OA Okanagan Spring
Retreat, June 3-5, 2016 at Seton House of Prayer in Kelowna
Big Book Study with Lawrie C
Friday night session
The 12 steps are:
·
Step 1 – identify the problem: powerlessness
·
Step 2 – identify the solution: source of power
·
Step 3 – made a decision
·
Steps 4-9 – recover
·
Steps 10-12 – keep our recovery
The tools are not our program, the Steps are. The tools help us work the Steps so we gain
and keep our recovery.
Once I start, I can’t stop – AND – I can’t stop from
starting. It’s a vicious circle. The answer is to find a power to stop from
starting. The 12 Steps allow us to be
around all the foods and not care.
Our experience before recovery is “I have been stuffed but
never full.”
Big Book, Forward to the First Edition
·
this is mind and body recovery, not emotions and
body
·
there were originally only six steps: 1, 4, 5, 9, 11 and 12
·
the Big Book does not spend the same amount of
time or number of pages on each step (unlike the 12 & 12 which can mislead
us with equal page lengths for each step
The Big Book has over 50 “musts”:
·
xxvi “The [addict] must believe that the body of
the [addict] is quite as abnormal as his mind” – this is not the case of eating
or drinking in moderation
·
allergy means an abnormal detrimental reaction
to a substance; i.e. uncontrolled cravings.
Four Reasons for Accepting It is an Allergy
1. It’s not
your fault then: it’s an illness, a
disability
2. The
allergy metaphor shows you clearly that you must abstain from whatever causes
this detrimental reaction
3. In OA we
have to figure out what foods cause this detrimental reaction (the way
alcoholics realize they have a detrimental reaction to alcohol)
4. We can
refuse food by simply saying we are allergic to it. Most people never question this answer if
someone refuses a food.
Xxvii to xxviii: of
course an alcoholic ought to be freed from his physical cravings.
Xxvi: it is imperative
that a man’s brain be cleared before he is approached. >>sobriety
You get abstinent, you work the Steps. How else can you be rigorously honest?
A craving is a relentless urge to fill the gap… despite it
having been filled many times before.
Xxvii “phenomenon of craving” – a phenomenon is an
unexplainable event of unknown cause but known to occur.
Most normal people who eat too much get a feeling of
discomfort, dis-ease. In OA we can feel
irritable and discontented until we have a bit of XYZ and have that sigh of
comfort. >> the gift that keeps
taking.
And get we can stop drinking alcohol – and say, “I can’t
drink any more even if it is delicious wonderful $90 wine” – this is the normal
reaction of a non-alcoholic who has had enough wine.
How do we know what Abstinence is?
·
We have these craving so we have to refrain from
all things which cause these cravings
·
If my reaction is “more, more, more!” then I
need to abstain from that food
Lawrie identified the foods that caused the “more, more,
more!” reaction in him and then looked at the key ingredients in those
foods. He identified fat and salt. So he limits his foods to 10% fat by weight.
Then, look at your eating behaviours. Your calorie intake of health food may be too
high. You may find you need to keep your
mouth busy (eating between meals, chewing gum constantly). Or you may find you are “eating to the
gills”. These are eating behaviours that
need to be addressed.
Lawrie found he had to stop chewing and sucking on anything
between meals (even pen tips and his fingernails!).
Some foods are totally health, there is nothing wrong with
them – but Lawrie found he still couldn’t stop eating them to excess. So these are foods he can’t eat.
Sometimes it is food combinations that are dangerous if they
trigger a reaction to something similar.
·
Lawrie can’t have frozen blueberries and Greek
yoghurt blended together – it is just like ice cream and he can’t stop on
having it.
·
Same with microwaved no-fat popcorn. Too close to the real thing and his body
responds with the craving.
The no sugar and no flour debates
If you put a pound of sugar and a tablespoon in front of an
OA-er and ask them to eat 4 tablespoons of the plain sugar – then ask, do you
crave the rest of the pound? The answer
is always no.
Same experiment with flour.
Maybe flour and sugar are not the problem. Maybe it is something else like fat!
People who refuse sugar, salt, and bread but who will have a
baked potato with butter, sour cream and bacon bits (aka bacon fat)… Is it the bread or what you put on it? Is it the pasta or what you put on it?
Lawrie has never seen someone allergic to sugar or flour by
themselves.
