one third

so it has been thirty days into this exercise of attending 90 meetings in 90 days.
i am in panera right now feeling settled. i went to a rise and shine meeting at 8am and just finished a writing assignment for a online step study i am in. this meeting started out rocky and i was thinking that i would not be coming back anytime soon. yet i think that it has been the best meeting yet, since i have been back home. i see how my attitude affects my meeting experience. when i pray "god help me be open and willing to listen" before entering the room i undoubtably can receive wonderful wisdom and ESH (experience, strength and hope) from my fellows.
as i mentioned earlier i am doing this "working the steps" online study offered through the recovery group. the objective is 12 steps in 12 weeks- in 4 quarters each year. we are doing pre-step work. if you are really interested here is the link to what the leader requested us to write upon: http://www.therecoverygroup.org/wts/2008/2008-01q1.html

Here are my repsonses so far. Hopefully you can follow.

WTS- Step One

After reading the Doctor’s Opinion, for your step work, write about how you are like what is described, or how you relate.
I see myself mirrored in these words in multiple places. He wrote “they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is little hope of his recovery.”
Oh! How I know that miserable merryground of binging, the frantic runs to the grocery store racing down the aisles vowing that this would be the last time, emerging bruised, fat-bloated, sugar loaded, and swearing that tomorrow would be different, but tomorrow never came.
I woke up this morning begging God for just one day free from this mental obsession and to please grant me “serenity (which) is knowing and accepting that God is in charge.” I thought that I would be immediately struck with a burning bush experience and have an immediate psychic change. I am learning that change happens in stages and I cannot wait for a certain or ideal moment. I simply have to do the footwork, submit myself to God and let him do the rest. Action is not dependent on my feelings.

As part of your step work, add any 'alcoholic' behaviors to your list, in addition to alcoholic foods.
Alcoholic foods:
Sugar (man-made), pizza, chips, bread (especially those made from white flour)
Alcoholic behaviors:
Eating in front of the TV, eating while reading, eating under the influence of alcohol

Please write in your step work about what food sobriety will mean to you, how you will be food sober before taking the steps.

Thank you Gerri for this challenge of being food sober. I definitely agree that abstinence is the necessary foundation for recovery. Presently I am still working and establishing a definite food plan. But I do commit that I will abstain from my alcoholic foods and behaviors for the duration of the study. No excuses. I do have an appt. with a nutritionist on January 14th to establish a sound food plan. Until that time I am committing my food daily to my sponsor on the basis of two guidelines: 3 moderate meals and total abstinence from alcoholic foods and behaviors.

Can you see yourself in Bill's Story? Can you see your powerlessness and the unmanageability? Write about this in your step work.

I see many of my own thoughts written in Bill’ story. On page 2 he wrote, “ I’d prove to the world that I was important.” I definitely relate to that statement because I can recall how my decisions were dictated by the opnions of others (real or imagined). I vocally and adamantly denied caring about the opinions of other people. Yet all the while shaking internally with fear and fall into the depths of anxiety if someone looked at me funny. My lips professed freedom from public opinion, yet in reality my actions/choices were easily swayed if I thought someone (not even as important as my parents/family/close friends) would not approve. My undergrad major was chosen because I wanted to impress people with by studying a difficult subject. But instead of excelling in my classes I did poorly and my self esteem took a brutal beating. I was not working/living in my strengths. Instead I choose to study science because it is respected and I wanted to appear smart. One of my deep fears is to thought of as stupid. All of that is to say that I didn’t feel value internally so I was seeking outside affirmation based on my accomplishments.
Bill wrote on page 5, “ I woke up. This had to be stopped. I saw that I could not take so much as one [bite]. I was through forever. Before then, I had written lots of sweet promises, but my wife happily observed that this time I meant business. And so I did. Shortly afterward I came home drunk [with sugar]. There had been no fight. Where had been my high resolve? I simply did not know. It hadn’t even come to mind. Someone had pushed [sugar/junk food] my way, and I had taken it. Was I crazy?! I began to wonder, for such an appalling lack of perspective seemed near being just that. Renewing my resolve, I tried again.” … (he ultimately goes back to the bottle)
The times are innumerable that I have utter those very same words of regret and remorse after a sugar/junk food binge: “this madness must stop.” I was sincere I wrote out the plan, read the stories of others who lost weight ad nauseaum and geared myself up for the challenge. Then (seemingly) out of no where I would find myself waking up again, head pounding because of a sugar hangover, body aching from the man-made crap in junk food and completely hopeless because yet again I found myself back in the same place.
How many times has my mind raced and by heart galloped in my chest as a result of the sugar surging through my veins and arteries. Many were the times that I thought or acted irrationally under the influence. I remember one time as a senior in undergrad taking a photo course. Each week we had critiques when we exhibited our work, presented and listened to the comments of our peers. During one particular class (after I had been binging excessively) the professor looked over at me as if to as “are you alright?” I remember the alarm/question/ concern in his eyes. I was wearing a heavy black coat, my hair was probably disheveled, and I know that my body was slouched/bent in an awkward position. As soon as he looked at me I straightened up and tried to look presentable. It could be also that he, in fact, never thought those things. But I knew was I was doing the night before, the hours before class—his wyes mirrored my internal shame.

