I recently added In This Moment Daily Meditation Book put out by Co-Dependents Anonymous (CoDA) to my list of daily readings.
The May 5th entry talks about making a "searching and fearless moral inventory." Part of the entry goes on to say "The hardest part of doing my inventory is breaking through denial. I can't inventory something I don't know exists. Once I'm aware of a behavior, I'm usually willing to write it down, share it, and ask that my defect be removed. Getting there takes time and that's OK with me today."
One of the things that has been bothering me lately is that I managed to go through a full Fourth Step without spotting my love addiction. When it came time for me to do my Fourth Step, my sponsor "followed the book." There was an actual spreadsheet I was given to fill out. It had tabs for resentment, fear and sex. Each tab had columns to fill out (although to be fair the sex tab had a list of questions I had to answer about each of my sexual relationships): "I have a resentment towards/of (bb pg 64)" "because or why (bb pg 64)" "my instinct for (...) has been/was affected (12/12 pg 42)" and so on. It took me over three months to fill in the entire thing, and my printed Fourth Step came out to somewhere around 90 pages (although to be fair it printed in fairly large font).
And yet somehow I didn't see a glaringly obvious defect: and what's more my sponsor didn't see it either. (At least if she did, she didn't tell me!) It would only seem natural that addictive patterns would show themselves in these types of inventories. The fact that it remained hidden was a mystery.
This baffled me, but reading this reading shed some important light on this for me. I'd always thought it silly that I'd need to do Fourth Steps in multiple programs. The "fearless and searching moral inventory" wasn't going to wear different hats. But now that I have a new addiction - and a new defect - I have something to write down, share, and ask to have removed. I need a new Fourth Step because I couldn't inventory something I didn't know existed.
Showing posts with label Step Work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Step Work. Show all posts
Monday, May 5, 2014
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Newcomers. . .
The May 4th Voices of Recovery quotes The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous: "All who have experienced the pain of compulsive eating and want to stop are equally welcome here." It goes on to tell the story of a woman who came to the meetings fighting the program. "I had no desire to refrain from compulsively eating. Instead, I wanted to diet. I did not take the suggestions seriously. Tradition Three illustrates the reason for my inability to grasp this program. I wanted the weight loss and even the pleasure of it without having to earn it first. Today when I watch newcomers struggle with the program as I did, I try to show the same compassion and acceptance as those before me."
I remember my first day in Overeaters Anonymous. I came into the rooms believing that I didn't need the program - I was fine. When the woman who shared told my own story, I was shocked. But I decided to sign up. She'd lost all her weight so clearly whatever these people were selling worked. I asked her to sponsor me at break and felt I had put a check in the box to have them wave the magic wand that would fix me.
She told me to read from the Big Book, and I read Bill's Story and put the book down again. Not only did I not relate to the story, but I figured that all the Big Book contained was a collection of people's stories. Why would I bother reading about a bunch of alcoholics when I could sit in a meeting and hear people tell me about their own stories of recovery - and on topic, too!. I was already sold on the program, just get to the good stuff!
That sponsor told me to write down three things I loved about myself every day. I thought it was the dumbest assignment in the world. And yet when I sat down that night I couldn't think of a single thing. Everything I loved had a "yeah, but. . ." attached to it that was a disqualifying factor. I eventually found myself on the phone with another woman I'd met in meeting, sobbing because I couldn't find anything to love about myself.
Eventually I was able to identify a few items - I have a set of freckles on my leg that looks like a happy face; I always have a flower painted on my big-toenails; and I have three freckles on my foot that make a straight line. Each night I came up with three new things - sometimes it was that I loved a dish I cooked, other times it was that I loved knowing how to knit. But each time I failed to understand what the point of this exercise was.
Every time I asked that sponsor why we were bothering with this (get on with the wand waving, already!) she told me we were working on my first step. She asked me to identify trigger foods, so I started cutting out things like soda and coffee. Eventually my "abstinence" was to not eat French fries, doughnuts, or drink coffee and soda. Yet I still binged on sweets and snack foods to my heart's content. So after three months I decided I was wasting my time and left program.
When I came back I decided I could do it on my own. For the first two months back in the rooms I was back to my original "abstinence" - still binging away - and I decided that I could identify my own trigger foods. Since my first sponsor didn't "do anything" for me, I'd sponsor myself!
But through this all, I was just as clueless as that woman was. I wanted the results without the work. I didn't want to surrender to another person. I didn't want to work the steps. I didn't want to change my life. I just wanted the magical fix.
But there is no magical fix. There is a miraculous one - but that requires work to attain.
It wasn't until after I'd gotten another sponsor, surrendered, and gone through my first step that I learned what my first sponsor was doing: she was trying to show me that my life was unmanageable. She was waiting for me to notice just how hard it was for me to find things I loved about myself, and she was waiting for the light bulb to click that maybe, just maybe, whatever it was I was doing to run my life wasn't working. But because I never left the disease, I never was able to see what she was trying to show me.