Eating Behaviours
Anything that distracts you from being mindful around your
eating. I.e.: watching TV and eating; reading and eating.
This is a life or
death program. Not a program for
comfort. If you are not here in OA to
recover (give up problem foods and behaviours), what are you here for?
Plan of Eating is the plan to abstain from food and
behaviours that cause us these uncontrollable cravings.
We also need a planned time table to work the Steps.
·
If I can hang on this long, I can work to my
miracle
·
You are in a race with your mind: to relapse or to recover
You also need a day to day plan to keep from temptation.
What specific things will you do? Drink
water and wait 20 minutes to see if the craving goes away? Call your sponsor? What exactly?
Joan from Kelowna: developed a song list for the 12 Steps
Step 1 We Got
to Get Out of this Place by Eric B and the Animals
Step 2 Spirit
in the Sky
Step 3 Bend
Me, Shape Me, Anyway you want Me, by American Breed
Step 4 Bad to
the Bone by George Thoroughgood
Step 5 Midnight
Confessions by the Grassroots
Step 6 I’m
Ready, Here I Come, by the Temptations
Step 7 Please
Release Me, Let Me Go, by Englebert Humperdink
Step 8 Hurts
So Good by John Mellencamp
Step 9 I’m
Sorry, So Sorry, by Brenda Lee
Step 10 Taking
Care of Business by the Guess Who
Step 11 Can’t
Get Enough of Your Love
Step 12 Get
Ready, Here I Come by the Temptations
Saturday, June 4, 2016
To lose weight, Lawrie stopped reading and watching TV while
eating. The boredom made him more
mindful of what he was eating.
He practices a “good enough” program that is very practical
and is what the Big Book suggests.
Think about what image we project to newcomers about
recovery. It is incumbent on us to
explain our situation if our outside weight doesn’t yet match our inside
recovery. We have to work toward a
healthy body weight and, if we are not there yet, explain. Share what is different in us now in
recovery.
The only way to deal with your disability is to think of
others and not yourself.
What is it in us – if we know we can’t (binge, eat
compulsively), why do we keep going back to food / food behaviours that hurt
us?
Big Book, p. 8 – Bill’s Story: “in this bitter morass of self-pity … I had
met my match… I was overwhelmed”
p.14 – God comes to most men gradually.
Validation from the doctor that Bill had changed (p. 14) –
instead of the doctor attributing Bill’s spiritual awaking to delirium from
withdrawal or some other cause, he acknowledged he didn’t know but it was clear
Bill had changed.
The medical definition of addiction and the AA definition
are different. The medical definition
stresses quantity, frequency and detrimental effect. The Big Book stresses an inability to stop
and an inability to stop from restarting.
Overeating is a sedentary, lethargic disease. If we speed up our behaviours as a film and
then condense a month into a day, our behaviour looks a lot like
alcoholism. Binge. Period of blackout / numbing. Remorse the next day.
It doesn’t matter why.
Reasons won’t help you recovery.
There is a solution in the Big Book – take it up or not.
The body sense is “more, more, more!”
The mind sense is “Oh, … ok…”
People who need glasses accept their disability. People without a limb do not pretend to have
the missing limb. As addicts, our minds
do not accept this addictions as a disability.
We keep accepting and condoning behaviours that cause us harm. We keep finding excuses to go back to the
food.
We rationalize harmful behaviour. Big Book, p.23: If you draw fallacious reasoning to their
attention, they laugh it off or become irritated. Obsession is an idea that takes possession of
the mind and excludes all other thoughts.
p. 24: we are without
defence. The almost certain consequence
that follows do not deter us. If we take
this “desperate experiment” that we can eat like normal people, our mind fails
or we don’t think at all. Or we think
“what’s the use, anyhow?” We have to
give up.
We are killing ourselves.
Our ability to think is impaired as significantly as the alcoholic or
drug addict. Food is just slower.
Our lack of nutrition and our weight issues (too heavy or
too light) diminishes our ability to move, we are more isolated, more dependent
on others. This is the slow prison of
ever increasing obesity. Obesity is now
the #1 cause of preventable deaths.
Book: Language of the Heart, a collection of
all Bill W’s essays
We have a spiritual hunger in us for wholeness, for being a
whole person. In another language, to
have a union with God. This was what
Carl Jung said to Bill W.
