First Bite

Today I wanted to eat those little sugary frosted cookies they sell in the grocery stores for holidays. They are this beautiful floury sugary mush and I love them. It started when thinking of St. Patrick's Day and why we'd need a meeting marathon for that holiday. Then I thought of the cookies. And damn it I wanted one. Badly. I still want one and it's been 7 hours.

I tried all kinds of rationalizing. I said to myself, "[My Sponsor] doesn't need to know if I just ate one cookie. Or not even a full cookie but just a BITE of the cookie. That would be fine. Oh, and you know, I probably could manage one box of them without it impacting anything. The next day I'd be right back on the food plan and no one would need to be the wiser. I could just eat the cookies in the parking lot of the grocery store, toss the carton, toss the receipt, and no one would ever know."

Then that fucker who doesn't want me to enjoy a beautiful box of green frosted shamrock shaped cookies thought, "but that wouldn't be rigorous honesty, and rigorous honesty is how we got to peace." It then went on to remind me how happy I have felt lately. How much energy I have had to do chores and be attentive and playful with my son.

So I thought, "you know, I can just close my eyes and remember how they tasted and felt in my mouth. They can't take that away from me." [Because, you know, everyone in OA is conspiring against me and my cookies.] But it wasn't enough.  I just wanted one bite of cookie.  That was all I needed and I'd throw the box away, scout's honor. [Which is especially convenient since I was never a Girl Scout.]

And I had to go to the grocery store to pick up my husband's medicine. I thought, "I bet they don't even have those cookies yet. It's still February. They won't have them until March. I will just go and check and prove to myself that they aren't even there."

Well God was on my side today.  [One of my daily outreach calls] felt bad we hadn't talked in a few days so she called me as I was in the car on the way to get my husband's medicine. I made it a point to stay on the phone with her the entire time I was in the store. Because I know if I see the cookies I'll buy them.  If I take one bite of that cookie, I'd eat the whole box. Then I would raid the candy aisle. I saw the Starburst licorice sticks today and they looked amazing. I'd eat those next. Then some Mike & Ikes - I miss those. Then I'd keep grazing on sugar until I made myself ill. Ooh, then I'd hit the doughnuts and maybe get some more cookies. And I'd top it off with some garlic bread or maybe just get a whole big sourdough loaf thing and eat it with oil and balsamic vinegar. And Ding Dongs. I'd have to eat a box or two of those.

So really, I think it's easier to just not eat that first bite of cookie.

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)

A Conversation With My Disease

Disease: Your addiction is much worse than that of the alcoholic! You can live without alcohol, but not without food!

Me: You can live without alcoholic foods like flour and sugar, too.  You can live without flour and sugar, but not without fluids to drink!

Disease: But flour and sugar are so much more pervasive than alcohol!

Me: Are you sure about that?  How many social events do you go to where there are no alcoholic beverages? That toast at midnight on New Years Eve.  Wine or beer with Thanksgiving dinner. Eggnog or mulled wine for Christmas.  Going out for drinks with coworkers.  Going to the bar to celebrate a promotion. All of those things involve alcohol.  You can't even go out to dinner without having the drink menu being offered to you.

Disease: Yeah, I guess that's true.  But people really push when you don't want to eat sugar or flour foods!  They don't understand that you can't have them.

Me: They push when you don't want to drink too.

Disease: So maybe I'm not so different from the alcoholic, but I certainly am different from the narcotic addict!  Their fix isn't even legal!

Me: That is true, but what about prescription medicine?

Disease:  What about it?

Me: Narcotic addicts are going to need aspirin, antibiotics, and cold medicine just like the rest of us.  Some of these medicines they are going to need to live every much as we need food to live.  They need to learn to take their medications at proper intervals just like we need to learn to take meals at proper intervals. 

Disease: I don't think that's the same thing at all!

Me: Are you sure about that?  Once we have taken out the alcoholic foods from our meal plans, we need to focus on taking our food at proper intervals.  Like us, now that the narcotics addict has taken out the illegal narcotics from their lives, they need to focus on learning to take pharmaceuticals at proper intervals.  It seems like a pretty clear connection to me!

Disease: Fine. You win for now.  I'm going to sit in the corner petulantly until you aren't paying attention again.  Then you better watch out, because I'm going to catch you when you least expect it!

Me: My Higher Power and I will see you then.

Jealousy

Last night I made a recipe my sponsor gave me for chicken and rice.  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to eat a plate before it was time to go to my meeting so I let my husband graze and grabbed some El Pollo Loco.  This morning, I put together my pre-measured plate of food and discovered how incredibly delicious the chicken and rice plate is!

Then I realized my husband was having this chicken and rice for lunch and felt an insane surge of jealousy.  Yes, I was jealous of my husband for getting to eat the exact same chicken and rice that was sitting in front of me.  I stopped a moment, recognized the crazy, and had a good chuckle.

Wisdom

"It is only the ego that compares.  Wisdom does not compare, wisdom simply knows everything is as it is supposed to be." - Rev. Danielle Marie Hewitt

I attended a meeting this evening at an interesting spiritual center.  So, curious, I began to look further into the spiritual center and the type of faith services that they offer.  During a meditation period, I heard the reverend make this comment and thought I'd share.

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 - 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.