I never did.

It would be one thing if my imaginary audience was made up of people I loved, or even liked.  But my silent onlookers were more like a group of hecklers, made-up of the people I feared the most.  In my mind, every move I made was scrutinized by this judgemental crowd.  They made me feel like I was incapable of making even the simplest of decisions, like what shirt to wear, or how to apply my make-up.  And the more in-public I was, the bigger and the nastier my audience became.  For example, if I wanted to go to the store, the moment I walked out of the house, I felt like I was being watched by a group of people who didn’t like me while my worst enemy gave a condescending running commentary of my every move. (Can you tell that I have been told that I tend to use my vivid imagination against myself?)

That is the way I lived my life before program.

In doing my fourth step, however, I discovered that the leading voice in my imaginary audience was actually…MINE!  That the “worst enemy” I mentioned earlier was in fact MYSELF!

Once I understood this at a gut level, my imaginary audience shrunk considerably.  There may still be a few nameless stragglers milling-about the stands, a couple worn-out hangers-on, but mainly it’s just me there.  And I have mellowed.  I am not so hard on me anymore.  And I am not so hard on others.  And sometimes, when I am feeling especially close to my Higher Power, there have actually been times when I have been my very own CHEERLEADER!

Now I had to call him back.

When I worked with him in the past, I had no choice but to put up with his bad attitude.  Now that I had my own company, I could pick and choose who I worked with.  The problem was, at that particular time, we desperately needed the money.  My husband and I weighed-out the pros and cons and decided that it was best if we didn’t take the account (assuming that he wanted to hire us – – I still hadn’t even talked to him).  We felt good about having made this decision, thinking it was right for us.

If the story ended there, it would have had a happy ending.

Throughout the process of starting and running our own business, we have learned that there are so many things that go into success that have little or nothing at all to do with money.  Choosing to only work with people we like and respect is a big one for us.  But at that time, we let this idea go to our heads and we started feeling very superiuor about it.

“Well, I guess I’d better give him a call and tell him the bad news,” I laughed sarcastically.

“I wish I could see the look on that smug face of his when you tell him we are not interested,” my husband added.

“Me, too,” I said as I dialed his number.  “Wait…let me get out my most condescending voice…”  I then proceeded to imitate the guy perfectly.  I had to cut my comedic act short when I heard the guy pick-up the phone.

We had barely exchanged greetings and his voice was already grating on me.  I wanted to get to my point so I quickly asked if he remembered working with me several years earlier.  There was a brief silence, and then,… “I’ll have to call you back.”

Click.

He “dumped” me before I had a chance to “dump” him!  I didn’t even get a chance to say ANYthing!  I was PISSED!  I told my husband what happened and he laughed it off, but I was still angry!  Then, that still small voice said:

“Is this really the way you want to be acting?  You’re in program now.”

It wasn’t a judgemental voice, but a gentle one, pointing our the obvious and reminding me of what I was trying to do by not working with this person in the first place:

…to live a life of sane and happy usefulness.

The good news?  This was my bottom.  This is what gave me the courage to come back to program.  I was finally desperate enough to admit defeat and ready to start over.  Well,…almost ready.

For months I sat on that horrible fence between going back to OA and staying away.  I was so mortified by the way I looked that I could not even imagine stepping through the door of my first meeting at that size.  Honestly, there was nothing I wanted to do LESS than go back – – but I was dying…spiritually, emotionally, and physically.  So what choice did I really have?

Finally one night in November of 2009, I decided to look online for a meeting in my area.  I was surprised to see that all of the meetings I used to attend were gone (or at least they were no longer meeting at the same locations), and that frightened me a bit.  But at that moment I was more concerned about keeping away from people I knew in program.  I didn’t want to “be seen.”  I decided to take my chances on a meeting I’d never been to out in the sticks, thinking that I probably wouldn’t know anyone there.

I got to the meeting strategically early so I could watch everyone go in.  See if I recognized anyone.  Then I would decide if I should go in.  I waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  No one ever came.  I suddenly realized that the meeting was not going to happen at all.  I felt panicky.  I hadn’t thought of that!  No matter how badly I didn’t WANT to go to a meeting, the idea that I COULDN’T go to one was far worse!  What if there were NO meetings to go to?!  What would I do?!  I knew that the program would work if I could just get myself into the routine of attending regular meetings, but without those, I knew there was no hope for me!  I went home, discouraged and scared.  I spent the next few days doing some heavy-duty soul-searching.  I came to the conclusion that I really DID want to go to a meeting and that I was going to try again (but not until the same meeting came-up again, of course).