Today's reading was a good reminder of just how much I struggled as a newcomer, and just how much I need to show compassion to those still suffering from compulsive overeating.
I remember my first day in Overeaters Anonymous. I came into the rooms believing that I didn't need the program - I was fine. When the woman who shared told my own story, I was shocked. But I decided to sign up. She'd lost all her weight so clearly whatever these people were selling worked. I asked her to sponsor me at break and felt I had put a check in the box to have them wave the magic wand that would fix me.
She told me to read from the Big Book, and I read Bill's Story and put the book down again. Not only did I not relate to the story, but I figured that all the Big Book contained was a collection of people's stories. Why would I bother reading about a bunch of alcoholics when I could sit in a meeting and hear people tell me about their own stories of recovery - and on topic, too!. I was already sold on the program, just get to the good stuff!
That sponsor told me to write down three things I loved about myself every day. I thought it was the dumbest assignment in the world. And yet when I sat down that night I couldn't think of a single thing. Everything I loved had a "yeah, but. . ." attached to it that was a disqualifying factor. I eventually found myself on the phone with another woman I'd met in meeting, sobbing because I couldn't find anything to love about myself.
Eventually I was able to identify a few items - I have a set of freckles on my leg that looks like a happy face; I always have a flower painted on my big-toenails; and I have three freckles on my foot that make a straight line. Each night I came up with three new things - sometimes it was that I loved a dish I cooked, other times it was that I loved knowing how to knit. But each time I failed to understand what the point of this exercise was.
Every time I asked that sponsor why we were bothering with this (get on with the wand waving, already!) she told me we were working on my first step. She asked me to identify trigger foods, so I started cutting out things like soda and coffee. Eventually my "abstinence" was to not eat French fries, doughnuts, or drink coffee and soda. Yet I still binged on sweets and snack foods to my heart's content. So after three months I decided I was wasting my time and left program.
When I came back I decided I could do it on my own. For the first two months back in the rooms I was back to my original "abstinence" - still binging away - and I decided that I could identify my own trigger foods. Since my first sponsor didn't "do anything" for me, I'd sponsor myself!
But through this all, I was just as clueless as that woman was. I wanted the results without the work. I didn't want to surrender to another person. I didn't want to work the steps. I didn't want to change my life. I just wanted the magical fix.
But there is no magical fix. There is a miraculous one - but that requires work to attain.
It wasn't until after I'd gotten another sponsor, surrendered, and gone through my first step that I learned what my first sponsor was doing: she was trying to show me that my life was unmanageable. She was waiting for me to notice just how hard it was for me to find things I loved about myself, and she was waiting for the light bulb to click that maybe, just maybe, whatever it was I was doing to run my life wasn't working. But because I never left the disease, I never was able to see what she was trying to show me.
Today's reading was a good reminder of just how much I struggled as a newcomer, and just how much I need to show compassion to those still suffering from compulsive overeating.
Finding a Higher Power Part 2
Once I was able to get past the initial fact that I not only needed a higher power, but I needed to surrender to it, I did the first thing I could think of: I went to church.
I was raised Catholic but stopped going to church when I went to college. This happened to coincide with a big wave of scandals and a huge payment of damages to the victims of sexual abuse by priests. But what rocked my faith the most was the fact that the priest of the mass I regularly attended was one of the people on the news for molesting small boys. This is the man I received communion from; the man I gave confessions to.
It started out first that my faith in the Church was shaken, and then my faith in Christianity as I began to learn more of the history of the Church and the bible. I'd always had difficulty relating to Jesus. Not that I didn't respect his teachings, but I'd just never been able to reach a point of believing in him as my "Lord and Savior."
So now, here I was more than a decade later trying to get back to a point of faith. I sat in mass and found myself fighting not to roll my eyes. I felt out of place and uncomfortable there. I tried staying late to sit in silence in the church and pray, but I still felt like an interloper. I didn't give up immediately. I kept going to mass, sometimes taking my young son with me. But the feeling that I was a fraud kept plaguing me.
So I went to my sponsor and asked for help. She told me that if I didn't like the Catholic God, then I should just make my own Higher Power.
In a meeting, I once heard a man share how he found his own Higher Power. His sponsor told him to take a piece of notebook paper and fold it in half length-wise (i.e. like a hot dog). One one side, he was to write all the things he hated about organized religion and the religious beliefs of others. On the other side he was to write down all the good things, and the things he'd want in his own higher power. Once this was completed, his sponsor told him to rip the sheet in half down that dividing line. Here were the applicants for the job of his Higher Power. Now he could throw out the ass-hole he didn't like and hire the one he did.
So I started my research. I looked into theologians like former Dominican priest Matthew Fox, Judaism, eastern religions, I even spent a good deal of time looking into paganism. In fact, one of the most helpful books I read was Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religion by River and Joyce Higginbotham. That book described various faith systems, ways people look at religion, and even talks about scientific findings that could support the basis of an earth-based faith. But most importantly it taught me ways to meditate and pray that were deeply meaningful to me.
