Justification for Bingeing is Insanely Insufficient

It occurs to me that my justifications for bingeing -- I'm upset, I just want the world to go away for a little while, I can't cope with my feelings, I'm sad, I'm lonely, I'm depressed -- are insanely insufficient in light of the emotional and physical health consequences obesity causes me.  If the bingeing actually helped my mental state, well, then it would be a hard bargain to make, but it doesn't.  I used to think it does but really it doesn't help.  I feel worse after I binge, not better.

I'm reading in AA's Big Book, the chapter on "More about Alcoholism" and I find this passage helpful in the context of when I deliberately binge because I am upset or depressed:

In some circumstances we have gone out deliberately to get drunk, feeling ourselves justified by nervousness, anger, worry, depression, jealousy or the like.  But even in this type of beginning we are obliged to admit that our justification for a spree was insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened.  We now see that when we began to drink deliberately, instead of casually, there was little serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be. 

Our behaviour is as absurd and incomprehensible with respect to the first drink as that of an individual with a passion, say, for jay-walking [who ends up with a broken arm and then two broken legs but persists in jay-walking nonetheless].  [Big Book, p.37]

Later, the Big Book talks about the "subtle insanity" just before taking the first drink.  In this period of premeditation the compulsive behaviour seems like a casual idea, innocuous, not likely to be harmful.  A couple of cocktails.  Some salty snacks.  A doughnut.  But 1 is too many and a 1000 is never enough.  I know this.  I have no defence once I pick up the binge food.  As the Big Book says:

...though I did raise a defence, it would one day give way because some trivial reason for having a drink.  Well, just that did happen and more, for what I had learned of alcoholism did not occur to me at all.  I knew from that moment that I had an alcoholic mind.  I saw that will power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots.  I had never been able to understand people who said that a problem had them hopelessly defeated.  I knew then.  It was a crushing blow. [Big Book, p. 42] 

What I know about neuroscience is once a brain is wired one way, with repeated behaviours over many years, it is very hard, if not impossible to rewire it.  So if this science is true, my will power and intellect is not going to be a allay in stopping my compulsive eating.  I need something more to help.  And that's where the concept of my Higher Power comes in. And weirdly, that's what I see when I keep reading!  The end of the chapter on page 43:

Once more:  the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defence against the first drink.  Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defence.  HIs defence must come from a Higher Power.

Blessed be.

Not Acting on Thoughts, Not Doing More than My Share

The reading in Voices of Recovery today talks about abstinence and how, although abstinent, we can still have compulsive thoughts around food when we are stressed, frustrated or depressed.  Uh huh.  I know all about that.  The reading continues:

Although I would love to have a complete freedom from such thoughts, I'm learning to accept that I have the mind of a compulsive overeater, a mind that automatically associates feelings of discomfort with the siren song of food.  ...No matter who strong my desire to eat may be, it's never the food that I really want; therefore, eating won't make me feel better.  If I am upset and craving food, I really need to connect with my Higher Power, to spend some quiet time by myself or to talk to a caring friend.  Thus, recovery has taught me that even though I may think like a compulsive overeater, I don't have to act like one.

This is reassuring in many ways.  I think I had made the assumption that if I still have compulsive thoughts about food, I am not abstinent.  But it's refraining from compulsive food behaviours, not thoughts, in our definition of abstinence.  It's not like I can control my thoughts.  I may be able to influence them over time with repeated patterns of behaviour, but I can't control my thoughts directly. 

Intergroup yesterday.  Lots more volunteers but all of them new to intergroup.  Good thing we no longer are enforcing the rules about attending for three months before you can be elected and having to meet the abstinence requirements or whatnot.  It's good to have new blood - there are people there who are not really contributing to Intergroup.  I expect they take the Intergroup news back to their home groups but that's about it in terms of contribution.  They don't actually do the work of Intergroup.  Maybe that's none of my business.  That's their journey.  If they are stuck, they are stuck.  If they are fine, they are fine. 

I was hurt and offended when I had three jobs and they had none, yet when the issue was raised, they did nothing.  However, the issue was raised and now I have one job.  It was a good lesson in me being serene enough to wait to see if someone else would step up or the position could stay empty.  I don't have to save the world.  I am only responsible for myself. 

Taking on too much is not good for my recovery.  I am learning to be consciously and responsibly selfish. I think it's important in our step 4's to look at these issues.  I am learning from the Al-Anon people that it is controlling and selfish to do too much for other people as well.  As I work my steps, I am going to read more closely for these issues -- control and doing too much as a sign of selfishness or ego.  Service gives me an opportunity to look at these issues in my life.