The following week I parked my car and went inside the building, determined to at least find out once and for all if this meeting actually existed.  Low and behold, two people showed-up.  Then another person.  And another.  I didn’t know any of them.  I breathed a silent sigh of relief and immediately felt at home.

For the next 2 months, I attended this weekly discussion meeting and would share on the topic of the day and on the miserable state I was in.  Every day I would binge, and every night I would wonder how I could have done it again!  Then I would show-up at the meeting and say that I REFUSED to stop overeating even though I KNEW that I HAD to!  It was such a torturous place to be.  And week after week, the caring people there just listened and then talked with me afterwards.  There was no judgement, except for the voices in my own mind that kept telling me what a loser I was for not even making an attempt at getting abstinent.  The only thing that I actually DID start to do was to get on my knees every morning and every night and ask my Higher Power for “the willingness to be willing” to stop overeating.  Over the years I had acquired enough program to know that this was my problem – – until I was willing to at least TRY to be abstinent, I was lost.  I was “beyond human aid,” as The Big Book says.  Only God could save me at that point, and I knew it.

One night, after returning home from one of these meetings, the thought came to me that I should try writing-out a food plan for myself.  I was not going to follow it, of course, but if I could pick any way to eat healthy – – any way at all – – what would that be?  I kept this rough draft out on the kitchen table all week and tweaked it between binges.  It was just there, and I worked on it as if it were a school homework assignment.  I felt like I was doing it more out of curiosity to see what I could come-up-with more than anything else.  Best of all, for some strange reason, I felt no emotional attachment to it at all.

By spending so much time looking objectively at my food behaviors over the past 20+ years, I was fianlly able to see that the my biggest problem I’d had with sticking to my food plans of the past always came down to the feeling of deprivation, whether in the amounts of foods or in the elimination of foods.  So my new food plan tried to solve that problem by increasing portion sizes, by giving myself a little leeway within the elimination categories, and by adding snacks.  I knew that, for myself, I needed something that would be easy to adapt to any situation.  If I had learned nothing else, I had at the very least learned that if I was going to lose weight and successfully KEEP it off (which I had never done before), I had to have a plan that I would be willing to follow FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!  Not just when I was losing weight, or when I was trying to impress people, or when things were going my way, or when the weather was nice,…but ALL the time!  I guess it was just my time to finally face this reality…for the first time in my life.

And yet,…

ANOTHER week went by and I did the same thing – made some notes, moved some things around, took out some stuff, added some stuff…but I STILL refused to even TRY to follow it!  I did mention at one meeting what I was doing, but I said it as if it were a joke and that I had no desire whatsoever to even consider trying it out.

Then, out of the blue, at the end of a meeting in the beginning of February 2010, I raised my hand and committed to my group that I was going to start following the food plan I had created, and guess what?  I have been abstinent ever since!  I can tell you that when that happened, it was NOT ME raising my arm!  The thought had not even crossed my mind until that moment.  In fact, I barely knew why my hand went up at all!  You know how sometimes at a meeting you will be wondering if you should raise your hand and say what you are thinking out loud, but you keep stalling?  Well this was NOTHING like that.  This was supernatural.  I wasn’t thinking about trying to follow my food plan AT ALL!  I really believe that it was God answering my prayers.

He knew that I wasn’t going to do it on my own, so He had to do it for me!

Ever since I lost 75 pounds over a year ago, I have been asked to speak at several meetings, even though I still have almost the same amount of weight to lose.  This has always made me uncomfortable.  On the one hand, I’d feel obligated to say “yes,” since I wanted to give back to the program and do service by sharing my experience, strength and hope with others.  On the other hand, I’d feel that I was not a good enough example of how the program works because I am not at my goal weight, even though I have been in and out of program for over twenty years.  What kind of message does THAT send?

Fortunately, through working the program, my sense of responsibility has finally begun to outweigh my pride, so now I try to accept all my invitations to speak.  But part of me would still feel like a hypocrite.  Even in recovery, I was still struggling with the idea that my worth is determined by the number on the scale.  And yet, didn’t I always get words of wisdom from people with good spiritual recovery who are not yet at their goal weight?  Of course I did!  But for some reason, I could not cut myself the same slack.

To get over those feelings of guilt and shame, I would always start off my “story” with an explanation about why I still have so much more weight to lose.  Something to let everyone know – that I know – that I am still fat.  And I did this every single time I was the speaker.

Until last week!

I didn’t even know the topic I was going to be sharing-on and had decided to leave it all up to my Higher Power to give me the words that the people listening needed to hear.  And guess what happened?  I FORGOT to mention my little “disclaimer” about my weight at ALL!  In fact, it was so far removed from my mind that I didn’t even realize that I forgot about it until AFTER the meeting was over!!  ME!!, the person who has been obsessing about her weight and how she looks to others for literally DECADES, actually FORGOT about her weight while talking in front of a group of people!! 