This hunger will lead us to hell unless supported by the
strength of a community or a deep spiritual experience.
Chapter 3: More
About Alcoholism
This chapter is more about the mental obsession. The reasons for going back to food – these
are emotional reasons. There are also
all kinds of other mental reasons. You
cannot control your subconscious.
(i.e.: I’ll give you $10,000 if
you don’t think about rhinoceros for the next 30 seconds)
Reasons Lawrie has used to irrationally justify his
compulsive eating:
·
It’s free
·
I’ll escape my pain, if only for a second
·
I’m in Paris, I have to have a croissant
·
It will go to waste otherwise
·
It’s made of healthy ingredients
·
It’s organic
·
At least people can see what my weakness is in
looking at me
·
I’ve been good for (a day, a minute, a week), so
I deserve a treat
·
My diet says I can have it as a ‘cheat meal’
Whatever the reasons, if we know in our hearts that if we
eat the food it will cause problems, we rationalize it in the most distorted
ways.
We maintain the illusion that someday we will enjoy and
control our problem foods. This is the
great obsession of any problem eater.
p.33 Big Book: if we
are planning to stop, there must be no reservation of any kind nor any lurking
notion that someday we will be immune.
Only the British don’t experience childhoods where food
expresses love.
p.34 Tests
1. see if
you can quit eating a certain food for a year (this tests the mental problem of
not being able to refrain from picking it up again)
2. go to a
restaurant, order a binge food, and eat only 1/2, leaving the rest behind. See what happens for the next five days (this
tests the problem of the body, the allergy that triggers cravings).
p.37: the insanely
trivial excuse for taking the first bite:
this runs parallel with sound reasoning.
But the insane ideas win out.
Lawrie sees this like having a good angel at one ear and a bad angel at
the other. The good angel has all these
rational reasons why we should not take the first bite. The bad angel’s argument is just one phrase,
“…oh, c’mon.” And somehow, in our
addicted minds, this is the persuasive one.
And then – p.37 – “The next day we ask ourselves in all
honesty and earnestness how it could have happened.”
Even if you have a desperate emotional reason to pick up a
binge food, it’s insane to pick up a food you know harms you. This reason is always insane.
“There is little serious or effective thought during the
period of premeditation.”
And the Big Book gives the example of the person who
unthinkingly consistently jaywalks, even immediately after being discharged
from the hospital, only to be hit by a car over and over again.
It’s not just
emotional eating, it’s insanity.
In the Big Book, examples are of bingeing after a bad day,
bingeing after a good day (p. 49 Fred’s story).
All three of the first chapters in the Big Book are really
about Step 1.
If you relapse, there are only two reasons:
1. your food
plan contains something that triggers craving in your body; and/or
2. you’re
not working the Steps to relieve the mental obsession.
Chapter 4: We Agnostics
We are powerless over food – our lives were unmanageable.
·
The unmanageability relates to our powerlessness
·
P. 45 Big Book:
the lack of power is over the food; if the power is not in us, it has to
be found outside of us. “Obviously.”
·
“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.”
Willingness is all that is needed. Step 2 only requires a statement of
solution: “We came to believe that a
power greater than ourselves” is the solution.
Steps 3 through 12 are the steps to the solution.
Our own conception of this power is sufficient to effect
contact with God. (p. 46). “So we used
our own conception however limited it was” (p. 47)
Three reasons why an agnostic / atheist should be willing to
try the 12 Steps:
1. we
understand electricity flows into our house and the lights turn on. It’s not magic, it’s fact. On p. 48, it says we work the steps, we have
recovered. Just as we have never seen an
electron but know it works, so do the 12 Steps work.
p.51 when 100s of people are able to say the consciousness
of the Presence of God is today the most important fact in their lives, they
present a powerful reason why one should have faith.
As long as I am spiritually awake, I remember the horrors of
where I was and I never want to go back there.
2. No great
progress is ever made except by people who have tried new theories, thought
outside the box.
P.51 example of the Wright Brothers who believed in
flight. The New York Times had published
an essay a week earlier on a failed flight experiment by a learned
professor. The NY Times opined that such
foolish experiments should be given up (especially if so learned a man as the
professor had failed). A week later, two
bicycle mechanics in North Carolina successfully flew for the first time. Clearly they didn’t read the New York Times!
