"In all probability, we shall never be able to touch more than a fair fraction of the [compulsive overeating] problem in all its ramifications." - Alcoholics Anonymous, page xxi (last paragraph of the forward to the second edition).

Although originally written about alcoholics, this statement is so much truer for compulsive overeaters.  I look at the people around me and I see so many who belong in program.  I've heard it said that everyone belongs in at least one program - the question is finding their drug of choice.  It takes only five minutes on any webpage to see the obsession people have with dieting and their weight.  So much money and energy goes into eating disorders and their ramifications.  There is so much suffering. 

When I think about how many cities have next to no OA presence, I am horrified.  The other week my usually packed Thursday night meeting was next to deserted.  One person shared that she was horrified to see that there were so many empty seats.  Just a casual stroll through a store suggests that there should be people pounding down the doors to get recovery.  Yet this program is only touching a small fraction of us.

I can only stop and pause and be insanely grateful that I was chosen to be in these rooms.  Really, I can only see the hand of God in moving me into OA.  I never would have found my way here on my own.  It took quite a few nudges to get me into the room and quite a few more nudges to get me to stay.  The life that recovery has given me is so much richer than I ever imagined it could be.  My feelings are deeper, my connection with my son is deeper, and my awareness of how my actions affect others is deeper. 

But for the grace of God, I'd still be quietly eating myself to an early, lonely, unfulfilled death.  When I see an obese person walk down the street I'm filled with a simultaneous sense of sadness (I once was told that every pound of fat is really a pound of pain) and relief that I get to be one of those people that doesn't have to let the pain rule my life and determine my future.

The Disease of More

"'When you eat one, you want more,
then two, then three, then pretty soon four.'" - A New Beginning, page 4

I heard at meeting once that we are suffering from a disease of more.  We want more food, more happiness, more attention, more perfection, more love, more respect, more more more.  But one thing I desperately wanted more of was peace and serenity, and I knew that there was no way for me to reconcile that desire with the desire for more food.  So the food had to go.  But that was easier said than done!

One of the biggest impediments to my abstinence, however, was always the fact that I could see others eat sugar and fast food and pizza and all those other things I loved with impunity.  But Dr. Bob worded it best: "I used to get terribly upset when I saw my friends [eat junk food] and knew I could not, but I schooled myself to believe that though I once had the same privilege, I had abused it so frightfully that it was withdrawn.  So it doesn't behoove me to squawk about it for, after all, nobody ever had to throw me down and pour [sugar] down my throat." - The Big Book, page 181 (Dr. Bob's Nightmare)

We Have Recovered

Working with my sponsor, I have made the first run through Section I of the Big Book and I'm now making my second round.  At first I believed it would be a futile exercise - I read it carefully the first time through. . . what did she think I was missing?!?  But I didn't argue - mine is not to wonder why, mine is but to do or die. [Literally.]

I went through the preface, nodding with my great wisdom born of a whopping 38 days of abstinence!  Then I got to the first sentence of the Foreword to the First Edition and it stopped me cold.

"We of [Overeater's] Anonymous . . . have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body."  I am not recovered yet.  I am far from recovered.  But when I first read that sentence I glossed over it.  It meant nothing to me - I wanted to get to the meat.  I wanted the answers.  But I missed the first and most important answer of all: this malady is only seemingly hopeless. 

I had envisioned a pitched battle with this disease that would go on the rest of my life, with abstinence held together only by duct tape and a bent paper clip MacGyver style.  I never imagined that in less than a month the miracle would happen.  I honestly didn't understand what "the miracle" meant.  In my mind I thought it was just the weight loss.  It never occurred to me that something actually miraculous would occur!

The miracle is clarity of mind.  The insanity that rages constantly in my mind tuned down the volume from a 10 to a 1.  It is still there, and Marion - my disease - is constantly lurking and waiting for the opportunity to jump back into dominance.  But for now, she is silent. 

I was right in a sense - there is a pitched battle going on for my life, and Marion wants to kill me.  But this is only a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.  If I follow directions, work the steps, and keep coming back she is going to be held at bay.  And there is absolutely a pitched battle going on, but it isn't being held together by duct tape and a bent paper clip.  It is being silently waged in the background, and as long as I make sure my Higher Power's voice and my sponsor's voice are coming through loud and clear it's going to stay that way.

That is the miracle.  Thank God.

Chapter 1 - Bill's Story - page 1

"Here was love, applause,war; moments sublime with intervals hilarious.  I was part of life at last, and in the midst of the excitement I discovered [food]." - page 1

Growing up I remember my mother's valiant efforts to teach me reasonable eating habits.  Considering that she had her own issues with food, this was more a situation of the blind leading the blind.  Not that she is a compulsive overeater by any means, but she has had a conflicted relationship with food as long as I can remember.  Food was her great love and her great enemy, as she often showed with her almost religious dedication to exercise and dieting.  There wasn't a fad diet or crazy medicine she hadn't tried to help her fight what she saw as her own personal battle of the bulge.  That she never got beyond what someone might call a "normal" weight never mattered.  It was the fear of obesity that rode her back like a pitchforked demon.