It was almost a four month process of research, meditation, and reflection that led me to the point where I now had a Higher Power with capital letters. I was able to look back on the way that program had changed my life, and how I had changed as a result of program. These were things I had never been able to achieve on my own. Finally I knew I had found the belief that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I had at last taken the second step.
I was raised Catholic but stopped going to church when I went to college. This happened to coincide with a big wave of scandals and a huge payment of damages to the victims of sexual abuse by priests. But what rocked my faith the most was the fact that the priest of the mass I regularly attended was one of the people on the news for molesting small boys. This is the man I received communion from; the man I gave confessions to.
It started out first that my faith in the Church was shaken, and then my faith in Christianity as I began to learn more of the history of the Church and the bible. I'd always had difficulty relating to Jesus. Not that I didn't respect his teachings, but I'd just never been able to reach a point of believing in him as my "Lord and Savior."
So now, here I was more than a decade later trying to get back to a point of faith. I sat in mass and found myself fighting not to roll my eyes. I felt out of place and uncomfortable there. I tried staying late to sit in silence in the church and pray, but I still felt like an interloper. I didn't give up immediately. I kept going to mass, sometimes taking my young son with me. But the feeling that I was a fraud kept plaguing me.
So I went to my sponsor and asked for help. She told me that if I didn't like the Catholic God, then I should just make my own Higher Power.
In a meeting, I once heard a man share how he found his own Higher Power. His sponsor told him to take a piece of notebook paper and fold it in half length-wise (i.e. like a hot dog). One one side, he was to write all the things he hated about organized religion and the religious beliefs of others. On the other side he was to write down all the good things, and the things he'd want in his own higher power. Once this was completed, his sponsor told him to rip the sheet in half down that dividing line. Here were the applicants for the job of his Higher Power. Now he could throw out the ass-hole he didn't like and hire the one he did.
So I started my research. I looked into theologians like former Dominican priest Matthew Fox, Judaism, eastern religions, I even spent a good deal of time looking into paganism. In fact, one of the most helpful books I read was Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religion by River and Joyce Higginbotham. That book described various faith systems, ways people look at religion, and even talks about scientific findings that could support the basis of an earth-based faith. But most importantly it taught me ways to meditate and pray that were deeply meaningful to me.
It was almost a four month process of research, meditation, and reflection that led me to the point where I now had a Higher Power with capital letters. I was able to look back on the way that program had changed my life, and how I had changed as a result of program. These were things I had never been able to achieve on my own. Finally I knew I had found the belief that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I had at last taken the second step.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Finding a Higher Power, Part 1
When I came into program I didn't have a higher power let alone a Higher Power with capital letters. It isn't to say I didn't believe in God. Being an atheist involves a certain measure of faith. While it is impossible to concretely prove the existence of a Higher Power, it is also impossible to concretely disprove the existence of some Higher Power. So the act of being an atheist is as much an act of faith as the belief that Christ is the Son of God or that Buddha obtained enlightenment. And faith was something I was fresh out of. So I was indifferent to the notion that there was a deity out there, but one thing I was most certain of was that any deity that might exist most certainly wasn't interested in me.
So I needed some sort of starting point. I have met people who have chosen non-deity Higher Powers, such as mathematics (no matter how much you dislike the outcome, 2+2 does not equal 5), the laws of physics (gravity is a cruel taskmaster. . .), mother nature (not much you can do if good ol' mother nature decides to drop a tornado on your head at lunch time), the door knob (this seems to be the classic example I hear in meetings, so for a few months I told the door knob on a regular basis what a shit job it was doing running the universe), the ceiling ("I am powerless over whether that ceiling decides to collapse and crush me"), their sponsor (if you have made them your "boss" then you have placed them as a "Higher Power" over you - although this one is a sticky one long term), the people in the OA rooms (this was the route I went with once I stopped thinking that the requirement for a higher power was stupid), a celebrity (I've heard people go with Chuck Norris' beard, Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds' moustache, and other such silliness - but guess what: it worked for them), time (you can't stop it and you can't control it), and the universe (we can all agree that the universe exists).
I have heard two things in meetings that have stuck with me. One person who struggled with active atheism was told by his sponsor, "Can you believe that I believe in a Higher Power?" That was a starting point.
The other thing I heard was: "All I need to know about God is that I'm not Him."
In my experience with program there are two stages of the Higher Power proposition. The first is accepting that you are not calling the shots for the universe. There is some force outside of your control deciding that Joe down the street is going to have a heart attack next week, or that there is going to be an earthquake next month, or that you're going to suddenly have the worst food poisoning of your life the day you have a big interview.
The second part of the proposition is learning to trust that somehow things are going to work out for the best. All you need to do is do the footwork (i.e. if you want a promotion then work hard and show up on time, if you want a college degree then enroll and go to your classes, if you don't want food poisoning then don't eat the leftovers growing mold in your fridge, etc.) and let The Great Whatever do the rest.
This second proposition is much harder to reach. It involves not only the understanding that you aren't in control of the world, but surrendering to whatever is. And us addicts hate surrendering anything. It is the difference between deciding to sky dive and actually jumping out of the plane. In my experience you can't force this part - it just comes with time.
