so foolish.  I know better.  I quit reading, I stopped believing.  I forgot what I was.  I am a compulsive overeater.  Although my appetite has returned, I’m back and I’m ready to do this right.  I guess you could call this my first ‘fall’ from ‘the wagon’.  I don’t want to fall again, but I am a realist.  I know and accept that I am not perfect.  I’m going to try to do better this time.  That is all I can manage at this point.  I know, now, that I must turn to God everyday.  I must start each day by asking God to help me through that day.  Now I truly understand ONE DAY AT A TIME.

 

Hi. My name is “D” and I’m a compulsive overeater

My eating has become completely out of control.  I am at an all-time high weight.  I am currently and seriously considering purging after eating or the chew and spit technique.  I am fully aware that both are not good.  I’m desperate though.  I need some way to control it.

I just finished eating a pie crust and a cup of pudding.  I don’t know why.  I wasn’t hungry - I just wanted needed it.  I actually got up, made a pie crust, baked it and then ate it with a cup of pudding.  I wanted a chocolate cream pie - and I called a local ‘mom and pop’ restaurant (they have THE BEST pie) but they were closed already.  So I compromised.

This is what I do.  I eat.  I can’t stop, I can’t tell myself no.  I eat when I’m stressed, when I’m mad, sad, bored.  I just eat all the time.  I eat salty then I want sweet then I want salty again.  I crave sweets and bread.  I will go to McDonald’s for breakfast which is bad in and of itself, but instead of getting a sandwich, I get 2 sandwiches AND a coke AND a coffee.  When Cap is home, I’ll eat one of the sandwiches on the way home so he won’t know.

The fact that I’m hiding to eat has lead me to the realization that I’m addicted to food.  My relationship with food is completely out of control.  I eat when I’m not hungry.  I feel guilty after I eat.  Before I’ve finished my breakfast I’m deciding what to have for lunch and even dinner.  I look forward to breakfast because I can eat a lot since I’m all alone.  I hold back when I’m around friends and family - I eat normally then I make up for it later.  I have to buy new work clothes about every 6 months because the prior season’s clothes don’t fit anymore.  I’ve noticed that I eat in response to emotions - when I have an argument with B or get bad news - I seriously start rooting through cabinets looking for something to eat.  It makes me feel better - or maybe it’s helping me to not feel anything.

There has been so much hurt in my life.  My father was never available to me.  I found comfort in the arms of an alcoholic/drug addict and got pregnant.  I struggled to raise my son, work full time and go to school.  I drank too much on too many occasions.  I was promiscuous.  My dad cheated on my mom, gave her an STD and they got divorced.  When he married a new woman he quit communicating with all of us.  I grieved for the loss of my father.  I got over that - but then - when everything was going well, I found out my mom had ALS.  I moved 2000 to be with her, to help her and enjoy her for the short time she had left.  I was diagnosed with cervical cancer.  I underwent treatment and am currently in remission.  I stopped smoking when I found out I had cancer.  I started menopause when I completed my cancer treatment.  I watched my mom’s life be stolen from her.  I watched my mom die.

I could go on…there’s more but those are the major points.  My weight issue has gotten bad in the last two years.  Since I quit smoking and started menopause.  I think I traded one addiction for another.

So - I ordered some books…some over-eaters anonymous books.  I’ve attended an online meeting (there are no local meetings).  I’ve read and researched and read some more.  I’m ready to take the first step.  To admit my problem and that I’m powerless when it comes to food.  I’ve worked the steps before.  Back when my relationships were such a mess and following a frightening pattern - alcoholics, drug addicts, verbally abusive, physically abusive.  I need to work them again.  This time it’s my relationship with food that’s the problem.

I’ll document my journey here…

God - grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the the wisdom to know the difference.  Amen.