So it was with a sense of wonder and awe that I discovered my first weeks in college that there was no one watching me.  No one cared what I ate or didn't eat.  I could binge on Fruit Loops for dinner and no one would even blink!  I had a cafeteria with a wealth of junk food round the clock to cater to my whims and fancies.  I was an adult with my own choices and mistakes to be made, and I discovered food in all its glutenous glory.  I slept at insane hours, shirked my classes as it pleased me, ate what I pleased, spent time with whomever I pleased - I was free at last.

That first semester I gained my freshman fifteen and then some.  I was out the gates and heading headlong into disaster with a smile on my face.

"I was very lonely and again turned to [food]." - page 1

All my life I have had a feeling that there is some part of me that's missing.  It's this gaping hole inside that I have tried to fill with success, love, excitement, sex, food, and even pain during my stint as a cutter. 

I can't say I've gone more than a week without some love interest or another since I was fourteen years old.  In those times when I didn't have some romance to moon over I was despondent.  I would starve myself, vomit up whatever I ate, and exercise like a fiend until I finally attracted a new boyfriend.  And then I would wait until the new rush passed before finding someone new, wait until the new relationship was a guarantee, and then leap between boyfriends.  I stayed with men I was no longer interested in so I would have someone there until I found the replacement because the thought of being alone was too terrible.

When I had my son, I felt like that missing piece had been filled and said "ah ha! This is at last the source of my problem!  I was missing my baby and never even knew it!" With that I promptly quit OA and went on to live my life as a normal person. But nine months later I was back in the program again.  My son does fill my life in ways that I never dreamed possible, but the fact remained that when he was in bed that gaping chasm would open up once more to swallow me whole.  Then I would turn to food once more to help comfort me.

But during those times when I didn't have someone to distract me from the loneliness I would eat and eat and eat.  I would go to multiple drive-thrus, ordering huge quantities of food until I had enough to feed a reasonable person for days.  I would even order extra drinks so that people at the restaurants would think I was ordering for multiple people.  But something tells me that a nearly 300 pound woman ordering multiple burgers, fries, onion rings, and deserts plus a few drinks wasn't going to fool them - especially if they happened to see the three other bags of fast food sitting on my other side.

So I picked food to be my solace all the while hiding away in my lonely little apartment so no one could see me eat away my loneliness.  The bigger I got, the more I turned to food - relationship or no relationship - to ease the emptiness inside.  Even after having had a gastric bypass I'd order food like before and then eat it slowly until all of it was inside my stomach.  I was never able to gain back all my weight, but it wasn't from lack of trying.  I would eat to the point of vomiting, clear my stomach, and then eat again in an unending cycle of binge and loathing. 

I would hate myself before I even started the binge, dread the feelings of misery that would result as I took each bite, but was completely powerless to stop myself. So even as I ordered the food I felt that sense of dread and self-hate, and wished I could just stop those words from coming out of my mouth.   But it was like I was a horrified passenger, along for the ride in my own personal never-ending nightmare.

"I fancied myself a leader . . . . My talent for leadership, I imagined, would place me at the head of vast enterprises which I would manage with the utmost assurance." - page 1

Feeling ugly as a child, I had to find another avenue for self-worth.  To that end, I focused on education as my key to making my family proud of me.  I was blessed that in high school and even in my undergraduate years I was able to excel in honors courses with little hard work.  It was the best of all worlds, bringing me accolades with little real effort.  By the time I decided to go to law school, I saw no reason why this should change. 

Of course I was wrong.  The thing about being at the top of your high school class is that you are the best in your little pond.  There has been no sorting of the students to give you real competition outside of your honors and advanced placement courses.  Then you arrive at college where in theory you are with the top students from high schools around the country.  But then you finish undergraduate studies at the top of your class and believe yourself to be one of the best and the brightest.  And you are.  You are selected for a top law program in the nation and you go there expecting to glide through that program as effortlessly as before.  Except there's one hitch.  You're now among the best of the best in the universities. 

This is a rarefied group where you are no longer a unique snowflake - you are just like everyone else.  And then the real sorting comes down to who is willing to work the hardest, because everyone is of about equal intelligence.  Those who are willing to make the most sacrifices are the ones who will win out in the grade pool.

So it was that after my first semester in law school I discovered that I was in the middle of the pack and in dire need of a place for my first summer internship.  These are already difficult positions to come by - all firms expect you to find something, but no one wants to hire you!  And I then realized that I was no longer a special snowflake, and my intelligence alone was not going to get me to the top of anything.  Unused to having to work hard, I floundered and I began to drown.

My ego took a deathly blow, and with it so too did my waistband.  While I had gained ten pounds from stress that first semester, in the next two years I would go on to gain another sixty pounds.  I went to grad school wearing a size fourteen and left wearing a size 24. 

