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.