For Today: August 22nd

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Soren Kierkegaard

The 12 steps are simple, direct and always to the point.  I begin by facing the condition I find myself in when I arrive.  I make the nece4ssary surrender and then go backwards in time to uncover the events that shaped attitudes and beliefs which drove me to abuse food.

I describe my own errors and misdeeds, accept them and admit them to another person and to God. In sequence, I ask God to remove my faults and seek to redress my wrongs, asking forgiveness of those I have harmed.

Now I go forward, commencing an ongoing, daily review of my actions and maintaining my spiritual recovery through prayer and meditation and working with others.

For Today:  I look at my past in order to understand myself and in order to let the past go.

(Working the steps is like cleaning out a cluttered house; you make 100 trips to the trash can & 100 trips to 

Goodwill to de-clutter the mess and then, you stay ON TOP of the chores so they don’t get ahead of you. )

Four months ago, after being abstinent for a little over 3 years, I wrote this blog after examining my life to figure out what brought me to compulsive overeating. This is my story:

Connecting the Dots: The Long Road to Recovery

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell

that encloses your understanding.”

Kahlil Gibran

My husband has the most extensive collection of music I’ve ever seen. When we go to garage sales on Saturdays, he picks up CDs for a buck or less to add to his already enormous collection of all types of music.  A few months ago, he bought a copy of Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits which he put in my car, since he knows I like their music.

I popped the disc into the CD player while I was driving to work one day, humming along to The Sounds of Silence & A Most Peculiar Man.  Then, I Am A Rock came on & it hit me with such an impact, I felt my scalp start to tingle.  I hadn’t heard this song in many many years & really, I’d forgotten all about it.

I Am A Rock was ‘my song’ when I was a teenager.  When I got to work, I googled the lyrics & I’ve been reading them, over & over again, in an effort to recall what on earth I was feeling way back then, when I felt that song had been written for me & me alone. I didn’t relate to the song from a ‘lost love’ perspective, like every other teenager on earth did, I related to it from another angle:

“I build walls, a fortress deep & mighty; that none may penetrate….”

“I have my books

And my poetry to protect me.

I am shielded in my armor.

Hiding in my room

Safe within my womb

I touch no one & no one touches me.

I am a rock; I am an island.”

If they’d added ‘food’ into those lyrics along with books & poetry, the song would have been perfect.  As a teenager, I was self absorbed in my own little world which I had created to shield me from pain. I could read books & poetry all day long, lose myself in the words, and come up for air only to feed myself with candy & junk food.

I lived for 48 years allowing no one to penetrate those walls I had constructed around myself. My kids were able to, from time to time, because I allowed them to melt my otherwise ‘independent, fiercely self-sufficient, capable & sensible’ heart.

I was quite proud to tell myself that no one could touch me because I wouldn’t allow it. I had built a wall of protection around myself that nobody was permitted to penetrate. While I kept a smile plastered on my face for appearances sake, it was just a façade.  On the inside, I was a Rock & I was an Island. Not to mention, an emotional mess.

But, what happened to me that would’ve created this closed-off personality where I felt I had to avoid pain & discomfort at all costs & at all times?

A perceived trauma at age 5 is ‘what happened’; I found out I was adopted.  I couldn’t discern what reality was; everything I knew & believed in up to that age was an illusion. Even my name was changed.  So, I created a fantasy-land for myself; a place where things were as I wanted them to be instead of how they really were. I retreated into that make-believe place when I needed to escape a reality I couldn’t handle, and I used food to help me cope & to stuff back the feelings that tried to surface.  My Cardinal Rule of Life, back then was: Things are not as they appear to be.

I wound up staying stuck at 5 years old, when the trauma occurred, and I never developed emotionally or spiritually from that age, only physically. And, of course, a 5 year old has to have her way all the time & never, ever be allowed to feel pain or discomfort.

Somewhere along the line, I heard a very powerful message that would stay with me for decades.  What I heard was, “Love is Conditional”. I told myself I needed to be The Perfect Person in order to be deserving of love. I heard that message from my parents when they said, “You are so pretty but you’d be so much prettier if you’d lose some weight.”  I heard that message in Catholic elementary school when the nuns told me that God would only love me & accept me into Heaven if I toed the line & followed the rules of the Church.  I heard that message from the first man I ever loved, when he’d beat me & tell me it was my fault for setting off his bad temper. I heard that message on a daily basis from my ex husband of 22 years when he’d tell me ‘if only’ I treated him properly, we could have a much better marriage. Whether these messages were true or not is irrelevant; I perceived them to be truthful, and that’s all that matters.