The bigger I got, the worse my job prospects, and the worse my job prospects the bigger I got.  I tried crazy diets, all liquid diets, medically supervised diets, you name it. Nothing seemed to work!  I dieted and exercised like a fiend, and I don't really recall actually breaking the diets.  I could have sworn that I was giving it my all - exercising what I thought was herculean willpower.  But nothing helped.

I can still remember the day I went to the doctor at age 24 and heard that I would be dead by age 30 unless I got bariatric surgery.  I was reactive hypoglycemic and had what they called Metabolic Syndrome X.  Even if I was able to control my eating, my body was so broken, they said, that I was going to be unable to sustain meaningful weight loss without surgical intervention.  So it was with great remorse that I researched and ultimately had a rou-en y gastric bypass.

Preface - xxx-xxxii

The Doctor's Opinion

"These men were not [eating] to escape; they were [eating] to overcome a craving beyond their mental control." - pg. xxx

A lot of people associate binge eating with emotional comforting.  But I found, especially when the cravings were hitting me bad, that it didn't seem to be any particularly emotional or stressful time that was causing me to eat.  This was not the "I just got dumped" ice cream binge.  I tried to find justifications for the eating - I worked hard today so this is my reward, or I didn't get a lot of sleep so I'm eating to make up for being so tired, or I'm eating because I'm bored.  But the reality often was that I was eating because I constantly was thinking about food.  It had nothing to do with what was going on around me, but everything to do with the fact that I woke up thinking about food and spent the whole day fantasizing about what I was going to eat.  Then when it came time to eat I couldn't pick what I was going to eat so I ate it all.  Sometimes I ate to spite my parents, or to reward myself.  Often I ate even when I didn't want to because I just couldn't seem to stop myself!

"There is the type of man who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink.  He plans various ways of drinking.  He changes his brand or his environment." - pg. xxx

I think for a while this was me.  I used to say I didn't have an eating problem - I just needed to try a different diet.  Once I got on the right diet I would stick to it and I would lose the weight and there wouldn't be a problem because if I gained a few pounds I'd just hop right back on.  But that's just not the case.

"There is the type who always believes that after being entirely free from [compulsive eating] for a period of time he can take a [bite] without danger." - pg. xxx

This was me after my first stint with OA.  I remember that after having had my son, I thought I was fine. I was losing weight while nursing and instead of thinking about food all day I was thinking about my baby and about how badly I wanted to sleep.  I thought I was cured!  Whatever chemical defect caused the binging was clearly fixed now that my body had "reset itself" with the pregnancy and I could live the life of a normal person again.  Yeah right. 

"Then there are types entirely normal in every respect except in the effect [food] has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people." - pg. xxx

This is probably me now.  I understand I have a problem.  I understand that I need to stay away from compulsive eating behaviors - I just can't do it alone.

"This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people, and sets them apart as a distinct entity.  It has never been, by any treatment with which we are familiar, permanently eradicated.  The only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence." - pg. xxx

This is the cruel joke of food addictions.  You can live without alcohol.  You can live without nicotine.  You can live without heroine or cocaine or meth.  But you can't live without food.  I once thought I would be fine if they could just feed me through an IV. That would be perfect, or so I thought.  I'd never have to worry about what I ate and I would always get the exact nutrition I needed.  Except that isn't going to work.  Abstinence in OA terms is such a varying concept from person to person.  I heard a speaker say that their abstinence is reporting their food truthfully in an email to their sponsor.  Another person has a list of items he cannot eat.  My abstinence now involves eating a specific meal plan every single day.  There is no one "entire abstinence" that we can sign on for and be fixed.  All we can do is try our best to pick our sponsor and pick our abstinence and hope it makes a difference for us.

"He had lost everything worthwhile in life and was only living, one might say, to [eat]." - pg. xxxi

I found that when I was heaviest into the food I would isolate myself from the world.  I wouldn't talk to people, I wouldn't accept invites to events.  I would get food and sit in my room eating all day long.  I'd play video games or read books and try to shut out the world.  I wouldn't get dressed most days, and often would not even shower because then I'd have to see myself out of my baggy sleep shirt.  If I didn't see myself getting fatter, then there wasn't a problem.  I was an ostrich with my head in the sand, and my day involved eating and those things I had to do between meals.

"From a trembling, despairing, nervous wreck, had emerged a man brimming over with self-reliance and contentment." - pg. xxxi

This is the hope.  I am still that trembling, despairing, nervous wreck.  I am so anxious about my body and my weight and my food and my abstinence that I am a complete mess.  I want to be that self-reliant and content person.  I keep hoping and hoping that I will get there.

Preface xxix

The Doctor's Opinion

"After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again.  This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery."  - xxix

I think every compulsive overeater [really, every addict] knows this story far to intimately for comfort.  It is almost painful to read and remember the gut wrenching despair and shame after the binge.  And the worst part is the knowledge, the certainty, that in spite of the most fervently meant resolutions lurks the knowledge that I can't win.  I know one day, far sooner than I could ever anticipate, the process will start over again. 