Why aren’t you willing to think outside the box to fix your
eating problems? If we can believe in
science and not understand / see it…
p. 52 The
bedevilments:
“We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn’t apply to our human
problems this same readiness to change our point of view. We were having trouble with our personal
relationships, we couldn’t control our emotional natures, we were a prey to
misery and depression, we couldn’t make a living, we had a feeling of
uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn’t seem to be of
real help to other people – was not a basic solution of these bedevilments more
important than whether we should see newsreels of lunar flight? Of course it was.
When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance
upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did.”
When we became addicts, crushed by a “self-imposed crisis”
we could not postpone or evade. We had
to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is
nothing. (p.53)
We have to have a leap of faith. Reason can only take us so far.
3. Is there
anything you believe in that is greater than yourself?
* love,
beauty, nature, children
Reason says we are more important than a child or a
principle. But many of us would
sacrifice ourselves for a child or our principles – this is not reason. We feel somethings are more important
than our own lives. Somethings live on
after we are gone. Truth, justice, love,
beauty. Some paintings, music,
literature, have lived well beyond their human creators.
And we want these things to live on beyond us too. That can be called God.
One way is the way of truth, love, beauty and justice. Other ways are not.
Think of it as a compass direction. All other paths are not the right direction
for me.
Those who suffer deserve the most open OA possible in our
conception of God. Be general in our
descriptions of our Higher Power so we do not exclude people, especially
newcomers.
Step 2 is not a
statement of what you need to believe now.
It will come.
“Deep down in every man, woman and child is the fundamental
idea of God.” – p.55
A faith in some kind of God is part of our make-up, just as
much of the feeling we have for a friend.
God is deep within us.
We have deeply held beliefs we live and strive to meet. We, as addicts, have been closed off. We need to clear the pipeline.
The Steps unclog the pipeline. They are the ‘rotor rooter” of
spirituality. They will give you back
your passion to live by your deepest beliefs.
Chapter 5 – How it
Works
This chapter (1) gives you the Steps; (2) describes what it
is to live having turned your life and will over to the care of your Higher
Power; (3) gives the prayer which is Step 3; and (4) describes Step 4.
“Half measures availed us nothing.” (p.59) 11/12 measures also avail us nothing. It’s all or nothing. Do it or don’t.
The original six steps (p.263)
a)
Complete deflation – step 1
b)
Dependence on / guidance of Higher Power – step
2, 11
c)
Moral inventory – step 4
d)
Confession – step 5
e)
Restitution – step 9
f)
Continued work with other alcoholics – step 12
Most of the ink and our time is spent on steps 4, 5, 9, 11
and 12. The rest of the Steps are way
points.
Steps 1 and 2 are not steps you take, but ideas you accept
(p.60)
a)
That we were alcoholic and could not manage our
own lives
b)
That probably no human power could have relieved
our alcoholism
c)
That God could and would if He were sought.
“Being convinced [of these three ideas], we were at Step 3, which is that we
decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood him.” P.60
Then you work the Steps 3 through 12. Either you’re convinced to try these ideas
and take these Steps or you are not.
We have to accept
some toughness in our program. Do it or
don’t. You’ll come back if you’re one of
us. We kill people with kindness in OA.
Someone stands up in AA and says I’ve been drunk for seven
weeks but let me tell you what I know about Step 3 – they will be told nicely
or not to shut up and listen.
Analogy: there are
three frogs sitting on a log. Two of the
frogs decide to jump off. How many frogs
are on the log? Three. Making a decision is not taking action.
There is work to be done.
A decision is nothing unless it is immediately followed by action.
You don’t get turning
your will and life over to God until finishing Step 9.
You are in a race with your mind to get through the Steps to
recovery quickly – so you get there.
The Step 3 prayer is a prayer to live by your deepest and
most loving values. (Prayer is on p.63).
How it Works – Step 3
(p.60)
We are convinced that any life run on self-will (e.g.
selfishness) will hardly be a success.
·
Even if our motives are good.
·
Examples:
wanting to have things our way, wanting to impose our will on other
people, wanting to change the world heroism, people pleasing…
·
Is he a victim of the delusion that he can wrest
satisfaction and happiness out of this world if only he manages well? >> this is a broader definition of
selfish than in the dictionary
·
In Step 3, self-will includes “I want life to be
different” (selfish)
We put ourselves in a position to be hurt by decision we
have made based on self (p.62).