Blessed be.

Leaving Room for the Divine

Today's Voices of Recovery is about Step 11 - praying only for knowledge of our Higher Power's will for us. 

I have been trying to keep this front of mind in the context of a friend going through serious financial problems.  My best thinking in the past has been to try to rescue a friend in similar circumstances.  That didn't go very well.  I got badly hurt.  The friend ended up in hospital (she may have ended up there anyway, I don't know).  Our friendship ended because she felt my helping betrayed our friendship.

Now with this current friend, my instinct is to rescue but I can't.  The problem is too big, the financial burden too high.  And with all I have learned in doing the Steps, listening and talking to other members, and praying for guidance, I have determined it does not help to get between an addict and their bottom.  They have to get to a place of abject failure and defeat - for them - and where that is and what it looks like is theirs alone.  Only then are they at ground zero and can start to rebuilt their troubled lives.

For me, I wonder if I've recently hit my own bottom in feeling distraught over trying to help and then realizing my 'helping' others has meant I have ignored my own needs, my own recovery.  Yes, I have been going to meetings.  I've even started a new step study.  But is my heart in it?  Or is my heart too broken, preoccupied on what isn't than what I can do? 

So the reading today that reminds me my recovery comes first.  And that means I have to leave room for the Divine to work in my life and in the lives of those I love. 

"For today I will remember to let an infinite Higher Power enrich my life and broaden my horizons with His will, rather than shortchanging myself with the finite limits of my own human vision."

Blessed be.

Change (why it should be different) and Acceptance

I'm doing this Desire Map daily planner and one of the questions for today hit hard:  the category was "want to change" and the prompt was "why should it be different?"

And I didn't initially want to write anything.  My house is still a mess and I want it to be nicer but I rebel.  I realized it's because it's an old power struggle with my mother about what my space should be like.  And that's old.  I don't have to clean up because my mother says so.  I can want to change my house because I deserve beautiful.

The reading in Voices of Recovery for today is:

I have never seen a person grow or change in a constructive direction when motivated by guilt, shame and/or hate.  - William Goldberg.

And the text accompanying this incredible observation is this:

If you eat too much you're a glutton.  If you weigh too much you won't be popular with the boys (or girls).  Heaping new guilt upon the old, I tried to reform myself.  I dieted, lost weight.  There, now I looked terrific.  But for how long?  And did I like myself any better, inside?

...

For today, I let no one -- including myself -- try to shame me into changing something about myself I wish were different.  I pray to be relieved of guilt and self-hate, and to accept and like myself exactly as I am.  That is where I can begin to change.

This.
Blessed be.

Two Myths

The two myths disclosed this morning are these:
1.  that pain must be avoided at all costs; and
2.  that food relieves pain free of charge.

Neither are helpful.  Neither are true.  The For Today reading this morning starts with a quote from former US president John F. Kennedy:

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

The reading goes on to say that the writer's food addiction was acquired so [s/he] could survive and cope with earlier, painful circumstances. 

Thus began two myths:  first, that pain was to be avoided at all costs, and second, that eating would relieve the pain free of charge.  These myths were useful then, but they are insanity now.

As I become willing to accept the truth that is revealed to me in this program, the myths I clung to so desperately lose credibility.  I no longer need to be anesthetized; I can stand still and feel my feelings.  I don't think something is wrong if I'm not happy every minute.

For today, the more I accept the reality of what is, the more comfortable and serene my life becomes. 

This morning I am extremely sore from a fall on the ice yesterday.  My body is swollen with the excess salt I had last night bingeing on corn chips.  The binge did not prevent the soreness, it made it worse this morning.  Insane. 

I know I had painful early experiences.  I know I have been working around the edges on them in therapy for years.  For today, I will just hold my pain and trust that in time it will release its hold on me and just become part of my history, like happy memories do too.

Blessed be.

Practicing Prayer

Step Eleven encourages us to practice prayer, to continue talking to our Higher Power daily, even when it seem like a senseless exercise. - OA 12 & 12, p.97

I realized recently how much anxiety I am working with on a day to day basis.  The solution to much of this is prayer and meditation -- and a little bit from my cognitive behavioural therapy tools.

The reading in Voices of Recovery today talks about learning how the writer needs to pray. S/he writes:

I thank God for my abstinence and my recovery.  I ask for help with my abstinence in the day ahead.  I offer my service.  I acknowledge the previous day's failings and ask to be shown how to do better.  I offer the day ahead to the service of God.  I pray for friends in and out of OA.  From the time I started this simply daily routine my recovery stopped plodding forward -- it sprang forward.

This.  I can do this.

Blessed be.