So I set out on a mission to be The Perfect Person; the perfect daughter, the perfect friend, the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect employee & so on. I could never reach that impossible ideal, naturally, so instead of being The Perfect Person, I became the Unworthy, Useless Person Who Could Never Manage to Do Anything Right.  That fact was quite obvious in my weight, which was the badge of dishonor I wore for all the world to see. Even if I managed to get a handle on my weight, it would only be for a short period of time before I went back to food to soothe my wounded, imperfect & abandoned soul. Even God couldn’t love me, I thought, since I was so perfectly imperfect. Sheesh, if my own birth mother didn’t love me, how on earth could anyone else? No wonder I ate to excess…what a burden I’d put onto my shoulders: the driving need be Perfect!

I found my birth-family in 2000 & that’s when I really started my journey to find myself in the ashes of all the rubble. The fantasy became a reality, and a very, very ugly one at that. I finally heard the truth & I could perpetuate my fantasy-land no longer.  I filed for divorce from my husband of 22 years in 2002 & that was the next leg of the journey for me; striking out on my own for the very first time in my life.

When I met my husband at a party on August 20, 2005, I knew instantly that he was the person who could break down my walls, once and for all. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. I fell in love with him on the spot…..love at first sight I guess you’d call it. I knew in my heart that he was my soulmate & that with him, I’d finally be able to be me. I was ready to see those walls come down, a bit frightened at the prospect, but ready nevertheless.

Little by little, he chipped down my walls because finally, I allowed someone to do it.

As long as I had a wall around myself, I lived in my own world where others weren’t really allowed. What I did let in was excessive & self-indulgent behavior. I thought everything had to be done my way, and if it wasn’t, then I was entitled to eat to soothe myself. Nothing allows denial to thrive quite like self-righteous pride methinks. If I was always right & had all the answers, then obviously everyone else was wrong.

Until recently, I wasn’t even able to identify whether or not I had walls of protection around me. But oh yeah, I did, and to some degree, I still do.

These walls prevented me from seeing the truth, they kept me in denial & practicing selfish, self-indulgent & childish behaviors.

Who’d a thunk a song would be so revealing? It wasn’t really the song itself that did it….it was a combination of soul-searching, asking God to guide me to an answer, and hearing that song, decoding it, and finally putting the whole story together. The journey of self-discovery that initially began in 2000, climaxed in 2011 with a bunch of revelations that have finally opened my eyes & made sense out of what appeared to be nonsense.

It’s taken me 3 years of not using food for emotional reasons to finally hone in on what happened….what led me down the road to compulsive overeating. For some reason, I didn’t realize that I’d created my own Never-Neverland until recently. Oh, I knew the circumstances of my life, but I was never able to connect the dots. I haven’t been able to put all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together & come up with ‘the reason’ I’ve abused food for so long.

Since I’ve been having a bit of a struggle with my program these days, I was forced to look within myself to find out why. Something was wrong & that means I wasn’t being 100% honest with myself somewhere. I had to figure it out or I’d be in danger of backsliding instead of continuing forward with my journey.

Someone told me that the 3rd year of maintenance is the hardest; when the arrogance tends to set in, when we think we ‘have this’, see that we really don’t, and we either hit the wall, go back to the old habits, or figure out the why’s of it all.

Now I have to recall the old feelings & purge them, maybe discuss them further, maybe even beat them out of my system on a punching bag…..but they have got to go.  What used to be is no longer.

The illusions have been replaced with reality. I am healthy enough, emotionally, spiritually & physically, to deal with my life as it is and as it needs to be.

And it’s funny, but ever since these revelations have appeared, my desire to overeat has vanished.

Maybe now, finally, I can change the Cardinal Rule of life to read: things are what they appear to be.

And a rock feels no pain;

And an island never cries.

I am not a rock & I am not an island. I am a soon-to-be 54 year old woman who wants to stay in recovery & who will stay in recovery, one day at a time.

