Divorce

I have taken Step 3 multiple times.  I know the Step 3 Prayer by heart.  This weekend, I am reframing my commitment to abstinence and my surrender to a power greater than myself after a slip last week that shocked me to my core.  

My addiction to food has been a comfort that stood in the place of a true friend, a true lover, a true partner.  It has been destructive.  Addiction is a bigger force than me.  It is a bully. 

When I was a child, addiction sold me on the idea that food abuse is my friend, my life guard, my protector.  None of that is true. My suffering was prolonged and made worse.  I learned to hate myself.  I stayed in this abusive relationship with my self into adulthood, for decades.  I need to leave my addiction behind me and never turn back  A divorce.  Finality.  No reconciliation.  

None of the promises addiction made to me -- that I would feel better, that life would be easier -- ever came true.  Not once.  Instead, I suffered more.  Suffering I know is not better or safer than unknown blessings.  My addiction has been an abusive partner in my life and I have been working at breaking free for more than three years.

With every fibre of my being, every tear I have shed, I want to be free of the pain addiction brings to my life.  The isolation.  The self hatred.  The fear.  On Tuesday, the price of my self worth was 200 g of chocolate mini eggs or $4.50.  God, that breaks my heart open.  An open heart is ready to heal.  

I am a child of God.  My worth is immeasurable.  So I am divorcing my lying, cheating, abusive addiction and turning toward God as my life partner going forward.

This is my promise and my prayer:  

I am walking away from addiction.

I walk toward God.

I walk and if it gets too hard, I accept that I will fall.

And when I fall, I will crawl toward God instead.

And if I can't crawl, I will stay where I am and I will trust God.

I do not go back.  I do not look back.  Because I have walked away from my addiction.  My decision is final.

I choose the path that will give me a loving peaceful life.

I can go to God when I have doubts.

When I fall, I will fall into God's hands. I will not fall into disgrace and destruction because I am walking away from my addiction.

Blessed be.

Step 1 and Honesty (There's No Addiction Without Lies)

HONESTY (There’s No Addiction Without Lies)

“I’ll never do that again.”

 “I used to be addicted, but now I can limit myself to just one.”

Honesty is at the foundation of OA’s Twelve Steps.  It is the principle behind Step 1.  As the OA 12 & 12 says, “In step one we learned the principle of honesty as we admitted our personal powerlessness over food, and the fact that without help we could not successfully manage our own lives. Now we will want to continue being honest with ourselves in all our affairs” (p.103).

Lies are a natural and virtually automatic way of life for active addicts.  Through denial and diseased thinking, addicts (often very convincingly) lie to ourselves and our loved ones to preserve our compulsions.  We also lie to the world in an attempt to avoid stigmatization.  We have lied about big things and small things, usually to avoid rejection or judgment (or to keep up appearances) until we’ve created a fantasy life that is more tolerable than our current reality. 

Have you ever seen your reflection unexpectedly and not recognized yourself?  Do you avoid shopping for clothes so you don’t face what size you are?  These are all signs of self-deception.  Dishonesty. 

Dishonesty serves a purpose in the addict’s life. If we stop lying to ourselves about the damage our compulsive eating has made, we would have to stop abusing food and face a shameful pile of hurt we have inflicted on ourselves and the people who love us. 

Lies drive addictive thoughts and behaviours.  Honesty is very hard work.  At first, it’s much easier to hide our troubling emotions and continue using.   But honesty is key to our recovery.  As the Big Book says, “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.  Those who do not recovery are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves” (Big Book, p.58).

In 12-Step recovery, the standard isn’t occasional honesty or attempted honesty, but rigorous honesty. What does this mean?

Rigorous honesty means telling the truth when it’s easier to lie.  It means sharing thoughts and feelings even when there may be consequences. In 12-Step recovery, we require ourselves to take a fearless personal inventory and promptly admit any dishonesty. We practice catching ourselves in the middle of a lie and correct it, even if it’s embarrassing.

It isn’t enough to be honest with oneself (Step 1), although that’s a good start.  OA’s must also be honest with their Higher Power and other people (Steps 4 and 5), including family, health care providers, and fellows in OA.  Steps 8 and 9 require the addict to take active steps toward honesty and the last three steps require practicing honesty on a daily basis.

Rigorous honesty extends to every aspect of life (“we practice these principles in all our affairs” – Step 12). We refrain from verbal lies, but also nonverbal lies (e.g., stealing or cheating).  We are honest about our own fears, limiting beliefs and unhealthy patterns.  We are honestly willing to change.