Willingness comes and then Ability

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.  - William James

I did not have an abstinent day yesterday.  Today, so far, I have.  I am not suggesting I overlook my failures of both willingness and ability.  But I do go on.  I do better.  Part of the reading for this morning says:

...Of course, sometimes I cannot know in advance what to overlook.  When I must choose, I go with what seems best and give myself time to see how it works.

There is one suggestion that each of us would do well to take:  follow the twelve steps.  The steps are the program of recovery in its entirety:  everything else is intended to support just that:  tremendously helpful implements for working the steps. 

And in Voices of Recovery reading for today, we add "the miracle is the willingness came and then the ability." And so today, I pray for willingness and from that ability.  And I renew my commitment to work the steps.

Blessed be.

 

Let's not louse this up. Let's keep it simple.

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. - Hans Hoffman.

I am feeling lost.  In some ways, I know what I need to be doing.  At the same time, I am unsure, uncertain, and overwhelmed.  It seems insurmountable to heal my body, my mind, my spirit.  I have teeny bits of progress and yet I still feel like I'm drowning.  Time goes by and it is as if I watch the clouds.

Today's reading is about simplicity.  It says:

One of the most profound utterances in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous is Dr. Bob's parting plea to Bill W, "Let's not louse this thing up.  Let's keep it simple," 

Overeaters Anonymous has its share of compulsive complicators.  They lard the program with mandatory procedures and other distractions.  If newcomers succeed in finding out what the program is about in this welter of the unnecessary, it may well be because they have an innate ability to simplify. 

For today, I pray to be reminded of the simple principles of this program, especially when I am tempted to present personal interpretations as the only way.

I was at Intergroup over the weekend.  What I saw were a lot of people simply showing up to report that their meeting has 6 to 8 people, one or two newcomers, and things are going well.  The vacant leadership positions -- literature coordinator, assistant treasurer, 12th Step Within coordinator, etc -- all went unanswered for the third month in a row that I've been there.  Do we need these positions?  Clearly we are functioning without them.  Why won't these people who show up each month take on a little bit extra?  I don't know.  They are not moved by the entreaty to service. 

This morning I am contemplating what I do for others versus what I do for myself.  I think I have a complicated relationship with being useful.  It reminds me, however, of the Marge Piercy poem.  I think it is true and pure, untainted by selfishness or ego.

To be of use
By Marge Piercy          

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

Blessed be.

Recovery

This I adapted for OA from an NA Just for Today reading that landed in my in-box tonight:

Few of us have any interest in “recovering” what we had before we started using.  Many of us suffered severely from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.  Getting high and staying high seemed like the only possible way to cope with such abuse.  Others suffered in less noticeable but equally painful ways before addiction took hold.  We lacked direction and purpose.  We were spiritually empty.  We felt isolated, unable to empathize with others.  We had none of the things that give life its sense and value.  We [binged] in a vain attempt to fill the emptiness inside ourselves.  Most of us wouldn't want to “recover” what we used to have. 

Ultimately, the recovery we find in OA is something different: a chance at a new life.  We'’ve been given tools to clear the wreckage from our lives.  We’'ve been given support in courageously setting forth on a new path.  And we’'ve been given the gift of conscious contact with a Power greater than ourselves, providing us with the inner strength and direction we so sorely lacked in the past.

Recovering?  Yes, in every way.  We’'re recovering a whole new life, better than anything we ever dreamed possible.  We are grateful.

I think the part that really resonates with me today is I don't want to recover what I used to have.  I want to recover my health and spiritual wellbeing -- which I did not have before.

Blessed be.

Acceptance

It's a cold, bright-grey, snow is coming kind of morning.  The readings for today don't really inspire me.  Yes, they are true, yes, they are helpful, but they aren't particularly profound.  And the irony is, one of them is about acceptance.  So I accept them for what they are.

It reads, in part:

Acceptance is the simple act of going through what is presently facing me, be it pain, anger, despair, hopelessness or their opposites.  When life as it really is because a fact that I accept as naturally as I breathe, events lose their power to throw me off balance or disturb the basic rhythm of my life. 

So this. 

Blessed be.

Living my Program: Into Action

He does not believe that does not live by his belief.  - Thomas Fuller*

This morning's reading is a reminder that my recovery is a program of action, not just writing and thinking.  So far, I have an active plan of eating, a consistent reading/writing program, and a nightly AEIOU inventory with my OA buddy.  I also have service to my home group and intergroup.  Where can my program be stronger?  I am not making much progress toward a healthy body weight.  That is my increased focus by tracking my food and activities so I have a mindful awareness of what my actions are contributing toward physical recovery.

