Just a Thought. . .

"I can't think my way into right acting, but I can act my way into right thinking."   - Unknown

Working the Vowels

So I saw something great on MrSponsorpants that was wonderful and wanted to share it here!  This is only part of his post on working the 10th Step

 

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

 

So the quick outline that is both about what I'm doing right and what need to do differently is this:

A, E, I, O, U, and 'sometimes Y' -- Just like we learned the vowels in school. It stands for:

A - A for [Abstinence].

What am I doing/did I do to address my [compulsive overeating] today. Go to a meeting? Talk with my sponsor? Work on an inventory?

E - E for Exercise.

The AA Slogan H.A.L.T., (Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired), just underscores how keeping our body chemistry balanced helps us maintain our emotional and spiritual equilibrium. So E is for Exercise, as in, did I do any today? If not, then I note that down (and I mean real exercise) so that I can over the course of a week look back and go, "Wow, I had planned on doing "X" every day but I really only did it twice this week..." -- or, on the other hand maybe note that "Wow, it's Friday, and I have done real exercise every day this week. Go Me!"

Now look, noting if I did or did not do any exercise is a bit of a stretch to call a part of "continuing to take personal inventory and when wrong, promptly admit it", I know that -- but honestly, I've found when I keep my body chemistry balanced (H.A.L.T. and the exercise piece) then I'm more able to be on my game for the "promptly admit it" part, and the "spot check throughout the day."

I - I for me, myself.

What did I do to take care of myself today? This is really broad, and sometimes nothing comes to mind one way or another, but for me this is about healthy self care -- setting boundaries, etc. -- beyond the straight-up 12 Step work in the "A" above. For example, did I take care of myself by making sure I took a real lunch break at work, or did I not put off buying that card and getting it in the mail so I'm not all panicky, or did I make a special effort not to deflect compliments, or was I especially good about keeping to my mediation routine ... anything substantive that underscores the "not only in Red Ink" part of my daily inventory.

O - for Others -- where was I of service?

And for me I regard this as 'Where was I of 12 Step-type service'? Not some bullshit "I didn't yell at any salesclerks today" stuff -- more along the lines of meeting with sponsees, or calling some Program peeps to see how they're doing, or performing my service commitment at a meeting, that kind of thing.

U - Uncover -- what is that thing that I don't want to think about?

I need to write it here. It's not a promise that I will immediately do something about it, but it's about not sliding into denial or anything. Like if I need to call the IRS and I haven't, or I keep putting the scary bills in a drawer and not opening them, or something. I just note it here, so that eventually it's in my consciousness enough that I can become willing to do something about it.

'and Sometimes Y' - for "Yahoo!" (the emotion, not the web service) as in, something especially fun that I'm looking forward to -- the hot date, the concert, the theater tickets -- This is the thing that makes life fun, and can be a building block to some gratitude for the abundance in my life.

So in practice what I've done is simply written them down the left side of a page, "A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y" and then written the 'answer' in next to them -- sometimes I've done it in the morning as kind of a To Do List, left it on my dresser and gone about my day, and then wrote it again the same night to see if I followed through. I like this because it covers the "whole" me but has a real focus on life through a 12 Step lens. It's a little bit "cutesy" I admit it. Works though.

Finally, the aeiou thing is not in the literature specifically, but I've used it on and off forever because I think it encompasses the whole spirit of the 10th Step, the good and bad, etc. Especially once you are in the real habit of 'cleaning as you go' (the 'Spot Check' part of the 10th Step) and don't have a lot of mental, emotional or behavioral trash to clean up at the end of every day.

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.

Third Step Prayer

The Third Step Prayer can be found on page 63 of the Big Book, second paragraph:

God, I offer myself to Thee -
to build with me and do with me as Thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self,
that I may better do Thy will.
Take away my difficulties,
that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help
of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.
May I do Thy will always!

Escalator

Life is like an escalator.  If you aren't taking steps forward, you're just moving backwards.

(I heard this in meeting tonight.)

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.