The May 4th Voices of Recovery quotes The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous: "All who have experienced the pain of compulsive eating and want to stop are equally welcome here." It goes on to tell the story of a woman who came to the meetings fighting the program. "I had no desire to refrain from compulsively eating. Instead, I wanted to diet. I did not take the suggestions seriously. Tradition Three illustrates the reason for my inability to grasp this program. I wanted the weight loss and even the pleasure of it without having to earn it first. Today when I watch newcomers struggle with the program as I did, I try to show the same compassion and acceptance as those before me."
I remember my first day in Overeaters Anonymous. I came into the rooms believing that I didn't need the program - I was fine. When the woman who shared told my own story, I was shocked. But I decided to sign up. She'd lost all her weight so clearly whatever these people were selling worked. I asked her to sponsor me at break and felt I had put a check in the box to have them wave the magic wand that would fix me.
She told me to read from the Big Book, and I read Bill's Story and put the book down again. Not only did I not relate to the story, but I figured that all the Big Book contained was a collection of people's stories. Why would I bother reading about a bunch of alcoholics when I could sit in a meeting and hear people tell me about their own stories of recovery - and on topic, too!. I was already sold on the program, just get to the good stuff!
That sponsor told me to write down three things I loved about myself every day. I thought it was the dumbest assignment in the world. And yet when I sat down that night I couldn't think of a single thing. Everything I loved had a "yeah, but. . ." attached to it that was a disqualifying factor. I eventually found myself on the phone with another woman I'd met in meeting, sobbing because I couldn't find anything to love about myself.
Eventually I was able to identify a few items - I have a set of freckles on my leg that looks like a happy face; I always have a flower painted on my big-toenails; and I have three freckles on my foot that make a straight line. Each night I came up with three new things - sometimes it was that I loved a dish I cooked, other times it was that I loved knowing how to knit. But each time I failed to understand what the point of this exercise was.
Every time I asked that sponsor why we were bothering with this (get on with the wand waving, already!) she told me we were working on my first step. She asked me to identify trigger foods, so I started cutting out things like soda and coffee. Eventually my "abstinence" was to not eat French fries, doughnuts, or drink coffee and soda. Yet I still binged on sweets and snack foods to my heart's content. So after three months I decided I was wasting my time and left program.
When I came back I decided I could do it on my own. For the first two months back in the rooms I was back to my original "abstinence" - still binging away - and I decided that I could identify my own trigger foods. Since my first sponsor didn't "do anything" for me, I'd sponsor myself!
But through this all, I was just as clueless as that woman was. I wanted the results without the work. I didn't want to surrender to another person. I didn't want to work the steps. I didn't want to change my life. I just wanted the magical fix.
But there is no magical fix. There is a miraculous one - but that requires work to attain.
It wasn't until after I'd gotten another sponsor, surrendered, and gone through my first step that I learned what my first sponsor was doing: she was trying to show me that my life was unmanageable. She was waiting for me to notice just how hard it was for me to find things I loved about myself, and she was waiting for the light bulb to click that maybe, just maybe, whatever it was I was doing to run my life wasn't working. But because I never left the disease, I never was able to see what she was trying to show me.
Today's reading was a good reminder of just how much I struggled as a newcomer, and just how much I need to show compassion to those still suffering from compulsive overeating.