The reading in For Today says:

Do the principles I believe in have any relation to my daily life?  I may think the twelve-step program is great, but how can I say it works if I merely admire it rather than live by it?  When I arrived in OA, what I heard rang true because it came out experience, not theory.

Anyone can "learn" the program, but to achieve recovery it promises takes more than intellectual understanding; it takes sustained effort to apply its spiritual principles in every area of my life.  Only then -- when I am practicing what I say I believe in -- can I give it away to another compulsive overeater.

For today, I discipline myself by not 'talking program' unless I am trying to work it.  If I believe that ours is a program of recovery, I will live by that belief.

Blessed be.

*Thomas Fuller, 1608-1661, English churchman and historian.  He also wrote, "One who would have the fruit must climb the tree."

Enough

To be alive is Power / Existence in itself / Without further function / Omnipotence enough. - Emily Dickinson

It is early, dark and cold.  I am getting started with my day.  And the reading is about enoughness:

I am alive.  I can make of that fact anything I want.  I need no terms or conditions to exercise the power of life.  All I have to do is live now.  It is enough.  There may be life in the future, and there was certainly life in the past, but my footing is in the present.  Today is where the past has its meaning, and where the future is shaped.  looking far forward, mapping out my life in the future, I waste the power of the present.  And lingering in the past, twisting its circumstances and falsifying its memory is an injustice to both past and present.  I am thankful that my past has brought me to this present, where I am learning to use all my energy and spirit to live. 

For today, I revel in the power of being alive and I thank God I am not afraid to exercise it to the fullest today.

This.  I am learning to use all my energy and spirit to live.  Before, I was using all my energy and spirit not to die.  There is a big difference.  I want to feel whole, at ease, beautiful, loving and energized in the present moment and in all I choose to do today.

Blessed be.

Strong Hope

How ironic that Friedrich Nietzche, reviled when I was in university as a nihilist is this morning's quote author:

Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life than any single realized joy could be.

I am choosing to live in a way that best supports my desired feelings -- it seems this is a better way than to live and then deal with my feelings that arise.  So I want to feel whole, energized, loving, beautiful and at ease.  I am hopeful that these feelings will grow in my life as I direct my energy toward them, toward life.

Blessed be.

The Road between Here and There

I had significant weight loss in 2014 - 80 or so pounds.  And I felt worse.  So gradually, I gained it all back.  Now, I am trying to regain a healthy body weight in a way that doesn't make me feel more unsafe, more vulnerable, more uncertain, more afraid.

The reading today in Voices of Recovery is, as usual, helpful.  It reads:

My old way of thinking was that I was either an utter failure as a human being, or I was a saint.  I saw myself as an utter failure:  my attempts at controlling my weight and my eating only strengthened my view of myself.  I dreamt of a glorious change in me:  a totally compassionate, intelligent, and, of course, thin person.  The trouble was that there was no road between me, the miserable failure, and me, the thin saint.  So I retreated to eating and daydreaming.  I used to envision a sudden flip into a different me -- as if by magic I would be transformed.  But OA has taught me that recovery requires patient and persistent commitment to a glorious, but hard, journey.  OA has taught me how to acknowledge my shortcomings and how, by working the Steps to change, I can drop the self-hate and humbly rely on my Higher Power.  I am journeying to recovery with OA's 12 Steps.

I remember seeing an internist who specialized in obesity.  I expressed my fears of being thin, feeling more vulnerable, being unwilling to risk it.  And she said, "you know, if you lose the weight and you don't like it, you can just gain it all back.  I'll even deliver you a dozen chocolate chip cookies every day to help."  I left her care because I couldn't do lose the weight then.  When I had some willingness to try, I did lose the weight and I didn't like it and I did gain it all back.  I bought my own cookies. 

So the quest now is how to be at peace in my own mind and work towards a healthier body weight at the same time.  I am not sure I know how to find peace around the change.  I know I can lose the weight if I work really hard.  But the mental, the emotional element is still something I don't understand.  I am praying and working to understand it.  It has something to do with feeling broken or damaged.  And so I am working towards feeling whole.  Then, I pray, I can be whole and a more healthy size.  For the truth is, I am not whole at a large size.

Blessed be.

Neither End Nor Beginning but a Continuation

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning, but a going on with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. -- Hal Borland*

Resolutions at New Year's Eve are attempts to control, to change.  I can change without trying to force my path.  I choose, every day.  And so I continue on as I have, refining my path as I go, praying for guidance, for willingness, for hope.

Blessed be this New Year's Day.

*Hal Borland, 1900-1978, American writer and naturalist, conservationist.