When I have candy in the house, or when there is food in front of me, I desperately begin the binge.  It becomes a certainty that I will enter the spree, so I seek to eat all the food so I won't be tempted to eat the food.  It is insanity, and it is backwards logic, but I can never seem to help myself.  I struggle and struggle but once that food is in the house it torments me.  All I can think about is the food, whatever it is. . . Halloween candy, cookies, bagels, muffins, chips, even rice cakes - I can't sleep because I am thinking about them.  I worry about them all night because I'm afraid I'm going to binge on them.  Hence - I eat them to relieve myself of the torment.  It is torture, but I can't help myself.  And I live with others, so I can't keep the foods out of my home.  And I can't always resist the urge to purchase additional things at the store.

". . . once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for [food], the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules." - xxix

This seems like a dream to me.  It is such a foreign concept that I almost am too afraid to believe it is real because I am too afraid to get my hopes up.  But I pray for this every single night, and at every single meeting.

"Although he gives all that is in him, it often is not enough.  One feels that something more than human power is needed to produce the essential psychic change."  - xxix

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.  I am a professional woman.  I am a mother and a wife.  I have a family I care for and a job and home I manage and care for.  I have overcome adversity, and I am diligent and tenacious.  No matter how many times life knocks me down or how many obstacles are thrown in my way, I keep getting up and marching on.

But in spite of every ounce of struggle and fight and determination I have in me, I can't beat this.  I need something more.  I  can't say I am comfortable with a higher power yet.  I have an often conflicted relationship with God.  But right now I'm content for the OA group to be my higher power.  They are the ones I am responsible to.  And my sponsor is the one who I listen to for permission and instructions.  I am giving her the power, because I clearly can't manage my life in this regard in spite of all my best efforts.  I will need to develop a better relationship with my higher power over time, but for now, this will have to be enough.

Preface xxviii

The Doctor's Opinion

"We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of [food] on these [compulsive overeaters] is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker."  - xxviii

There hasn't been any indication of an "allergy" response, but as I mentioned previously there is a definite difference between compulsive overeaters and the normal population in terms of brain response to food.  I mentioned to my sponsor tonight that this mechanism is why I always had a hard time relating to other people who tried to help me.  It just seemed like the dieticians, nutritionists, doctors, trainers, food counselors at diet locations, family and friends - everyone tried telling me about some magic trick that would help me overcome this problem.  They all made it sound like it was sooo easy to just follow a diet and lose the weight.  Whenever I try to talk to my mom about it she talks about her own struggles with food - but even then it isn't the same.  She says how it is hard to say no to sweets, but she doesn't have the same cravings.  And if she does have them, clearly the fact that she can say no indicates it isn't as bad as what I experience.

I was on vacation last week.  My husband and I passed a Coldstone and I thought "wow, that sounds amazing" and then we went in to buy the ice cream.  As we waited, I thought "you know, I really don't want this - it's just going to give me a stomach ache."  But I bought the ice cream anyway.  Then I ate the ice cream and every bite I thought "I really don't want this" - but I couldn't put the ice cream down.  I felt powerless to stop myself from going through the motion of eating that desert.  And it was stupid, but I really felt unable to stop.  It was a compulsion to keep going.  And it wasn't that I didn't want to waste the ice cream, either. 

How can someone who doesn't have that type of response understand what I go through on a day to day basis with food?

"These allergic types can never safely [eat] in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve."  - xxviii

The alcoholic can simply stop eating, but the food addict doesn't have that luxury. So we enter the danger zone every time we hit a meal time.  I hear all the time in meetings about how things get tough when people are "in the food" - how the world goes crazy.  I can't say it goes crazy per se, but I do know that I feel absolute desperation when that point hits me.  It is this sense of defeat that is absolutely awful.  And the lack of self-confidence is a very true point.  It always seems when my eating and weight are out of control - and I have tried to control it and tried and tried - I feel like I doubt myself in everything and everywhere.  And suddenly I am just crippled by the hopelessness.

"Frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices.  The message which can interest and hold these [compulsive overeaters] must have depth and weight." - xxviii

My dad loves to tell me how I need to lose weight because he doesn't want to have to raise my son for me.  I know I need to get my eating under control.  I know this disease can be deadly.  I don't want to die.  I don't want to miss out on my son's life.  But that doesn't mean that this is going to help me.  If it was a simple matter of willpower, I'd have kicked this thing years ago.  It isn't.  But all of these reasons are what has gotten me through the door at OA, and they are the reason I will go to any lengths for recovery.

