It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one another and find sympathy.
Jerome K. Jerome
In my search for a cure for my illness, I encountered many fine doctors & others who were sincerely interested in helping me. And they did help: I lost weight. But when I regained the weight, I could only see my former helpers as superior beings with no discernible human failings to compare to mine.
In OA, my would-be helpers were, by their own admission, overeaters. In unmistakable terms, they described the compulsion, the fat, the shame, the despair—and the spiritual recovery. My own recovery began that day.
Today I know that I must give to another compulsive overeater in the same way that others gave to me: by first revealing my own failings.
For Today: In sponsoring and twelfth step work, I remember to talk about some of the defects I still have, as well as those that have been removed. A sponsor with no apparent faults needs help.
Oh, the drastic measures I undertook to find a ‘cure’ for my obesity! And every time I regained my weight, I felt like a bigger failure. My self-esteem took hit after hit after hit, time and time again. Why did other people always seem better than me? Thinner. More at ease, better able to deal with life’s problems? Thinner. I only knew how I FELT and how others LOOKED. It always always ALWAYS boiled down to the fat/thin comparisons. If she was thin, she was better than me, period. She had more willpower, more self-control, more guts, more EVERYTHING. Why couldn’t I handle my weight?
Because I am a compulsive overeater & no diet on earth is going to ‘cure’ me. Until I recognized that fact, I was doomed to repeat my dieting failures till the end of time.
For today, I don’t need to starve myself on one crazy diet scheme or another.
For today, I can be satisfied with my Food Plan & I can stay abstinent from eating to excess.
For today, I pray that I may follow God’s guidance, so that spiritual success shall be mine. I pray that I may never doubt the power of God and so take things into my own hands.
I am discovering that thin people do have restraint, but it they don't crave the food the way I do, though. They don't obsess and grieve over not having cookies or candy. They can have a bite if they want, or a whole candy bar, and be done with it. They don't spend hours thinking about food. That sounds like heaven. However, they have their own issues-- they worry about other things like money or work or health or relationships. How often I have prayed to ask God to take away this COE and replace it with any other thing-- I honestly have felt that ANYTHING would be tolerable if only I were thin. I now know that this is my cross to bear, that this is my issue that brings me to my knees, crying out for help.
ReplyDelete