The decision to
continue to let the past hurt me is a decision based on self. It allows me to continue to be hurt.
We have to turn our will over: not play God anymore.
How? The Steps.
We need to become different than we were before.
The Big Book does not promise us a transformative process at
Step 3. This is just the beginning. You are saying you are ready to work the
Steps.
It’s doing all the steps that turns your life and will over
to God. “I want to live a life free of
what I’ve done wrong.”
Step 3 is a significant moment in time. (p.63):
then we launch into a course of vigorous action.
A strenuous effort to face and to be rid of the things in
ourselves which have been blocking us (p.64)
·
We do a personal inventory; a fact finding
process
·
Steps 4 through 9 are basically an inventory
process.
Step 4: examples and guide on oabigbook.info
Resentments =
things we wish were not true.
We isolate where we were fearful, selfish, self-seeking… and
envision what we could be without our defects of character.
Resentment (p.64):
meaning to feel over and over again.
The “what ifs” and the “If onlys” of our lives, people we want to be or
act differently.
People: you
may have harmed, people who have harmed you, people who have harmed others.
Institutions: justice
system, a university, etc.
Principles: an
idea or fact I wish was not true (about yourself or about the world)
“I will never be thin.”
“I will always be lonely.” “I
will always be a perfectionist.” “There
is war, injustice and poverty in this world.”
Hitler. The guy who cut me off on
the highway.
Step 4 Inventory is done in any order, any and all people,
institutions, principles on your mind.
It’s venting. Write one day all
at once and then sleep on it.
Column 2: Why
are they on the list? Why is this
bothering you?
Brainstorm. It could
be they are on the list because:
·
They changed your life
·
Hurt you tremendously
·
Made it so you didn’t like sex
·
Made you lie to others
20 words maximum!
Just answer the questions. It’s
not an intellectual exercise or therapy.
It’s almost as simple as mechanics.
Column 3: Affects my? Self esteem, sex relations, security /
pocketbook (money)
Put down any feeling of being unsafe.
Ambitions: what you
want out of life. Personal
relations. Sexual relations. Fear.
Complete Column 1.
Then all of column 2. Then
self-esteem. Column by column, one issue
at a time.
Then we considered it
carefully (p.65)
·
We can see graphically how much is clogging up our
mind.
·
No wonder we can’t consider whether we should
eat or not. Our mind is cluttered,
distracted.
“It’s plain that a life which includes deep resentments only
leads to futility and unhappiness” (p. 66)
To the extent we permit these resentments, we squander the
hours that might have been worthwhile. The
resentments cloud our minds: they keep
us from the sunlight of the spirit. They
are continuing to harm your life (not themselves).
You want a life where food is not a problem. We will eat over these resentments. We are spiritually sick. So are the people who hurt us.
We ask God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity and
patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. (p. 67).
On Resentment (p.552):
prayer for the person who hurt us… sending them health, prosperity,
happiness… what we want for our own lives.
Pray for them every day for two weeks.
Often abusers are incapable of normal human emotions. These are people to pity, they are not fully
human. It is not necessary to forgive them. But to have these people no longer in power
in our lives: we can be free.
A spiritual truth: if
you do harm to someone, you do harm to yourself.
·
Unless you accept it happened, try to fix it,
and change.
The Step 4 forms are all preliminary: they get you out of yourself and identify
what is killing you. We then look at our
part.
Selfish:
wanting my way regardless (regardless of the motivations). E.g. “I want him to be someone other than who
he is” is still selfish, even if what we want for him is better (we think) than
what he is now.
Lawrie: “I wanted my mother to be someone she was not
capable of being. >> this is
selfish.
Dishonest:
lying, cheating, stealing. Also
lying to yourself, doubting reality, living in a fantasy world, wanting the
past to be different. Living in the past
is dishonest too. Also not telling the
truth when the truth should be told.
Omissions.
“I thought I could change xyz or this person” – this is
lying, dishonest with yourself. Abused
children who are now adults lie to themselves when they take responsibility
that isn’t theirs… when they are not honest about the impact the abuse has had
on their lives, their behaviours.
Self-Seeking:
thinking of self more than others.
Frightened: full of fear.
Lawrie has his sponsees read only columns 1 and 4 of the
Resentment Form in his Step 5’s. There
are usually a lot of “dittos”. Most
people have 4 or 5 dysfunctional patterns.
