"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.

Do You Know Who You Are?

I watched an episode of Grey's Anatomy that posed three questions.  The patient was a man who had been paralyzed from neck down in an accident.  The doctor was asking if he wished to be taken off of life support as he would never be able to live without machines to breathe for him.  To confirm that he wished to be taken off of the machines he was asked three questions:

Do you know who you are?

Do you know what's happened to you?

Do you want to live this way?

It shocked me just how appropriate these questions were for a compulsive overeater.  Really, for any addict.  Before program the answer to all those questions was a resounding no. 

I didn't know who I was.  Indeed, I spent nearly every waking moment trying to avoid figuring that out.  I ate, I drank, I played excessive video games, I read, I did anything and everything to not think about who I was.  

I didn't know what had happened to me.  I woke up one day and I was 305 pounds.  Sure I saw myself getting larger and larger, but somehow it still snuck up on me.  I kept expecting that tomorrow would be different - tomorrow I'd find the will to change.  Tomorrow I'd eat healthy and exercise.  I'd suddenly know how to act and be like other people.  But tomorrow never came.  So I got a gastric bypass.  I lost the weight but it came right back on.  And again tomorrow never came.

The only thing I knew before program was that I didn't want to live this way.  I couldn't live this way.  I was hopeless.  I was desperate.  I was completely unwilling to surrender my life and will to the care of a power greater than myself.  It took the complete and total annihilation of my willingness to live before I was able to put down the reigns and hand over control. 

That day I waved the white flag and got a sponsor.  That's when the miracle happened.  How different today is.  I went from 305 pounds down to the 169 pounds I weighed today (and I'm still losing).  I went from a size 24 to a size 10.  A size XXXL to a size M.  I went from constantly depressed and angry to a genuinely happy, optimistic person.  My life has never been better.

I now can confidently answer all three of those questions with a yes.  I discovered that the answer was surrender.  Sweet, simple surrender.

Staying On The Train

Yesterday



The Path

That First Step's A Doozie

The speaker at my meeting this evening talked a lot about the steps.  He expressed something that resonated with me: he couldn't start the program until he was willing to take the first step.  Of course, he was referring to the actual First Step: We admitted we were powerless over food - that our lives had become unmanageable. 

While in a step study meeting focused on the Sixth Step (were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character), one speaker stated that we are always ready to have the consequences of our defects removed if not the defect itself.  We cling to our defects like treasured friends.  So too do we cling to the notion that we are not compulsive overeaters.  We may want to have the symptom removed - our excess weight - but we are often not ready to admit that the excess weight was brought on by our powerlessness over food.

I have heard the road to recovery begins when you take that step into the door of your first meeting.  But the fact remains that recovery simply will not happen until you are able to admit that there is something you need to recover from.  As the Big Book says, "Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely." (Page 58)

I walked into my first meeting to be moral support for a friend.  A very clever friend who knew exactly what I was even if I didn't know it myself.  At the end of the meeting, I was able to declare with absolute certainty that I was a compulsive overeater.  I marched up to the speaker and asked her to be my sponsor that very same meeting.

The problem was, I didn't necessarily believe that I was powerless over food, and I most certainly didn't believe that my life was unmanageable!  I had done quite well for myself - or so I believed.  All I needed was someone to help me with a food plan and to give me accountability.  Then I would lose my weight, keep following my food plan, and not need to worry about silly things like meetings.  You see, I had it all figured out.

Every time I asked my sponsor when we would start doing step work, she would tell me that we were: we were working on the first step.  I would protest, "but I already admitted I was a compulsive overeater."  She would just smile and tell me to trust her.  So for months I was performing exercises designed to show me that my life was unmanageable.  I just didn't realize that was what we were doing. 

The exercise that caused me the most pain and suffering was so innocuous that I never suspected what I was in for.  I was told to perform one simple task: write down three things you love about yourself every day.  I rolled my eyes at this task, but when I sat down that first night to write down my three things I was in a quandary.  I couldn't think of a single one!  So I tried to go through my laundry list of achievements.  But no matter what achievement I looked at, I found a way in which it wasn't good enough.  I should have done better.  In the hour I sat there, I turned every last accomplishment I'd ever had into a personal failure, right down to my first place trophy for my seventh grade basketball team's undefeated season.  (Yes, I was digging that deep to find something to be proud of that I could love about myself.)  After running out of accomplishments, I then went to tear down every aspect of my physical appearance, from my wild curly brown hair to my big ugly feet.

That was the moment I made my first outreach call to a woman named Diane.  Looking back I almost feel sorry for that poor woman.  As soon as I verified who I was speaking with I broke down into a loud wailing sob and announced "I don't love anything about myself!"  It is to her credit that she didn't even miss a beat.  I can't remember what she said that day, but it was apparently exactly what I needed to hear.  After getting off the phone I sat down and came up with my three things I loved about myself.  1) My purple sparkly toenails (I usually have my toes painted).  2) The three freckles on my left foot that form a straight line diagonally across my foot.  3)  The way my wrists pop and I can make little popping sound music with them.  The next day, the cluster of freckles on my right leg that look like they could make a smiley face if you connected the dots was at the top of my list.  Of all my accomplishments, these were the things that I could identify as something I loved about myself.