But for today, you don't need to be at that second part of the proposition. All you need to do today is reach the point where you know that "I'm not Him/Her." And that isn't a hard point to reach. On an intellectual level, most of us know that we didn't create the universe. (Those that don't know this have much bigger troubles than compulsive overeating.)
But the most important thing about finding a Higher Power is understanding that it really doesn't matter if that Higher Power actually exists. What matters is that you act as if you believe one does. My sponsor once shared in a meeting that she didn't know if there really was a Higher Power out there. But even if there was nothing - well, nothing was sure doing a better job running her life than she did.
So I needed some sort of starting point. I have met people who have chosen non-deity Higher Powers, such as mathematics (no matter how much you dislike the outcome, 2+2 does not equal 5), the laws of physics (gravity is a cruel taskmaster. . .), mother nature (not much you can do if good ol' mother nature decides to drop a tornado on your head at lunch time), the door knob (this seems to be the classic example I hear in meetings, so for a few months I told the door knob on a regular basis what a shit job it was doing running the universe), the ceiling ("I am powerless over whether that ceiling decides to collapse and crush me"), their sponsor (if you have made them your "boss" then you have placed them as a "Higher Power" over you - although this one is a sticky one long term), the people in the OA rooms (this was the route I went with once I stopped thinking that the requirement for a higher power was stupid), a celebrity (I've heard people go with Chuck Norris' beard, Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds' moustache, and other such silliness - but guess what: it worked for them), time (you can't stop it and you can't control it), and the universe (we can all agree that the universe exists).
I have heard two things in meetings that have stuck with me. One person who struggled with active atheism was told by his sponsor, "Can you believe that I believe in a Higher Power?" That was a starting point.
The other thing I heard was: "All I need to know about God is that I'm not Him."
In my experience with program there are two stages of the Higher Power proposition. The first is accepting that you are not calling the shots for the universe. There is some force outside of your control deciding that Joe down the street is going to have a heart attack next week, or that there is going to be an earthquake next month, or that you're going to suddenly have the worst food poisoning of your life the day you have a big interview.
The second part of the proposition is learning to trust that somehow things are going to work out for the best. All you need to do is do the footwork (i.e. if you want a promotion then work hard and show up on time, if you want a college degree then enroll and go to your classes, if you don't want food poisoning then don't eat the leftovers growing mold in your fridge, etc.) and let The Great Whatever do the rest.
This second proposition is much harder to reach. It involves not only the understanding that you aren't in control of the world, but surrendering to whatever is. And us addicts hate surrendering anything. It is the difference between deciding to sky dive and actually jumping out of the plane. In my experience you can't force this part - it just comes with time.
But for today, you don't need to be at that second part of the proposition. All you need to do today is reach the point where you know that "I'm not Him/Her." And that isn't a hard point to reach. On an intellectual level, most of us know that we didn't create the universe. (Those that don't know this have much bigger troubles than compulsive overeating.)
But the most important thing about finding a Higher Power is understanding that it really doesn't matter if that Higher Power actually exists. What matters is that you act as if you believe one does. My sponsor once shared in a meeting that she didn't know if there really was a Higher Power out there. But even if there was nothing - well, nothing was sure doing a better job running her life than she did.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Donor Organ
We are like recipients of a donor organ. Ours was defective so we needed a new one. The only catch is that we need to constantly be taking medicine to keep our bodies from rejecting our new organ. In fact, we have nine medicines we need to take: 1) a plan of eating, 2) sponsorship, 3) meetings, 4) telephone, 5) writing, 6) literature, 7) action plan, 8) anonymity, 9) service.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Step One, Question 1, Page 1
I think it's time I take the plunge and start writing on the first question in the workbook. It has been sitting on my desk, open to that page, for weeks. I will begin working the steps with my sponsor this week and I have some time before bed to do a bit of work, so here goes nothing (or perhaps, everything)!
1. "In OA we are encouraged to take a good look at our compulsive eating, obesity, and the self-destructive things we have done to avoid obesity - the dieting, starving, over-exercising, or purging." Here is a First-Step inventory of my compulsive eating history.
A lot of my early compulsive eating is blurred by the haze of the sugar high. Or perhaps I should say "glaze". I remember not being allowed sweets because my mom was worried about my weight. It wasn't consistently enforced, though. It was like her own warring opinions on whether she could eat sweets spilled over into what she permitted me to eat. But here are a few compulsive overeating memories:
I would sneak into the pantry when people were busy/sleeping/away to steal food. My favorites were fruit snacks and granola bars. The best was the "Fruit O's" from Costco - fruit snacks in a huge container from Costco. I knew I could take one or two of those a day without being caught. Granola bars were another love, but I knew I had to take those slow. I would take one bar a day. There was a very strict order to how I ate my closet foods: 2 Fruit O's, 1 granola bar, 1 of this, 1 of that. It depended on what we had at the time. Gold fish had to be smuggled one handful at a time. If the container went missing I would get caught and I'd either get lectured or in actual trouble. The number of items became just as important as the theft of the food and it's consumption. No matter how much or how often I smuggled, I always wanted more. It called to me and I craved it, but I knew I had to wait until the next day or they'd notice the food was disappearing too fast. Thankfully my brother was assumed to be the one doing the eating. Eventually he hid the food in his room to keep me out, which upped the stakes. I only could sneak in maybe once a week to get the food then. Even now, when I go to fast food restaurants, I find that I get a list of foods I want: 1 of A, 1 of B, 1 of C, 1 of D - the ordering of the food is part of the ritual, even when I ordered far more than I could possibly consume.