Now if that’s not a miracle, I don’t know WHAT is!!

The next morning, I let the dogs out and remembered the moth on the front door.  I checked and was shocked to find that it was still there.  I went back inside, grabbed my camera, snapped a few shots, then downloaded them to see how they looked.  I was not at all happy with the close-ups – – they were all blurry.  The clearest photo was the one posted above.  So I went back outside to get a better picture.

The moth was gone.

Why was it there all night, and then suddenly gone once I took the picture?

I had never seen a moth like that in my entire life (I grew-up playing in the woods where collecting bugs was pretty-much a requirement).  I went back to the computer and looked at the enlarged image.  Is it me, or does that design on the wings look, not merely like a cross, but like a figure on a cross (if you click on the picture you can see an enlarged view of it).   Having recently become a Christian, I couldn’t help but think there was some special purpose behind this entire episode.  What that special purpose was?  I still haven’t quite figured that out yet.  But I really like the following quote I found online about this type of moth (called the Clymene moth), and I’m going to stick with this interpretation for now:

“When you see one of these moths

it means that your prayer has been answered

 and that the place where you found it

 is protected by angels.”

For years, this was the extent of my relationship with my Higher Power.  I would ask for help with my food (only when I was in OA, of course) and He always gave it to me.  Then I would “forget” that it was Him keeping me abstinent, I would leave program, thinking I could do it all on my own, and I would be out of control again.  But how could this be, if every time I came back to OA I “took” Step 2?

The problem was that my belief was still tied-in to what I wanted from OA, and what I wanted from OA was to be thin.  Period.  I didn’t want to make it my way of life.  I didn’t want to make friends there.  I didn’t even really want a relationship with Higher Power, except as it could be exploited to get me to my goal weight.  I wasn’t consciously thinking that, but looking back, that was the cold, hard reality of it.  And to be completely honest, I don’t think this time around would have been any different, except that I did the steps the way they are written in The Big Book, and that process lead me to WANT to make The 12 Steps my way of life SO THAT I can have a close relationship with a Higher Power.

I don’t think I (or anyone else) can fully explain the ambiguity here.  On the one hand, in order to get through the steps that will lead you to a deeper relationship with a Higher Power, you have to take Step 2 (to get to Step 3, Step 4,…).  On the other hand, you will not feel the full impact of taking Step 2 until AFTER you have done the OTHER steps.  The best way I can describe it is that we take Step 2 based upon whatever belief we have at that time, and then we “trust the process” to strengthen that belief as we move forward in our recovery (by continuing to do the rest of the steps).

In many ways, the first part of Step 2 is similar to making the decision to join OA.  In order to do that, you have to at least have a tiny amount of hope that it will work for you, or else why would you even bother showing-up?  The same goes for seeking belief in a God of your understanding.  All it takes to begin this relationship is a tiny amount of hope that there may be something to this whole Higher Power thing.  This doesn’t mean that you have to be completely open-minded.  You just can’t be completely close-minded.

First of all, because this drug-o-mine is “legal.”  I am not doing anything against the law when I eat too much or when I purchase my binge foods.  Look at all the people out there who are driving drunk and buying and using illegal drugs.  This is FOOD we’re talking about here!  What’s the big DEAL?!

Second, when I eat too much, I am not hurting anyone besides myself.  It’s not like I eat too much and then get in my car and drive erratically.  In fact, as a person who could not stop eating in her car, I’d have to say that my driving skills actually improved because I was forced to figure out how to maneuver the steering wheel with one hand, hold a sloppy Big Mac in the other, and balance a coffee shake between my legs, all while simultaneously watching traffic and obsessively making sure that none of the other drivers around me actually witnessed me putting anything into my mouth!  If that’s not “skill,” I don’t know WHAT is!

Third, I have lots of stress in my life and no other outlet.  I was always “the good girl.”  The “designated driver.”   I feel like I was always following so many rules – – I never drank alcohol, I never tried drugs, I never got high or drunk, I never even smoked a cigarette!  Doesn’t that make me entitled to at least ONE outlet for my stress?!

Fourth, it’s a cheap high.  I can go to The Dollar Store and get my fix for under $10/day, so if you have to have a drug habit, this one at least won’t break the bank!  It’s not like I was spending the mortgage money on food or anything!

Fifth,  everyone else does it!  I see skinny people all the time who can eat whatever they want, whenever they want it, and LOOK at them!  Why should I have to live my life any differently than THEY do?!