Not once during the time with my first sponsor did I ever reach a point where something about my personality or my accomplishments was found on that list.  Yet still, I didn't see that my life was unmanageable.  I left program ten pounds lighter but no better off emotionally.  I got married.  Had a baby.  Lost the baby weight while nursing.  Then within a matter of months gained almost all of it back.  To put this in perspective, I weighed 230 when I got pregnant. I weighed 290 when I gave birth. I weighed 220 when I stopped nursing 6 months later, and 250 when I went back to OA 3 months later after having been completely incapable of keeping that weight from coming back.

Yet still, I wasn't ready to let go.  I thought to work the program on my own, and for two months I was able to maintain a personal abstinence while not getting any healthier mentally or emotionally and while only losing five pounds.  I realized I had to do something.  So I sought out my current sponsor and asked her to take me on.  As I discussed in my earlier post (here), I allowed myself to go off the deep end. 

I can remember the exact moment that I realized both my powerlessness and the unmanageableness of my life.  My husband and I were in Honolulu.  We had just eaten dinner and were walking back to our hotel.  I was quite full, but we had discussed getting Coldstones on the way back from dinner.  I didn't really want the ice cream, but seeing as how we'd already said we were going to get some I didn't feel up to backing out.  So I walked into the store not wanting the ice cream.  I ordered the ice cream - and not the smallest size either - thinking I would rather not have the ice cream.  Then, I proceeded to finish that ice cream while still thinking I don't want this.  I didn't enjoy the ice cream, I didn't want it, but I couldn't stop myself. I ate it anyway.

That night I stared up at the ceiling, unable to sleep, and thought.  The middle of the night is a terrible time to be alone with my brain.  I realized that I was going to die unless I could find some way to stop eating.  As the Big Book words it, I was finally licked.  That night I waved the white flag and knew hopelessness and despair like I had never experienced before.

I had finally taken the first step.

The Question

". . . I would if I could, my friend, but - as it is for me - the problem is within. . ." - For Today, p. 277

"It seems that for most of my life I have been searching for the answer book.  In school, there was always one definitive answer, and the teacher had all the answers.  Unfortunately, in life there is no one right or wrong way to do something.  There are no answer books. . . No one has my answers; they don't even know what the question is.  I believe that all my answers are within me. . . . What I have been looking for is not the answer, but the question." - Voices of Recovery, p. 363

There are so many people who keep looking for a magic bullet - some diet or pill or program that's going to make them thin and keep them thin.  But as I've heard in program, the weight is a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.  Yet my mom - among others - looks at my weight as being an indicator of whether I'm getting healthier.  Physically that may be the case, but mentally I am afraid that is not the truth.  I've lost and regained the same 40-90 pounds at least 5 times in the last 9 years.  That's a problem.  So I can lose all the weight I want these next months, but I'm not going to keep it off unless I find the answer to the question.  And to find the answer, I need a question first. 

That isn't to say I don't have plenty of questions.  What makes me want to compulsively eat?  Why do I compulsively eat?  What triggers my eating?  What is the best means of alleviating my compulsion to eat?  But what is the question that is going to help me progress? Which question is the one that I need answered before the craziness can abate?

I think I look to the Big Book to give me the magic answer.  The blueprint of how to fix whatever is wrong with me.  But reading that book isn't going to give me my answers.  The more I read, the more I hear about working the steps.  I go to meetings and hear "faith without works is dead" - and I nod.  But reading this passage, I realized I still am looking for my magic fix.  I still want this program to give me the answers.  Tell me how to get better. 

I purchased a Overeater Anonymous Workbook this week, and I looked at a few of the lists and promptly shut the book.  I told myself - I'll work on that when my sponsor tells me to.  But I want to get better.  I want to work toward a better life.  For now I'm going to listen to instructions and follow them - but I know the day is coming when I'm going to need help. . . "The difficulty lies in looking within, something I'm incapable of doing alone.  I need the love, help, and support from others." - Voices of Recovery, p. 363.

Inertia And Burst

The past few days I had been feeling a lot of inertia, with today being my random burst of energy and purpose.  That seems to be my pattern of late.  I spend my days in this bone-deep and crippling sensation that I am moving through water.  Even the simplest task seems astronomically daunting.  Driving to pick up my abstinent meal seems to be a nightmare.  Before starting with this abstinence there were days I simply wouldn't eat until my husband got home from work because I simply couldn't get up the energy to order pizza. 

I cared for my son, but I prayed and prayed for him to nap, and keep napping.  I called my mother to try and visit her so she could chase him and play with him between nap times. 

Today I got a lot of work done and got my Christmas cards out, which is wonderful.  But now I don't want to go to bed because I am dreading tomorrow and the return of the weight.  On those dragging days I feel like I weigh a few thousand pounds.  And I feel beyond old - I feel ancient. 

I'm going to go catch some sleep - after all the baby will wake up long before I'm ready - but I wanted to at least write a little bit.

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 - 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.