I remember being excited about the food come the holidays. It was the one day I knew my mom wouldn't chase me about how much I ate - until the car ride home when both parents would scold me in front of my brother. I would make the obligatory round of hugs and then settle next to the appetizer table. I would eat non-stop until dinner. Then I'd eat a plate of two of food at dinner, maybe sneak back for more appetizers. Then I'd get one of everything offered for desert, after I snuck in plenty of cookies, fudge, and whatever else was sitting out for deserts. The sad truth is: I can't remember much about the holidays other than eating and hoping my parents weren't watching how much I was putting into my mouth and body.
In elementary school I used to offer to put anything people wanted to give me into my yogurt to eat it. I wanted the food, so even if they put tuna salad in my cherry yogurt, I'd take it. Mostly it was things like Oreo cookies [yum] or half eaten sandwiches. I ate anything people wanted to throw out. I never fished in the school trash cans [although I did in the kitchen trash can at home] but I was a mini garbage disposal for anything and everything no one wanted. My friends eventually started bringing extra food for me.
In college I remember thinking constantly about food. Classes were the things I did between meal times. I loved the cafeterias because I could get as many plates as I wanted, and if I went alone I didn't have to worry about anyone following me. Mostly I didn't think about people watching me eat then. I was out of the sight of my parents, which to me meant I was out of the sight of everyone. I frequented the vending machines in my building - I think I stopped on the way to and from every class for something, usually those little doughnuts. Once I had a car, my food adventures were usually in the form of 4 or 5 large meals a day at fast food as well as the dining halls. I went every Tuesday to a Thai food restaurant where I ate until the point of pain. I also always had snacks in my room to nibble on between meals. This part is a bit fuzzy, because I didn't pay a lot of attention to what I was eating when. I have always been a grazer so I had meals I paid attention to, and meals where I just grazed along without paying attention to what I was eating.
In grad school I think I lived on pizza, sub sandwiches and chips, and fast food (including an awesome fast food Italian restaurant that had cheese covered baked lasagna that I would eat with garlic bread sticks - carbheaven hell.) I ate huge quantities of food, including in the middle of the night while studying. I would go to IHOP, order 2 or 3 meals and eat it all before I left.
After grad school I got the gastric bypass stomach surgery, which severely limited my ability to binge. They literally sewed off part of my stomach and rerouted my intestines. So once I was recovered enough to eat normal foods, I would still go to the restaurants and order all my food. The ritual was still in place. I just ended up throwing out most of it. I would eat a bite or two of everything and make myself ill, but I would do my best. I often grazed on my meal all day long - one monstrous breakfast-lunch-dinner mishmash of a meal. Eventually I managed to eat back on most of my weight since there was nothing that caused the infamous "dumping syndrome" for me.
When I joined OA, I had gained back some - but not all - of my gastric bypass weight loss. I gave up certain "trigger foods" but binged freely on the others. It was retaliatory binging. I took away french fries? Then doughnuts it was! I took out doughnuts next, then I went to those little fruit-jelly filled pies and cookies. Eventually I gave up and went back to before. Then I came back and tried it again - with the same results as before. Before I started with my current sponsor I had a two week long binge that was pure hell [described here]. And I haven't compulsively overeaten since.
Now to move on to the memories involving restricting/anorexia/bulimia:
These three were always lumped together for me. I remember in second or third grade hearing my mom talk about how she dieted as a kid: hard boiled egg for breakfast, and she kept lunch and dinner each under 200 calories. So I did the same. It stunted my growth and I stopped growing at age 10.
In sixth grade I started the anorexia. I would skip every meal I could get away with. It was not that hard to get away with: I would tell friends that I was eating at home, and family that I ate with friends. No one paid attention to what I ate at school, so I didn't have to worry there. Sometimes I ate at school because I liked the food, but it depended on the day. I think it got bad when I was between sixth and seventh grade, actually. During the summer months. When I had to eat dinner with my family, I'd squirrel the food into my cheeks and spit it out into napkins [because I wasn't smart enough to think that people would notice]. I just pretended it was gristle. My mom wasn't inclined to feed me sweets, so that was never a problem. When I couldn't get away with the gristle ruse, I'd rush to the bathroom and spit out the food in my squirrel cheeks. My parents obviously knew what was going on but chose to do nothing about it. Eventually my friends at school held me down at lunch time and force fed me. Once I was eating it seemed that this phase of my life had ended.