The Fear Form
“The Future won’t go my way” is a fear. “The past didn’t go my way” is a resentment.
What do you fear?
This is the first column. Usually
overlaps with resentments form first column to a large extent.
Why do you have these fears? 2nd column. Whatever is on your mind and why.
“Gimme” Columns:
There is no fear if we rely on God.
Does self-reliance work? No!!
What do you think God would have me be? “God would have me be a person who…”
·
Takes care of myself
·
Creates good memories
This is an application of the Serenity Prayer. It’s the translation of fear into a way of
life. How to handle things we used to
fear.
Then ask: “What else
would God have me do?” God would have me
outgrow this fear.
The Step 4 Promise
(p.68): “At once, we commence to outgrow
fear” on completing step 4.
Sex Relations: this form helps us identify any imbalances
between desire and friendship.
·
On our own behalf
·
Or that someone else directs at us
·
E.g. flirting that bothers us, people we
fantasize about if it distorts our reality
·
Sex means body and mind are talking
·
Friendship is emotional, but the body isn’t talking
Focus only people you hurt or
people who hurt you.
2nd column:
where was I selfish, self-seeking, inconsiderate? The goal is to deal with sex in a healthy
way.
Did I arouse jealousy (p.69)? Suspicion?
Bitterness? Was I at fault? What could I have done instead?
The answers are usually get out of the relationship sooner
or more more into it…
Chapter Six: Into Action (p72):
We get honest with someone else… and God.
1. we will
die if we don’t
2. confession
is good – it teaches humility
3. you’ll find
you are no different that others (you are not terminally special!)
4. you can
get some objectivity and feedback.
I hear you, I understand you, I don’t judge you. This gives us a catharsis.
Ask them to take the resentment forms so columns 1 and 4 are
showing. Tell me who this person is and
how you have been selfish, etc. We do
not need to hear all the details. We
don’t want to re-traumatize the sponsee by getting them to retell the hurts.
The people who want to talk in detail about column 2 on the
Resentments Form: there is a concern
there that they are still holding the resentment… living in the past. We need to focus the sponsee’s attention on
the sponsee and the sponsee’s own behaviour.
As a sponsor, it’s not my role to assess whether they were selfish
·
This is the sponsee’s inventory
·
We can provide feedback and suggestions
·
Even feedback that they may be too hard on
themselves
The Promises that
come after Step 5: (p.75)
·
We are delighted
·
We can look the world in the eye
·
We can be alone at perfect peace and ease
·
Our fears will fall from us
Sleep on it after doing your Step 5. If you can’t say these promises came true, go
back and do more work on the resentment forms, fear forms. And continue with step % again. Repeat until you feel the Promises have come
true for you.
Do it to the best of your ability. Not perfectionism. Just do it over a few weeks. Eventually it will be complete. (Lawrie’s sponsor was an old AA guy – he made
Lawrie go back four or so times until Lawrie could honestly say he felt the
Promises had come true.)
The Promises after Step 5 (Big Book, p.75)
"We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every
twist of character, every dark cranny of the past. Once we have taken this step, withholding
nothing, we are delighted. We can look
the world in the eye. We can be alone at
perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall
from us. We begin to feel the nearness
of our Creator. ... We feel we are on
the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe."
Step 6 (p. 75)
Carefully review what we’ve done. Thank God.
Ask have we omitted anything? Is
our work solid? Made of mortar without
sand? Am I done?
Step 7 Prayer
(p.76)
You know what a life built on honesty, consideration for
others can be. It’s what you wrote on
your forms of what your God would have you to be.
We complete Step 7 with the prayer. Not with the removal of all your defects of
character.
My Creator, I am now
willing that You should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that You now remove from me every
single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to You and
my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go
out from here, to do Your bidding.
[The Prayer is about willingness] You need to take more action in Steps 8 and 9
to remove defects of character.
Steps 8 and 9 Faith Without Works is Dead
The most common amends is a face to face meeting and “I’m
sorry for what I did to you.”
Restitution amends is the next most common: You stole, you borrowed and didn’t repay.
Public responsibility amends: if you broke a law, offended the community.
And then there are living amends and amends you can’t make.
We can only sweep our side of the street (p.77)
We can say: “If there
is anything I can do to right the balance, please tell me and I’ll do it.”