"Men and women [overeat] essentially because they like the effect produced by [food].  The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false.  To them, their [compulsive overeating] life seems the only normal one." - xxviii

I honestly don't know how other people can eat "normally." I don't think I eat more than other people.  It doesn't seem like I am doing anything that other people aren't doing.  But somehow I'm still obese.  I still eat things I shouldn't.  And I lie to myself about what I'm eating and how much I'm eating.  The process of stuffing myself becomes so unbelievably automatic.  Now that I'm on a food plan I look at what it entails and I'm amazed becuase I'm still hungry.  The portions are resasonable, they seem normal, and even though I would think this would be more than enough food - it isn't.  And I'm hungry.  Which tells me I was eating more than this amount every day.  That just makes it all the harder to  know what I'm doing right and wrong.  The worst part is - I have believed for years that dieting doesn't make a difference to my weight at a certain point - it seems like my body clings to the weight.  Is this true or is my ability to understand normal portions so skewed that I can't see that I am overeating instead of following a sensible diet.

"They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by [eating a few bites] - [bites] which they see others taking with impunity."  - xxviii-xxix

It is awful to wake up thinking of food.  Eat, thinking about the next meal before the current one is even finished.  Think about how long until you can eat again without it being odd or bizarre.  Grocery shopping is just torture, because you want to buy one of everything and eat it all.  And the worst part is you see all these normal sized people eating junk food - cake and ice cream and pizza and fast food.  How can they do it but I can't?  It's maddening.

Preface - xxvii

The Doctor's Opinion

"We doctors have realized for a long time that some form of moral psychology was of urgent importance to [compulsive overeaters], but its application presented difficulties beyond our conception.  What with our ultra-modern standards, our scientific approach to everything, we are perhaps not well equipped to apply the powers of good that lie outside our synthetic knowledge." - xxvii

Had you asked me ten years ago if there were problems of health that medical science could not resolve, I would have said "no."  Even psychological problems could be solved through medication - or so I thought.  And I considered psychiatric treatment to be within the scope of medical science.  I figured that if there was something medical science couldn't cure today, that we would eventually find a way to cure it in the future.  And it is true there is a possibility that food addiction will be curable later on.  They are already making vaccines against nicotine and methamphetamine, maybe they will create a vaccine against whatever goes on with our brains as well.  But right now, this problem is not something that medicine can address - not that they haven't tried.

I remember the first thing my doctor did was try increasing my thyroid levels up slightly above the normal range.  When that didn't work, they tried giving me tablets that would curb my appetite.  Eventually when that didn't work, they gave me tablets that would bind to fat molecules and help me not absorb everything I was eating.  When that made me sick, they sent me to a nutritionist who gave me an insanely detailed diet involving weighing and measuring every bite of food - when that didn't work for the high school student I was at the time, they then tried signing me up for a personal trainer and exercise program.  Again that didn't work.  I have tried everything from a measured carbohydrate diet, to a no carbohydrate diet, to a low fat diet, to Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers, and even a liquid diet.  When nothing could help and I just got worse and worse, the doctor told me that I needed bariatric surgery.  I was reactive hypoglycemic and developing insulin resistance.  I was told that if I didn't get that surgery I'd be dead by thirty.  So I got the surgery and it didn't help.  Well, it didn't help much.  I was able to keep off a whopping thirty pounds.  That's it.  Of the over 100 pounds I needed to lose I was able to keep off thirty.

But I find the phrasing to be the most interesting part of this quote:  "moral psychology" and "synthetic knowledge."  Saying that the psychology involved in finding abstinence is "moral" in nature bothers me.  It suggests that there is something amoral about people who have addiction problems, and that just isn't the case.  We may have moral issues, but not by virtue of having an addiction!  Again it goes back to the nature of the malady being both physical and spiritual in nature.  If it were a purely physical or purely psychological or even purely spiritual problem, a solution would be far easier to find.  Referring to the medical science as "synthetic knowledge" is also fascinating. 

The practice of medicine is called a practice because it is more of an art than a science.  We test our medicines on people in a vacuum.  At least, as much of one as we can create.  There are always those people who are more sensitive or less sensitive than others.  And while there is a range of "normal" for locations of anatomy, not everyones heart is in the precise same location as everyone elses heart.  Sure the general location is correct, but it is the details that differ.  So anything we say we "know" about the body really is this artificial notion based on statistics and averages, as opposed to specifics.  The phrase "synthetic knowledge" seems to address both the imperfections of our medical knowledge - and imperfections of our ability to actually apply that knowledge to individual cases - and the fact that most of our remedies involve putting a foreign substance into our bodies.

"Of course [a compulsive overeater] ought to be freed from his physical craving for [food], and this often requires a definite hospital procedure, before psychological measures can be of maximum benefit." - xxvii - xxviii

Again it is the notion of mixing medicine and spiritual healing.  But I read this and wondered what exactly this would involve for a compulsive overeater.  There are bariatric surgeries, but that isn't exactly necessary.  Would this "definite hospital procedure" be the equivalent of our food plans?  Or are they referring more to the detoxification portion of weaning an alcoholic off of alcohol.  Considering that this was written in the 1930s, I'd be curious to learn what kind of hospital treatment that alcoholics received.

------------------

Normally I should do five pages, but there is so much that called to me that I'd be up all night if I tried, so I'll return tomorrow for more!