And here's the hope, on page 29, "Further on, clear-cut directions are given showing how we recovered." Wow, clear cut directions! And there's that word again - recovered. Do you see how maybe there is a Power out there that is greater than you, and certainly greater than food which might restore you to sanity? Write about that for your step work.

Although the path may be laid out in front of me in a clear cut manner it is not easy. I MUST work for it. When I hear the ESH of members with back to back abstinence over years that gives me incredible hope. Entering these rooms in November 2007 I really had no idea of the journey I would be embarking upon. Being completely free from the shackles of bingeing and food addiction was a foreign land that was referenced by those who I thought were stronger than me. But I have not glimpsed the shore of this island of recovery that so many have found refuge upon. And it is real! I do not have to be afraid that I will drown or not reach its shores I just have to keep swimming. God will carry me safely to shore. As it says on page 25, “there is no middle of the road solution.” Daily I must completely abandon myself to God and in my surrender find safety, joy, freedom- all the promises that come as a result of abstinence. Proverbs 4:23 states “Above all else, guard your heart for out of it flows the wellspring of life.” My heart is my abstinence. Without this anchor I will certainly drown in these treacherous waters of life.
At a recent meeting I attended a lady shared about her daughter who is very sick with chronic seizures that the doctors are trying to determine the cause of. Each time she shares she says the same thing at the beginning, “ My name is ……., I weigh and measure each meal, 3 meals with nothing in between and I send it to my sponsor. God and my abstinence are everything to me. And I mean that.” When I first heard her I thought she was obnoxious and too rigid. But now I understand. Given that trauma that she is currently enduring how can she get out of bed in the morning, how can she smile, how can she remember my name and wish me well? Simply because of the rock of abstinence. If she was actively in the food she would be killing herself and of no help to her daughter. In the midst of suffering there is hope. Self-care is not selfish. I cannot be of any use to God or others when I am abusing food. All that I must sacrifice to preserve my abstinence is small compared to the sanity and peace I receive in return.
All this talk of abstinence does scare me a little I must admit. What if I relapse and lose it? I know that God will never leave me and relapse will occur if I am seeking the food more than I am seeking God. A gentlemen recently shared that he used to fear relapse but he doesn’t any longer. In the early days of recovery he made “one day at a time” his mantra and now the future and food are neutral to him. His priority is only to do all he can to ensure that he hits the pillow that night abstinent. The rest will take care of itself. What freedom! The future is in God’s hands and thankful I am not God. He has just given me this one day to seek him. Am I abstinent right now? YES. I then must ask myself: what is the next thing I can do to preserve/support this abstinence? I have no control over tomorrow or next year, But God I pray for you to show me the next step.