Bulimia became something that popped up intermittently with my binges. I can't really remember much about the bulimia, except that it took me a while to figure out how to make me puke since my gag reflex isn't very sensitive. After my weight loss surgery I was lucky that as soon as I overate I would need to vomit. So the purge just took a few extra bites of food and out it would come. I often used that route to get more food, but sometimes it was a way to clear the binge.
Eventually I would alternate as an adult between binge, purge, and restricting days.
Compulsive exercising hit me around eighth grade. I wanted to be skinny so I signed up for every sport my school offered, including cross country. Later I ran for the love of running, but at first it was all about the burning of calories. In grad school I exercised five to seven days a week as a means of telling myself that I was working on my weight and clearly it wasn't my fault that I was fat.
I can honestly say I've tried just about every diet over the years: calorie counting, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, South Beach, Atkins, HMR, Liquid Only, Slim Fast, Lean Cuisine, not eating after 6/8/10pm, skipping breakfast, eating no breads, eating no dairy, eating no red meat, vegetarian, alcohol only, eating no pasta, eating no snacks, eating five small meals, etc.
1. "In OA we are encouraged to take a good look at our compulsive eating, obesity, and the self-destructive things we have done to avoid obesity - the dieting, starving, over-exercising, or purging." Here is a First-Step inventory of my compulsive eating history.
A lot of my early compulsive eating is blurred by the haze of the sugar high. Or perhaps I should say "glaze". I remember not being allowed sweets because my mom was worried about my weight. It wasn't consistently enforced, though. It was like her own warring opinions on whether she could eat sweets spilled over into what she permitted me to eat. But here are a few compulsive overeating memories:
I would sneak into the pantry when people were busy/sleeping/away to steal food. My favorites were fruit snacks and granola bars. The best was the "Fruit O's" from Costco - fruit snacks in a huge container from Costco. I knew I could take one or two of those a day without being caught. Granola bars were another love, but I knew I had to take those slow. I would take one bar a day. There was a very strict order to how I ate my closet foods: 2 Fruit O's, 1 granola bar, 1 of this, 1 of that. It depended on what we had at the time. Gold fish had to be smuggled one handful at a time. If the container went missing I would get caught and I'd either get lectured or in actual trouble. The number of items became just as important as the theft of the food and it's consumption. No matter how much or how often I smuggled, I always wanted more. It called to me and I craved it, but I knew I had to wait until the next day or they'd notice the food was disappearing too fast. Thankfully my brother was assumed to be the one doing the eating. Eventually he hid the food in his room to keep me out, which upped the stakes. I only could sneak in maybe once a week to get the food then. Even now, when I go to fast food restaurants, I find that I get a list of foods I want: 1 of A, 1 of B, 1 of C, 1 of D - the ordering of the food is part of the ritual, even when I ordered far more than I could possibly consume.
I remember being excited about the food come the holidays. It was the one day I knew my mom wouldn't chase me about how much I ate - until the car ride home when both parents would scold me in front of my brother. I would make the obligatory round of hugs and then settle next to the appetizer table. I would eat non-stop until dinner. Then I'd eat a plate of two of food at dinner, maybe sneak back for more appetizers. Then I'd get one of everything offered for desert, after I snuck in plenty of cookies, fudge, and whatever else was sitting out for deserts. The sad truth is: I can't remember much about the holidays other than eating and hoping my parents weren't watching how much I was putting into my mouth and body.
In elementary school I used to offer to put anything people wanted to give me into my yogurt to eat it. I wanted the food, so even if they put tuna salad in my cherry yogurt, I'd take it. Mostly it was things like Oreo cookies [yum] or half eaten sandwiches. I ate anything people wanted to throw out. I never fished in the school trash cans [although I did in the kitchen trash can at home] but I was a mini garbage disposal for anything and everything no one wanted. My friends eventually started bringing extra food for me.
In college I remember thinking constantly about food. Classes were the things I did between meal times. I loved the cafeterias because I could get as many plates as I wanted, and if I went alone I didn't have to worry about anyone following me. Mostly I didn't think about people watching me eat then. I was out of the sight of my parents, which to me meant I was out of the sight of everyone. I frequented the vending machines in my building - I think I stopped on the way to and from every class for something, usually those little doughnuts. Once I had a car, my food adventures were usually in the form of 4 or 5 large meals a day at fast food as well as the dining halls. I went every Tuesday to a Thai food restaurant where I ate until the point of pain. I also always had snacks in my room to nibble on between meals. This part is a bit fuzzy, because I didn't pay a lot of attention to what I was eating when. I have always been a grazer so I had meals I paid attention to, and meals where I just grazed along without paying attention to what I was eating.