Preface - xxii to xxvi

Foreword to Third Edition

"Seven percent of the A.A.'s surveyed are less than 30 years of age - among them, many in their teens."  - xxii

The fact that there were people back in the fledgling years of AA who were this young just confirms for me that there is a genetic component to addiction.  My great grandfather was a terrible alcoholic.  It was eventually what killed him - which isn't surprising since having lost a leg while being hit by a train [while drunk] didn't stop him from drinking.  Addiction is hard-wired into my DNA.  And it isn't just food.  I can be compulsive about anything - arts and crafts, video games, books, etc.  It always seems to be that I get started doing something, and then I feel compulsively driven to keep doing that one thing.  So everything is feast or famine with me.  If I am in the mood to watch TV, I want to watch TV every night and every free minute of the day.  But as soon as I want to read instead of watch TV, I suddenly am obsessed with reading every night and every free minute of the day.  There is no middle ground - and it seems to be the same way with food.  I either am binge eating or I am fasting/purging.  I always tend to swing to the extremes.

". . . recovery begins when one [compulsive overeater] talks with another [compulsive overeater], sharing experience, strength, and hope."  - xxii

It was the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that brought me back to OA.  What has been so bizarre this time around is that when  my world feels overwhelming and I think I don't have the strength to make it another day, I go to a meeting and I feel like things will be okay.  And it isn't just about abstinence, it's about my job and my marriage and my child - all the little stresses that build up until I think that I am going to break are gone as soon as I walk in that door.  It is like I can finally breathe again.  And the rest of the day or night (depending on the time of the meeting) I feel like I have the strength to keep going.

Foreword to Fourth Edition

"When the phrase 'We are people who normally would not mix' . . . was written in 1939, it referred to a Fellowship composed largely of men (and a few women) with quite similar social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds.  Like so much of A.A.'s basic text, those words have proved to be far more visionary than the founding members could ever have imagined." - xxiii

The most bizarre aspect of OA meetings is the kinship I feel with people I never would have encountered in my daily life otherwise.  I listen to speakers who are from completely different social, ethnic and economic backgrounds to me and I hear my own story.  It's like meeting a family I never knew existed but who are so like me it is almost frightening.  And I do feel a kinship with the people I talk to at the meetings.  We're in this together, and there is a camaraderie, because I need them to recover and they need me to recover.  At my first meeting, I had the distinct sensation that I was coming home.

". . . [OA]'s speak the language of the heart in all its power and simplicity." - xxiv

I love that I can be honest about my life when I am sharing at an OA meeting.  There is something amazing about the anonymity that allows me to open up my deepest and darkest secrets.  This is the place where it is appropriate to strip down the ego and the image and all the bullshit we put out to hide our disease.  We can bear all and know that we are safe to do so.  Not only do people understand the lows, they've been there themselves.  There's a great quote I heard that goes something like this:  "Of course we feel inadequate - we're comparing our everyday lives to other people's highlight reels."  At the meetings we get to share the worst moments of our lives and discover that we're not alone.  It is that honesty and that understanding that I think of when I read this passage.

The Doctor's Opinion

". . . suffered [compulsive overeater] torture. . ." - xxvi

God, how true this is.  There is that moment when I've finished the box of Oreos or that carton of ice cream that I hate myself.  Or sometimes even while I still am eating, because I look in that container and see that I have two more cookies, and it is with bone deep and gut wrenching despair that I pick up those two cookies and eat them.  Because they're there.  Because then the box will be empty and it won't be there to torment me any more. 

And I hate myself every last second that the bite is going into my mouth, and every last second I chew that bite, all the way until I finish that box.  And I despise myself for the weakness that led me to eat the box in the first place.  I promise not to ever buy another box of cookies again.  I swear that I have learned my lesson and I never ever want to feel horrible like that again.  But somehow when I am at the store it seems like my arms and hands have a will entirely of their own as I put another box in my cart.  And I hate myself for putting that box in my cart.  And I hate myself for putting that box on the conveyor belt to be purchased. And the cycle begins again.

Not to mention the deep shame of it all. Sometimes I try to pretend I am having friends over - I make up a story about going to a party or having people over to watch the game.  And when I go to drive-thru windows and am ordering enough food to feed an army I purchase multiple drinks just so the person at the window won't know that it is all for me.  Yet there is still that pinpoint of terror inside when the cashier looks at me that they know.  They are looking at my fat ass and they know that I just paid another five dollars for two extra drinks to try and pretend that all that food isn't going into my own stomach.

Torture is the best possible word for this disease.

". . . the body of the [compulsive overeater] is quite as abnormal as his mind. . . It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our [eating] just because we were maladjusted to life, that we were in full flight from reality, or were outright mental defectives.  These things were true to some extent, in fact, to a considerable extent with some of us.  But we are sure that our bodies were sickened as well.  In our belief, any picture of the [compulsive overeater] which leaves out this physical factor is incomplete." - xxvi

This is the flip side to the discussion that was previously in the preface talking about how this is not just a physical problem but a spiritual malady.  It also ties in to the findings that addiction is something a person can be genetically predispositioned to.  At least one study shows that sugar can be as addictive as cocaine or heroin, including withdrawal symptoms if it is eliminated from the diet.