For Today: August 20th

There is a courtesy of the heart. It is akin to love. Out of it arises the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Courtesy of the heart may seem detached; it does not interfere with another's decisions or give advice or need approval. It neither plays games nor passes judgment; it does not accept guilt or make others feel guilty with "Why didn't you do it this way? What made you do that?" Courtesy of the heart does not distinguish between president and busboy, can never feel snobish or superior, and is able to learn from everything and everyone.

Courtesy of the heart welcomes new ideas and people, feels joy instead of fear, sees with fresh eyes and appreciates rather than criticizes what it sees.

For Today:  May I be one of those so blessed as to be able to show "courtesy of the heart" to all.

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What a powerful reading! Courtesy of the heart is something I work on every day because it's just THAT important to my program.

When I keep an open mind and heart, I can learn from EVERYONE, pauper or pope.  When I reserve judgment for others & choose to view them in God's loving light, I am able to see their innocence rather than dwell on their guilt.

When I look at my fellow man as my brothers and sisters, I feel part of a much larger picture; my purpose on earth is more clearly defined, and I set myself up to be a student rather thane a teacher.

I can learn something valuable from every person on earth! The homeless man has the ability to teach me compassion as I look into his eyes, whereas the wealthy socialite may only teach me what money CANNOT buy.  So, both of these people are teachers and I am their student.

For today, I will greet everyone I meet with courtesy of the heart. Who knows? I may learn more TODAY than I have in the past year! What an exciting prospect!

For Today:  August 19^th

The remedy of all blunders, the cure of blindness, the cure of crime, is love.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

All growth, all healing depends on love.  Love is what God is all about.  A loving God---as I understand God---does not preach or dictate or threaten.  God is my backer, supportive of me, no matter what I do.  God does not make deals: “Do this and I’ll do that.”  God does not bully or punish or say, “I told you so.”  God listens and accepts me as I am, loves me as I am.  God doesn’t give advice.  God knows that learning comes only from experience---experience I am not led to until I am ready.

For Today: God’s perfect love is mine any time I am willing to receive it.  II let go the God of my childhood and believe, with all my heart, in this God that brought me here and gave me new life.

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"When you love you should not say,
"God is in my heart," but rather,
"I am in the heart of God."
Kahlil Gibran

What is love? And what does it mean to love myself? I've found from my experience that it is easier to describe what love is not. Through many failures -- and with my Higher Power's help -- I have discovered that to love myself means choosing to not hurt myself by overeating. Self-love means choosing to no longer ignore my inner-child who sometimes screams to be heard and must have a tantrum to get my attention. Self-love means not isolating or allowing the hurtful, grieving, angry, fearful thoughts to possess my mind to the degree that the disease overtakes any sanity I may have. This list could go on -- focusing on the failures and the negative -- but my Higher Power has given me the desire, strength and power to feel, express and give love. Our Higher Power offers the freedom and joy of self-love to each of us who are willing to receive and practice it.

The more I am able to receive the love of others, the more I am able to love myself. And conversely, the more I love myself, the more I am able to receive love from others. As I work this Twelve Step program to the best of my ability each 24 hours, I am shown love through meetings, my sponsor, meditating, journaling, spending time with my Higher Power, and sharing my experience, strength and hope with another person. Some days, �the best of my ability� may be to just get out of bed and say the Third Step prayer. Other days, �the best of my ability� will seem like I'm working the program close to perfection. Regardless of my ability on any particular day, I've found that love can be gleaned from each day.

As the quote above states, "I am in the heart of God." I experience this when I am willing to surrender daily to the will of my Higher Power and to be completely and absolutely surrounded and protected by the heart of God.

One Day at a Time . . .
I will seek to see love in as many moments as possible by looking to my Higher Power and then reaching out to others.

For Today: August 18th

To take what there is, and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived---to dig deep into the actual and get something out of that----this doubtless is the way to live.

Henry James

Life offers me treasures beyond imagining, here and now.  They are there for me to take and use with the God-given talents and skills and energy I possess today.

My enthusiasm is the digging tool. I dig into the actual for the sheer love of digging; therefore, the fact that there may be something better tomorrow is irrelevant.  I will be here, digging into life and getting something out of it today.  Nothing can beat that.

For Today:  The right way to live is to live as fully as I can today; to take what possibilities there are and make of them what I can.

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As a practicing compulsive overeater, I lived for tomorrow.  Tomorrow was when life would be great & perfect, when I would be thin, when all my dreams would come true.