In grad school I think I lived on pizza, sub sandwiches and chips, and fast food (including an awesome fast food Italian restaurant that had cheese covered baked lasagna that I would eat with garlic bread sticks - carb
After grad school I got the gastric bypass stomach surgery, which severely limited my ability to binge. They literally sewed off part of my stomach and rerouted my intestines. So once I was recovered enough to eat normal foods, I would still go to the restaurants and order all my food. The ritual was still in place. I just ended up throwing out most of it. I would eat a bite or two of everything and make myself ill, but I would do my best. I often grazed on my meal all day long - one monstrous breakfast-lunch-dinner mishmash of a meal. Eventually I managed to eat back on most of my weight since there was nothing that caused the infamous "dumping syndrome" for me.
When I joined OA, I had gained back some - but not all - of my gastric bypass weight loss. I gave up certain "trigger foods" but binged freely on the others. It was retaliatory binging. I took away french fries? Then doughnuts it was! I took out doughnuts next, then I went to those little fruit-jelly filled pies and cookies. Eventually I gave up and went back to before. Then I came back and tried it again - with the same results as before. Before I started with my current sponsor I had a two week long binge that was pure hell [described here]. And I haven't compulsively overeaten since.
Now to move on to the memories involving restricting/anorexia/bulimia:
These three were always lumped together for me. I remember in second or third grade hearing my mom talk about how she dieted as a kid: hard boiled egg for breakfast, and she kept lunch and dinner each under 200 calories. So I did the same. It stunted my growth and I stopped growing at age 10.
In sixth grade I started the anorexia. I would skip every meal I could get away with. It was not that hard to get away with: I would tell friends that I was eating at home, and family that I ate with friends. No one paid attention to what I ate at school, so I didn't have to worry there. Sometimes I ate at school because I liked the food, but it depended on the day. I think it got bad when I was between sixth and seventh grade, actually. During the summer months. When I had to eat dinner with my family, I'd squirrel the food into my cheeks and spit it out into napkins [because I wasn't smart enough to think that people would notice]. I just pretended it was gristle. My mom wasn't inclined to feed me sweets, so that was never a problem. When I couldn't get away with the gristle ruse, I'd rush to the bathroom and spit out the food in my squirrel cheeks. My parents obviously knew what was going on but chose to do nothing about it. Eventually my friends at school held me down at lunch time and force fed me. Once I was eating it seemed that this phase of my life had ended.
Bulimia became something that popped up intermittently with my binges. I can't really remember much about the bulimia, except that it took me a while to figure out how to make me puke since my gag reflex isn't very sensitive. After my weight loss surgery I was lucky that as soon as I overate I would need to vomit. So the purge just took a few extra bites of food and out it would come. I often used that route to get more food, but sometimes it was a way to clear the binge.
Eventually I would alternate as an adult between binge, purge, and restricting days.
Compulsive exercising hit me around eighth grade. I wanted to be skinny so I signed up for every sport my school offered, including cross country. Later I ran for the love of running, but at first it was all about the burning of calories. In grad school I exercised five to seven days a week as a means of telling myself that I was working on my weight and clearly it wasn't my fault that I was fat.
I can honestly say I've tried just about every diet over the years: calorie counting, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, South Beach, Atkins, HMR, Liquid Only, Slim Fast, Lean Cuisine, not eating after 6/8/10pm, skipping breakfast, eating no breads, eating no dairy, eating no red meat, vegetarian, alcohol only, eating no pasta, eating no snacks, eating five small meals, etc.
Friday, February 8, 2013
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
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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.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
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!
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!
Monday, February 4, 2013
Escalator
Life is like an escalator. If you aren't taking steps forward, you're just moving backwards.
(I heard this in meeting tonight.)
(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.
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.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Red Light, Green Light and the Inventory
When I first came into OA, I grabbed a sponsor my first meeting. The first thing she discussed was making an inventory of red light, yellow light, and green light foods. Red light foods were those which I knew I could not eat safely. Yellow light foods were those that I would have to be cautious around. Green light foods were those foods I could eat without fear of triggering compulsive overeating.
A few weeks ago I purchased a workbook at my Thursday night meeting. I turned to the first page and read the prompt before deciding to wait for instruction from my sponsor to begin this workbook. But the past weeks I have been thinking about that prompt, and for me the thoughts don't really go away until I let them go (i.e. write them down).
The prompt reads: "In OA we are encouraged to take a good look at our compulsive eating, obesity, and the self-destructive things we have done to avoid obesity - the dieting, starving, over-exercising, or purging." Here is a First-Step inventory of my compulsive eating history.