We must not shrink at anything (p.79)
We cannot make amends at the expense of anyone else. If need be, we consult family or business
associates who may be affects (see pp.80-83)
People are looking for your actions, not just your words to
make it right, now, and in the future.
These are the living amends.
With some people, they are so hurt by our actions, so
betrayed, that they will need to see us lived changed for maybe many years
before considering (maybe) a relationship with us again.
Always discuss your amends with someone else in a 12
Step. Make sure you are not hiding from
making amends. Or so gung ho that you
contemplate amends that will hurt others.
Accept that in hurting you, the person is hurting themselves
or others. Your amends may serve to
protect another. Better than someone
goes to jail than continues to hurt himself and others.
Ex: if a child is
going to fall off the cliff, grabbing his arm and breaking his wrist by
accident is better than letting the child fall and die.
·
Sometimes some harm is necessary to prevent
greater harm.
Do the “now” amends.
Then look at the “I will do sometime” amends. Then look for what you can do for indirect
amends. Do I pay money owing
anonymously? To charity?
If the person receiving your amends thinks you have hurt
them more than you think you have:
·
You have a duty to listen
·
Assess fairly
·
Make amends based on what you did (and make
living amends so you change your behaviour going forward)
If they say “thanks” but you also did xyz to me, you can say
“yes, I did a number of things to you I regret and I am deeply sorry.
Always apologize generally where it is an ongoing
relationship. Do not focus on individual
incidents.
No servile and scraping (p.83)
There are no amends
to yourself. All amends are directed
outwardly.
If people say they need / owe amends to themselves (e.g. for
allowing themselves to be used)
·
They need time for themselves and to learn to
say no
o
E.g. if they “help” someone who can help themselves: this harms us
The Promises (p.83): These come after Step 9
If we are painstaking
about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way
through. We are going to know a new
freedom and a new happiness. We will not
regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we
will know peace. No matter how far down
the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity
will disappear. We will lose interest in
selfish things and gain insight into our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will
change. Fear of people and of economic
insecurity will leave us. We will
intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing
for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant
promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly,
sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. If we are
painstaking about this phase of our development
We can use our experience to help others. Especially survivors of abuse who can say I
suffered terribly and I no longer eat over it.
Work the Steps and you won’t suffer as much / any longer.
You can give meaning to the terrible things that happen.
Sharing with Others: p.124
Showing others how we were given help is the very thing
which makes life seem so worthwhile to us now.
“Cling to the thought that in God’s hands the dark past is
the greatest possession you have – the key to life and happiness for
others. With it, you can avert death and
misery for them.”
The Hidden
Promises
We have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even binge
foods. Sanity returns. We feel safe and protected. (See pp.84-85).
The Hidden Promises (Big Book, pp.84-85)
And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone -- even
alcohol. For by this time sanity will
have returned. We will seldom be
interested in liquor. If tempted, we
recoil from it as from a hot flame. We
react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened
automatically. We will see that our new
attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our
part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we
avoiding temptation. We feel as though
we had been placed in a position of neutrality -- safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. This is how we react so long as we keep in
fit spiritual condition."
Step 10 (p.84)
Step 10 is steps 4 through 9 in the context of what we have
already found. We are in the realm of
the Spirit and need to deal with the past as it accumulates since our step
4. Our will has come back. We are devoted to having an open channel with
our Higher Power (p. 84).
We have to work hard to keep our recovery. We need to look at Step 10 as a continuation
of the inventory process.
Ex: Lawrie would yell
at this kids and then apologize as Step 10.
Really, he needed to address his resentments, fears, defects in relation
to his beloved father-in-law having cancer, his sister-in-law dying, his
mother-in-law-s Alzheimer’s disease, his wife’s worry, his own overwork… all of
this was happening and were causing him distress (and the yelling at the kids).
When do we do a Step 10?
1. When we
feel restless, irritable or discontent (as set out in the Doctor’s Opinion)
2. When the
bedevilments appear in our life:
·
having trouble with our personal relationships
·
couldn’t control our emotional natures
·
prey to misery and depression
·
we couldn’t make a living
·
we had a feeling of uselessness
·
we were full of fear
·
we were unhappy
·
we couldn’t seem to be of real help to other
people
3. Food is
in any way shape or form being significant (beyond nourishment)
The last three steps help us keep our recovery:
Step 10: clean house
Step 11: trust God
Step 12: help others.