Preface - xvi to xxi

Foreword to Second Edition

This section discusses the beginnings of AA and the discoveries made b the physician and broker who started the group.

". . . the necessity of belief in and dependence upon God." - xvi

I was once told that your higher power can be anything or any one, so long as it is something you are willing to put your faith in and surrender the power to.  I'm not an atheist or even an agnostic, but I have a hard time believing that God will be the one to take away this insanity. At this stage my higher power is my sponsor.   I can't manage my own food and I can't manage my own recovery.  I'm just not equipped with the necessary tools to do this. 

The thing is, I have prayed to God for help.  I have prayed for many things, but it just never seems like He answers.  Or if He is answering, it isn't in any way that I'm going to be able to hear.  So if He's going to be inclined to answer now, He's going to have to do it through the voice of my sponsor.

And it isn't that I don't think He listens to prayers.  For instance, I really attribute it to His grace that I found OA in the first place.  But I can't sit and wait for something to happen.  There's a great joke about a man who goes to a statue of St. Peter and prays every day to win the lottery.  One day his forlorn tear strikes the foot of the statue and St. Peter comes to life and says to the man "for the love of God, buy a lottery ticket!"

". . . the theory that only [a compulsive overeater] could help [a compulsive overeater], but he succeeded only in keeping [abstinent] himself." - xvi

I always could remember getting angry at skinny people or people who were in great shape when they would talk to me about their "weight struggles".  My mother is a prime example.  She goes on about how she battles with food, and how it is so difficult for her to give up breads and all the other things she'll do depending on which fad diet she is following at a given time.  I get that she is tempted and she really wants to eat the bread or whatever it is she gave up. 

And I understand the determination it takes for those people who are in great shape to keep getting out of bed in the morning to exercise.  But most of those people never got out of bed carrying another person in weight and went for that run.  They get the satisfaction of feeling good after exercising and looking in the mirror and feeling accomplishment.  All I get is the feeling that I'm going to die and a view of the same old fat ass I always see.

It is like someone who once sprained an ankle trying to tell a paraplegic that they "totally understand."  My need to diet isn't about those extra four pounds I gained on vacation.  I need to lose, conservatively speaking, at least fifty pounds.  I probably should lose more like eighty or ninety pounds.

But my mentor's mentor lost over three hundred pounds - if there's someone who understands what it is to face a mountain, he's it.  The people at OA who are working the steps and fighting these demons - they understand.  They have a frame of reference for what I'm talking about and what I'm going through.  And they've managed to pull through to the other side.  And once I get to the other side, it's my turn to pull others across, because that's the only way to stay where I need to be.  To remember the struggle and the suffering.  Because if I let myself forget, like I did when I had my baby, then I'm going to be right back in hell again.

". . . in order to save himself he must carry his message to another [compulsive overeater]." - xvi

See above.

". . . began to pursue the spiritual remedy for his malady with a willingness he had never before been able to muster." - xvi

It's amazing the power of hope.  At the end of the day, I am the one who is picking up the food and putting it into my mouth.  But if I leave control of the food choices to my sponsor, I can succeed where previously I failed.  And that's a powerful motivator.

But I love the description of this as the pursuit of a spiritual remedy for the malady.  It is such a beautiful way to describe this problem.  Whenever my mom gets on me about my weight and asks how much I've lost, I always tell her: "I don't weigh in."  She gets upset, but I shake my head and tell her, "the weight is a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself."  That is what I learned in my first go at OA.  This disease is both spiritual and physical, and all the doctors in the world are going to be helpless to cure it without that spiritual remedy.

I am seeking a spiritual remedy for my malady.

"This seemed to prove that one [compulsive overeater] could affect another as no non[compulsive overeater] could." - xvi-xvii

See above.

"There were many failures, but there was an occasional heartening success." - xvii

The rest of this section goes on to talk about the spread of AA and the fact that people kept coming back.  Those who really tried either succeed immediately, eventually succeeded, or just simply got better.  And many who left at first eventually came back. 

This just resonated with me because I see and hear so much how people keep coming back to OA after they leave.  If people keep returning to this program for the answer, it obviously is waiting there.  And there eventually will be that one meeting that clicks.  So even if there are going to be failures on my road, I can still look forward to an occasional heartening success.

Preface - xi to xv

Preface pages xi to xv:

The first two pages describe the changes which have been made in the different editions of the big book.

Foreword to First Edition

"Many do not comprehend that the [compulsive overeater] is a very sick person." - xiii

I first went to Overeater's Anonymous because a family friend acknowledged that she had a problem and needed help, but was too afraid to go by herself.  I didn't believe that I had a problem.  In fact, I thought that my attendance at that meeting was going to be a huge waste of my time.  I patiently met the new member greeter, sat through the first part of the meeting, and then quietly listened as the speaker blew me away.