This isn't going to be a full response to that prompt, but this prompt made me think about why my work with my first sponsor was doomed to fail. Everything is a red or yellow light food! I have managed to binge at least once on all of the following [and by binge I mean overeat to an extreme degree often resulting in physical illness or extreme discomfort]:
Meats
grilled chicken breast
chicken/turkey cold cuts
bologna
hot dogs
sausage
(turkey) bacon
steak
ground beef
ground turkey
meatballs
beef jerky
ground lamb
lamb/chicken/beef kebab
Dairy
cheese [everything from goats cheese and brie to cheddar and pepper jack]
(Greek) yogurt
ice cream [not sure that should really count as dairy]
cottage cheese
sour cream [have sat down with a spoon to eat this before]
cream cheese [although I did add some sugar to it before I ate it]
eggs [scrambled, poached, over medium, hard boiled, medium boiled]
Breads/Grains
All [everything from bread to oatmeal to falafel and more]
Fruits
apples [which was a terrible idea since I am allergic to them]
(dry) apricots
avocado
bananas
blueberries
cherries
coconut
grapes
honeydew
mandarin
cantaloupe [also an allergically bad idea - I thought my mouth would never stop itching]
watermelon
nectarine
orange
peach
pear
plums
pineapple
salsa [of various origins - yum]
strawberry
tangerine
Vegetables
artichoke [that was a painful binge. . .]
black beans
chickpeas
green beans
kidney beans
lentils
pinto beans
soy beans
peas
broccoli
cabbage [another terrible idea intestinally speaking]
cauliflower [amazingly tasty with lemon juice]
celery [an unpleasant binge since I hate celery - but I ate it all anyway]
corn
okra
yellow & orange bell pepper
pepperochinis [that was some awful heart burn]
beets
carrots
pickled turnips [so tasty, but so painful in large quantities]
spinach
cucumber
zucchini
pumpkin
potato
sweet potato
yam
water chestnuts
Sweets
All
I have even binged on juices, soda, energy drinks, coffee, tea, and once drank so much water that I threw my electrolites completely out of whack.
That isn't to say I even like all the foods I've binged on. While a lot of my binging is related to the foods I like to eat, it isn't always about the food. Sometimes it is about that feeling of being painfully full - full to the point of vomiting. As in the above-mentioned celery binge, it was about inflicting punishment upon myself.
A food plan based upon avoiding trigger foods is nearly impossible when everything is a trigger. That's why my own food plan - eating virtually the same thing every day - works for me. There is no need to think or plan or be at the mercy of my binges. I eat my food and leave it at that. In the simplicity I [usually] find peace.
A few weeks ago I purchased a workbook at my Thursday night meeting. I turned to the first page and read the prompt before deciding to wait for instruction from my sponsor to begin this workbook. But the past weeks I have been thinking about that prompt, and for me the thoughts don't really go away until I let them go (i.e. write them down).
The prompt reads: "In OA we are encouraged to take a good look at our compulsive eating, obesity, and the self-destructive things we have done to avoid obesity - the dieting, starving, over-exercising, or purging." Here is a First-Step inventory of my compulsive eating history.
This isn't going to be a full response to that prompt, but this prompt made me think about why my work with my first sponsor was doomed to fail. Everything is a red or yellow light food! I have managed to binge at least once on all of the following [and by binge I mean overeat to an extreme degree often resulting in physical illness or extreme discomfort]:
Meats
grilled chicken breast
chicken/turkey cold cuts
bologna
hot dogs
sausage
(turkey) bacon
steak
ground beef
ground turkey
meatballs
beef jerky
ground lamb
lamb/chicken/beef kebab
Dairy
cheese [everything from goats cheese and brie to cheddar and pepper jack]
(Greek) yogurt
ice cream [not sure that should really count as dairy]
cottage cheese
sour cream [have sat down with a spoon to eat this before]
cream cheese [although I did add some sugar to it before I ate it]
eggs [scrambled, poached, over medium, hard boiled, medium boiled]
Breads/Grains
All [everything from bread to oatmeal to falafel and more]
Fruits
apples [which was a terrible idea since I am allergic to them]
(dry) apricots
avocado
bananas
blueberries
cherries
coconut
grapes
honeydew
mandarin
cantaloupe [also an allergically bad idea - I thought my mouth would never stop itching]
watermelon
nectarine
orange
peach
pear
plums
pineapple
salsa [of various origins - yum]
strawberry
tangerine
Vegetables
artichoke [that was a painful binge. . .]
black beans
chickpeas
green beans
kidney beans
lentils
pinto beans
soy beans
peas
broccoli
cabbage [another terrible idea intestinally speaking]
cauliflower [amazingly tasty with lemon juice]
celery [an unpleasant binge since I hate celery - but I ate it all anyway]
corn
okra
yellow & orange bell pepper
pepperochinis [that was some awful heart burn]
beets
carrots
pickled turnips [so tasty, but so painful in large quantities]
spinach
cucumber
zucchini
pumpkin
potato
sweet potato
yam
water chestnuts
Sweets
All
I have even binged on juices, soda, energy drinks, coffee, tea, and once drank so much water that I threw my electrolites completely out of whack.
That isn't to say I even like all the foods I've binged on. While a lot of my binging is related to the foods I like to eat, it isn't always about the food. Sometimes it is about that feeling of being painfully full - full to the point of vomiting. As in the above-mentioned celery binge, it was about inflicting punishment upon myself.
A food plan based upon avoiding trigger foods is nearly impossible when everything is a trigger. That's why my own food plan - eating virtually the same thing every day - works for me. There is no need to think or plan or be at the mercy of my binges. I eat my food and leave it at that. In the simplicity I [usually] find peace.
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