For Today: May 11th

Will cannot be quenched against its will.

Dante Alighieri

Willingness. There is no other key to this program.  To receive the gift of abstinence I need to be one hundred percent willing.

“But I am willing,” I said many a time. “Haven’t I suffered through all those diets? I definitely want to be thin; I hate being fat.”

Alas, it is not enough to want to be rid of the unpleasant side effects of my illness. I need to be willing to give up that which attracts me in the first place: the gratification, sedation or whatever other payoff I get for practicing my compulsion.

For Today: I surrender everything that compulsive overeating means to me, trusting God to put something incomparably better in its place.

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There is DEFINITELY an allure to compulsive overeating: The  blessed NOTHINGNESS factor……when I overeat, I feel NOTHING; no pain, no hurtful thoughts, no joy, no fear, no NOTHING. I am able to anesthetize myself from everything when I am packing in the food. THAT is the allure of compulsive overeating for me.

My mind races a lot….my thoughts threaten to take me into dark nooks & crannies…..into places I don’t want to GO.  Food numbs me from the truth, and it prevents me from visiting unfamiliar recesses of my mind.

When the pain of the compulsive overeating gets worse than the perceived pain I am trying to escape is when I KNOW I can no longer rely on food as a novocaine.  The truth is a whole lot more bearable than the pain of compulsive overeating, the resulting fat, shame & self-loathing that comes along with it.

I use the OA tools to help me stay on track; going to meetings, giving service, writing & reading literature. When I use these tools, I get out of my own head & into the program.

When I am abstinent, I am at peace & I have no shame or guilt to deal with. When I think about eating an off plan food, I ask myself how I will feel in the morning, when I’m unable to thank God for another day of abstinence. What food is worth that??

All I need to have within me is Willingness; willingness to stay true to my Food Plan & let God do the rest.

All I need is the willingness to surrender my powerlessness over food and the burden is lifted from me.

For today, I pray for the willingness to continue my journey, without fear or thoughts of tomorrow, and to live for the moment and one day at a time.