Rigorous honesty in recovery requires authentic relationships, with ourselves and with others.  Relationships that leave room for struggles and failures, setting boundaries, and living in accordance with one’s own values and principles.  Telling the truth requires ongoing attention and practice even in the face of discouragement and fear about what others will think.

If some seeds of dishonesty creep in, this can be a sign that we are returning to ineffective coping strategies. As they say in AA, “You’re only as sick as your secrets.” Honesty is essential – it is the principle behind Step 1 – but there are another 11 Steps!  If we don’t actively work our program, learning new skills and addressing the underlying issues, honesty alone can’t prevent relapse.

There is good news.  If we face the truths about ourselves, we come to know and love ourselves and others, imperfections and all. The Promises come true.

- Jennifer S

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.

Growth and Patience: a new egg metaphor

We shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the eggs than by smashing it.  - Abraham Lincoln

I am tired and trying hard on some things, letting others slip.  I worry about my inconsistency and I feel lousy, physically lousy.  I am heavy again, really heavy, and I seem not to care.

Post script.  I do care.  I just have times of feeling lousy.  and then I pick myself back up and work my program.

Growing up emotionally

Man is a born child, his power is the power of growth. - Rabindrath Tagore*

Addiction stops emotional and spiritual growth, stripping its victims of fully half their potential.  As a compulsive overeater, I grew physically and intellectually but remained stunted emotionally, unable to provide sustenance for that part of me which food and academic learning cannot nurture.

When I heard the words, "I am powerless over food," I felt a surge of relief, a letting loose of a heavy burden, and my spirit danced with joy.  With the obsession broken, I am all lightness and hope, reaching out like a child toward that growth that was lost to me.

I thank God for the miracle of recovery - a second chance to work toward all that I may become.

For today:  There are no limits to growth.  Abstinence and weight loss are just the beginning.

This is the reading For Today, September 26th.  I always find it amazing to read what I need to read when I finally do pick up this little reader.

In Step 1 in the 12&12, it describes the emotional pain of compulsive over-eating and then states, "we never grew up."  Growing up is painful.  To do it twice because it was incomplete the first time, is painful. 

*Bengali / Indian poet, composer, novelist.  Winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature.

We never grew up / Time to Grow Up

In the OA 12 and 12, there is a passage in Step 1 about how we never grew up.  This resonates for me and has for some time.  I feel I've missed some essential learning and experiences - I'm in my 40s and I have a Peter Pan syndrome.  No spouse, no kids, no house with a picket fence. 

The passage I'm thinking of in the 12 and 12 is this:

It was only after we began to recover that we saw the childish self-centeredness of our willful actions.  By trying to control others through manipulation and direct force, we had hurt our loved ones.  When we tried to control ourselves, we wound up demoralized.  Even when we succeeded, it wasn't enough to make us happy.  We hid our pain by eating, so we didn't learn from our mistakes; we never grew up.

I read this again this morning and saw for the first time the phrase "It was only after we began to recover..." that starts that passage.  Oh, God!  Yes!  I have started to recover.  That is hopeful.

Then, towards then end of the chapter on Step 1, there is more hope:

In step one, we acknowledge this truth about ourselves:  our current methods of managing have not been successful, and we need to find a new approach to life.  Having acknowledged this truth, we are free to change and to learn. 

Once we have become teachable, we can give up old thought and behaviour patterns which have failed us in the past...

I have been struggling emotionally lately.  My food abuse is still a live force.  So is my depression.  And more days than not, I just want to stay in bed with my cat and feel sorry for myself.  But this is not a life.  This is what a sad sulking child does.  I have to be my own parent and get up, get washed, get fed, get a life.  No one is going to do it for me.  I have to grow up.

This was part of the daily reading in OA.  The email was titled "Thoughts for the Day - Growing Up".

As we grow spiritually, we find that our old attitudes towards our instincts need to undergo drastic revisions.  Our desires for emotional security and wealth, for personal prestige and power, for romance, and for family satisfactions – all of these have to be tempered and redirected.  We have learned that the satisfaction of instincts cannot be the sole end and aim of our lives.  If we place instincts first, we have got the cart before the horse; we shall be pulled backwards into disillusionment.  But when we are willing to place spiritual growth first – then and only then do we have a real chance.”

And this:  emotional sobriety:  “to attain this, we must develop a real maturity and balance (which is to say humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God.”

So this is my for today.  I will live to grow and in the process, I will grow up.

Blessed be.

Notes from the Big Book Study with Lawrie C (June 3-5, 2016 in Kelowna)

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?  2^nd 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.

2^nd 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:

www.oabigbook.info

www.silkworth.com

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