She was a woman in her fifties who sat there and told my story.  It was bizarre hearing about my compulsive and interfering mother, my closet eating, my feelings of shame and guilt and worthlessness, my focus on education to make up for my failure at maintaining a normal weight.  This woman could have spent the last twenty-seven years of her life watching through my windows. 

And then it hit me with a sickening thud.  These were my people.  I didn't want them to be my people.  I didn't want to have a problem.  But I walked up to that woman and asked her to be my sponsor that day and left that meeting with the understanding that I belonged in overeaters anonymous.  I started an abstinence program the next day and stayed abstinent until I got pregnant.

I had a difficult pregnancy and although soda was on my abstinence, it was the only fluid that would stay in my stomach.  I was too sick to drive, and spent most of the pregnancy on bed rest.  So I just didn't worry about anything but getting that baby delivered safely at full term.

When my son was born, I felt like that missing piece of my soul was found.  It felt like that gaping hole I kept trying to fill with food was suddenly filled with love for my son.  So I threw out thoughts of overeaters anonymous and threw out my sponsor's number because I was "cured".  I wouldn't need food because I had my son.

But it doesn't work like that.  I wasn't cured.  I wasn't fine. Whenever I held my son I felt that overflowing love - but eventually my son didn't want to be cuddled all day long.  He wanted to crawl and explore the world.  He loves me, and I'm his favorite person, but he wants to become his own person now.  And magically that gaping hole is no longer full all the time.  So I started to fill it up with food once more.  While nursing I'd lost my entire pregnancy weight and then an additional twenty pounds.  Now I've gained back those twenty pounds and added another twenty for good measure.  I'm not back to my pregnancy weight, but without help I'll be back there soon.

So I know now that this is a disease.  I can't just will it to be cured.  It isn't going to just magically go away, no matter how much I may want it to.  I belong here, like it or not.

I've talked to my mother and my best friend about my participation in OA.  They both are supportive of me working to lose weight, but they just don't seem to understand that this is a disease.  My mother goes on to talk about her own issues with food - and believe me, she has them.  But my mother is able to maintain a healthy weight.  She does "yo-yo" diet, but her swing is in the five to ten pound range.  As far as I know, she does not binge, she does not purge, all she does is eat like a normal person and cut back when she no longer is at a normal weight.  I don't think she understands that I just can't do that.  Believe me, she's baffled at the fact that I've never managed to get my weight off, and never managed to keep off whatever weight I have lost.  She always says "when you want it bad enough, you'll find the will."  And that's exactly the problem.  I am powerless over this disease.

My best friend takes this as a suggestion that she'll go on a diet with me.  This is just a diet club to her, not an actual illness.  She doesn't want to accept the notion that there is anything wrong with me other than a lack of determination to lose weight.  I think this may be because she also has difficulty losing weight.  I suspect she may also be a compulsive overeater.  So perhaps she fights against accepting that I am sick because she doesn't want to believe that she is sick as well.

When I first started with OA, my husband was skeptical but wanted to "humor me".  Now that he's lived with me off the program, he's a believer.  He's watched me suffer and he understands.  He's found enough of my random stashes of hidden foods to understand that something is very wrong!

"Being mostly business or professional folk. . ." - xiii

I have a close friend who has always had a weight problem.  She's blamed genetics, she's blamed her parent's divorce during childhood, she's blamed finances and time constraints.  I used to always believe that her weight problem stemmed from her unwillingness to be uncomfortable.  She won't wear under wire bras because they hurt.  She changed to an easier major because the other was too hard - she had the mental capacity to succeed, but it just was more work than she was willing to put in.  And I saw her weight problem as an extension of this aversion to discomfort.

But I am as heavy as she is.  I don't have an aversion to discomfort.  I went through eight years of college, and received my law degree from a university that prides itself on being one of the toughest schools around.  I work from home, take care of my ten month old son, and manage to have dinner on  the table by the time my husband gets home from work.  Before my pregnancy I walked half-marathons to help raise money for cancer research, and volunteered as a mentor even though I worked insanely long hours during the week.  I am not a lazy person.  (My husband may disagree when it comes time to wash the dishes or take out the trash, however. . .)

I am a compulsive overeater.  And seeing as how I am able to succeed in other areas of my life, it only seems logical that I would be able to apply the same diligence and fortitude that I have in other areas of my life.  Only I can't.  And as the Big Book mentioned, I'm not alone in this.  This disease doesn't care that I'm educated, or a professional, or a mother, or anything about my willingness to volunteer for a cause.  All this disease cares about is getting food from my plate into my stomach.  And when the first Big Book was published, the first members were "mostly business or professional folk" - not lazy people, not weak willed people.  They were people like me.

Foreword to Second Edition

". . .a New York stockbroker and an Akron physician. . ." - xv

Same thoughts as previous statement.