Our next function is to grow in understanding and
effectiveness.
·
Not an overnight thing
·
We continue to watch for selfishness,
dishonesty, resentment and fear
“I don’t know what to do about …” and then work it through,
looking at beliefs, fears, self-seeking, dishonesty.
Ideas like “I will never be happy without …”
“I deserve to have …”
Work them with Step 10.
And when you’re done, you can say “I now think I’m ready to [the next
right thing]”
You can also list a person, then all the things that bother
you about that person in column 2 on a resentment form. Then, put all those things in your column 2
in column 1 of a blank form and work it again.
Drill deeper.
Remember the Hidden Promises on pp.84-85. We are not cured. We have a daily reprieve. It is contingent on the maintenance of our
spiritual condition.
Step 11
Step 11 is about training your gut instinct and learning to
rely on it.
Prayer: asking for
guidance
Meditation: receiving
guidance.
These are the minimum standards in the Big Book. Eastern meditation is very helpful too.
There are three moments of prayer in the day:
1. Evening: a review of the day past
2. Morning: plan for the day
3. During
the day: to keep from feeling crazy
Evening Prayer (p.86)
– five minutes
·
This is a step summary review, directed at the
day itself
·
It is also useful to look at your evening step
11 reviews in aggregate as a Step 10, perhaps weekly. You can look for trends, broader feelings.
Daily Morning
Meditation (p.86) – 5 to 10 minutes
·
Daily meditation helps the promises come true
(p.88)
·
We are in less danger of excitement, fear,
anger, worry, self-pity or foolish decisions
·
We become much more efficient (we are not
burning our energy foolishly)
Step 12: Working with Others
We get power by giving up power. We keep power by giving it away
In telling our story to others, show them the allergy of the
body and the obsession of the mind. Only
then will the newcomer see why they may want to do these hard things, like
clean up their past.
Timing, Urgency: if
you don’t have a sense of life or death, how can you work the Steps hard?
How can you convey the message of life or death?
We have an obligation to recover, free from food, achieved
through a plan towards a healthy body weight.
Lawrie’s life was saved by the shyest woman in his group who
asked “no, how are you really?” when Lawrie said he was “fine”. He finally answered her honestly and said “I’m
terrible.”
Our obligations
1. to recover
2. to reach
a health body weight or acknowledge we are on our way there (or why not, if
there is a medical reason for our weight)
3. carry the
message
You want to tell your story because it is part of your
recovery (p.90)
How to talk to the newcomer is found on pp.90-93.
Faith alone is insufficient.
To be vital, faith must be accompanied by self-sacrifice and unselfish,
constructive action. (p.93)
“Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he
can get well, regardless of anyone” (p.98)
Plan of Eating
A plan of eating is a plan to ensure you can refrain from
cravings. The rest of your food is just
nutrition. And you can make choices
there.
Plan of Action
What will you do when it is hard to refrain from the
compulsive first bite?
Ex; call me before you eat the doughnut. (Not as much point calling me afterwards)
Love our members enough to be honest:
·
Ask, you seem to be gaining weight, am I wrong?
·
I hear you talking about working the Steps, can
I help? Can I work with you?
But do a Step 10 on it first. Part of you wants to love and help. Part of you may want to change them. Are you being dishonest? Selfish?
Self-seeking? Fearful?
Find one other person who wants to work the steps the way
you do.
The tools are not the Steps.
The tools are for getting and keeping abstinent while working the Steps.
Lawrie goes to two meetings a week and he has
recovered. Why do people who haven’t
recovered only go to one meeting?
Traditions
The traditions are not rules. They are guides. They are not for precise interpretation or
application by the “traditions police”.
Read the AA long form traditions in the back of the Big Book
at p.563 for more background / understanding.
Closing
“Any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield
the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure. He may succeed for a time but he usually
winds up with a bigger explosion than ever.”
It’s our responsibility to tell our story in a way that it’s
clear how we recover from addiction.
Remember the Big Book says (p.164), “Our book is meant to be
suggestive only….”
Other resources:
William James’ book of essays, Varieties of Religious Experiences
Xa-speakers.org has historical recordings of AA, OA and
Al-Anon speakers
Book AA Comes of Age, Bill
W’s history of AA