Trouble was, those ‘dreams’ were unrealistic; those dreams were fantasies.  The life I wanted wasn’t within my grasp because I refused to DO the footwork to GET that life.

Smoke and mirrors and illusions are contained in Tomorrow.

All I have is TODAY and I refuse to live in the past or in the future.  NOW is where it’s at.

For a great many years, I HAD to have something to look forward to………..you know that old expression?  Mainly, I used excess food & elaborate recipes as something to look forward to.  A reward after a long day at work or relief from the boredom of having nothing to do.

I used food as a REWARD.  And wow what a PRIZE it was!  I rewarded myself for all the indignities of life I suffered (usually at someone else’s hand………….) by ballooning up to 225 lbs, giving myself high blood pressure, high cholesterol, chronic health issues of all kinds and a general lethargy that would NOT quit.

Some reward, eh?

Nowadays, I recognize the REAL reward of abstinence & a controlled food intake.  The new reward is that I can look forward to a brand new day every morning when I wake up, NOT knowing exactly what it will bring, but having the knowledge that SOMETHING fantastic will happen! The new reward is good health with NO medications, a lovely small sized wardrobe that makes me feel BEAUTIFUL to wear; the relief from obsession with food, the simple JOY of being alive!

For Today: August 17th

Diseases desperate grown

By desperate appliances are relieved

Or not at all.

William Shakespeare

It has been said that newcomers must spend as much time and energy getting and staying abstinent as they did in compulsive overeating.  “Half measures availed us nothing.”

My mind tries to tell me I am not that sick.  I am most certainly not insane, and I do manage my own life. My only problem is I want to eat most of the time.  If I could just find a really good diet and lose some weight, I’d be OK.

Yet, somewhere in this rationalizing is a gut feeling that I need to be here, that there is a way out, and this program will work for me.

For today:  I want what I see in OA. I pray for the willingness to follow each step of the program and to believe that the food and the weight will be taken care of in the process.

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Faith: A word I was unfamiliar with prior to Recovery.  Why have faith, where will that get me?  Why on earth do I have to find something called ‘abstinence’ in order to feel whole again? Sheesh.  I just love to eat, that’s all.

Then why am I wanting to eat all day long?  Why must I overeat to the point of feeling ill and still want more?

Because I have a disease that no amount of rationalizing on earth can cure.

I have a hole in my soul that can NOT and will NOT be spackled up with FOOD.

I am spiritually impoverished with a fierce need to control everybody and everything, I have all the answers, thank-you-very-much, and all I need is some WILLPOWER and the perfect diet.  Perhaps the Eat-100-Calories-A-Day-And-Try-Not-To-Drop-Dead plan available on sale at Walgreens this week?  Only $59.95.

When I insist I’m not sick & in need of NOTHING is when I keep my disease alive.  Denial runs through my veins like a babbling brook and keeps me sick & looking for ‘the answer’ in all the wrong places.

Until I became receptive to the Truth, I was ripe for yo yo dieting.  I could ‘deprive’ myself with one crazy diet or another for a while, long enough to lose a little weight, and then go right back to compulsive overeating without missing a beat. Over & over the record played the same tune, until the needle was worn out & I was STILL in the same predicament.

When I found abstinence, I lost the desire TO overeat.  Food lost its magical hold over me & the obsession to eat 24/7 LIFTED.  THAT is the miracle of abstinence.  Not feeling ‘deprived’ with less volume of food but feeling perfectly satisfied instead.

When I stay committed to avoiding trigger foods, I don’t struggle with abstinence. 

The trouble with finding abstinence is thinking it won’t be tough…….that it won’t require as much work as it did to keep the compulsive overeating behavior alive.  I’d devote MOST of my time to food back then……..thinking about it, fixing it, prepping it, shopping for it, finding recipes, reading cookbooks, watching The Food Network.  It was a FULL TIME JOB to be a compulsive overeater.  I’d tell myself it was something I enjoyed…………something I wanted to do.  

But look where all that ‘enjoyment’ got me? 

When I took on the 12 Steps, I made a vow to change; to give UP my idea that food obsession was ‘enjoyable’ and to open my mind to a new & different way.

I treat my Program as a full time job and by doing so, I changed my life.

“I can’t think myself into a new way of acting; I have to act myself into a new way of thinking.”

For today, I stay the course with my food plan without longing for the ‘good old days’ when food was in charge of me instead of God.

For Today: August 16th

One can know nothing of (anything) that is worthy to give unless one also knows how to take.

Havelock Ellis

It’s terrible to receive; I don’t know what to do, what to say.  Whether it’s a compliment or a gift, I stammer and stutter in embarrassment, muttering ridiculous but time-honored denials such as, “This old rag?......I bought it at the Goodwill.”  Only later do I realize that in my attempt to appear modest, I have insulted the person who gave me a simple compliment.

I like the suggestion of a member who practices tough love:  “Say ‘thank you’ and then shut up.”

I treasure simple directions I can understand, and the loving OAs who pass them along.

For Today:  I am willing to practice saying “Thank you” until it comes naturally.

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Ah…….this subject is one that is near & dear to my heart.  The subject of compliments & how to handle them.  The subject of accepting a gift without feeling the need to return it.

Growing up, I was taught that ‘nothing is free’…..that everything has a price tag, and a much larger one than you even realize.  This sort of backwards thinking was ingrained in me from a very young age.

Combine that with a need to appear modest, a feeling of inadequacy, and a distrustful nature, and you’ve got one HOT MESS on your hands!

Accepting a compliment means that I am worthy of receiving it.  If I feel inferior, then I feel UNWORTHY of a compliment.  So…….what are you DOING complimenting me?  My antennae go up and I am automatically suspicious.

The person said, You Look Lovely Today, which leads me to think, “What, I looked ugly yesterday?”

The person said, Wow, You’ve Lost Weight!, which leads me to think, “What, I used to look THAT FAT?”

Know what I mean?

If someone gives me a gift, I feel the need to give HIM a gift, and a bigger, better one than he gave ME.

The Program has taught me many things; if someone gives me a gift, I say Thank You and I don’t rush out to find a gift to give HIM.  It is not a game of one-up-manship. 

If someone pays me a compliment, I AM worthy of receiving it.  In all likelihood, I DO look nice; I HAVE lost weight, my hair DOES look lovely, and that’s that.  There is no ulterior motive behind someone’s compliment and I do not have to feel suspicious. 

I AM worthy of a compliment, I AM worthy of receiving a gift, and ALL I have to say is

THANK YOU.

That’s IT.

Period.

For Today: August 15th

Few people can fail to generate a self-healing process when they become genuinely involved in healing others.
Theodore Isaac Rubin

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous describes one of the great early discoveries of that Fellowship.  In looking for a key, a common pattern among those alcoholics who recovered, it was found that the one action taken by all of them was helping another alcoholic.  In each instance, the newly sober AAs, some just released from the hospital, went out and tried to help an alcoholic who was still suffering.

For Today:  OA doesn’t hand out degrees that qualify one to help another compulsive overeater.  I have all the inner resources I need to do it now.

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In order to help another compulsive overeater, all I have to do is share my story; share my pain & suffering, to let him know he is not alone with his struggles.  If I tell him that I have found ‘the answer’ and that I ‘never struggle at all’, I am not helping him in the least.  I do not have all ‘the answers’ and I DO struggle with my disease.  I will never ‘have this’ completely…….to be a compulsive overeater is to ALWAYS struggle to some degree, at least in my case.

My disease rears its ugly head when I least expect it.  I can be perfectly abstinent for long periods of time & then struggle mightily when I least expect it.  The self-pity routine begins…..the Why-Oh-Why-Can’t-I-Eat-Like-A-Normal-Person questions start, and can head down that road to excess quite rapidly.

I may rationalize why it’s OK to take that first compulsive bite………and then have the dickens of a time finding my way back to abstinence. 

When I share myself truthfully & open myself up completely, I GET more than I GIVE.  I reach out to other fellow sufferers and together we find compassion & understanding for ourselves, rather than self-loathing & intolerance.

Being made to feel like I never measure up is NOT the way to live!  “If only I’d gone just a little further, I could’ve been Just Right”  has GOT TO END.  Many compulsive overeaters feel exactly that way……..almost good enough.

For today, I AM good enough exactly as I AM.  For today, YOU ARE good enough, exactly as you ARE.  If I ate something that wasn’t part of my food plan, I am STILL good enough.  If I didn’t exercise as much as I should have, I am STILL good enough & I will not beat myself up for NO GOOD REASON.

For today, I am grateful for the fellowship of OA and for the lack of judgment that I’m shown by my peers.