Hopefully you have recognized the sarcasm in all this.

“Back in the day,” I really believed every word of all of these statements.  But after having been through the 12 Steps, I have to ask myself…

When I said “I deserve this,” what exactly  was I saying that I deserved?

When I used to binge, I would feel horrible.  Mostly guilty and ashamed, to be more precise.  I was never the type of overeater who enjoyed food.  For all the time and effort and energy that went into my compulsion to overeat, I never took any pleasure in it.  And, let’s be honest: All the above statements were nothing more than excuses to stay in my addiction.  Whether or not my drug of choice is legal, it doesn’t change the fact that I was using it to destroy me AND my relationships with those around me.  Anyone (your inner-most self included!) who tells you that food addiction doesn’t have an adverse effect on those around you is lying to you.  And maybe I never spent the mortgage, but there were times when I spent the utility money!   And when was I EVER satisfied with the AMOUNTS that thin, normal eaters ate?

I always felt, even from a very young age, that bingeing was something that I was doing against my will – – like something beyond my control was shoving the food down my throat.  (I don’t know if all compulsive overeaters feel this way, but I did.)  And yet, the obsession would be so strong that I would always get to the the point (especially in the later stages of my addiction) where I knew that the only way to be rid of it would be to give-in to it.  This is how I went from “obsession” to “compulsion.”  The “thought” of eating would become the “action” of shoveling food in my face as fast as I could, as if I were trying to hurry-up and get it over with so I could go on with my life, pretending that there was nothing wrong.  But then it would happen a few hours later, and a few hours later, and a few hours later,…

Even at my worst, I always sensed that the very thing I wanted “permission” to do was the very thing that was destroying me, no matter HOW I rationalized it. The real irony is that now, looking back on all these “reasonings” I came-up with, I actually WAS giving myself what I thought I deserved.  Deep down inside I really thought that I was such a bad person that I deserved to live that way – – to constantly be punishing myself for not living-up to my own impossible standards by abusing myself with food.  Even though I was never consciously suicidal (I think my fear of death was the only thing that kept me from that abyss), I believe that my self-hatred had become so deeply ingrained in me that it was taking over my behaviors with the intent of killing me, one compulsive bite at a time.

The good news in all this?  Thanks to my continual pursuit of a closer relationship with my Higher Power, I have been freed from the bondage of this horrible addiction and am finally able to see that this new life of abstinence and serenity is what I (and all of us) REALLY deserve!

In the past, this tiny little pound, which could just be nothing more than a normal fluctuation having nothing to do with overeating, would have been my green light to go, GO, GO! and eat, EAT, EAT!  Even just staying the same, especially after 8 weeks of following an abstinent food plan, would have been WAY more than enough for me to call it quits.  But now, because I am finally working a spiritually-based program and sanity is starting to enter my way of thinking, I understand that the number on the scale is nothing more than a tool.  It is something that helps me decide if I need to make changes to my food plan.  It is no-longer my “morality-meter.”  Thank you, GOD!

Since the above description was the sad state of my many short-lived runs of abstinence prior to this time-around (when I did the steps the way they are intended to be done), it is no wonder that it never lasted.  It is obvious to me now that for years I was just “white-knuckling it,” but at the time, I thought that because I had drastically changed my old ways of eating that I was “better.”  Somehow, even though I was going to meetings, I didn’t even notice that I was missing the biggest message of all – – that I would not be able to keep this up alone.  I needed to be constantly improving my personal relationship with my Higher Power, which I never did back then.  I got to the point of believing in a Higher Power and asking for His help in keeping me abstinent, but I stopped there.  That’s why I would always start getting back into the “perfectionism” and the “obsession” that are symptoms of the soul-sickness I never addressed.  I had stopped bingeing, but I hadn’t stopped hating myself.

Things are so different now.  After having been through the steps, I no longer feel the need to be “perfectly” abstinent or to try all the the different types of abstinence out there that work for others.  I am unique and I need to find out what works for me, whether or not it works for others.  I eat fruits (even sweet dried ones!), I chew gum (minus the jaw pain!), I use artificial sweeteners (a little more than I probably should) , and I occasionally use breath mints (like a sane person – – only to freshen my breath when there is no gum around.  I can even keep them in my car now without fear of gobbling packs at a time!)  However, for me, I have given-up caffeine (to help with my anxiety issues), I don’t eat sugar or flour (to keep cravings to a minimum), I don’t eat anything chocolate-flavored or any salty snacks (it’s a a control thing!), and I use a limited amount of Agave per day as a natural sweetener (in the hopes of one day not using any artificial sweeteners at all).  But none of this is ME doing it – – it is my Higher Power restoring sanity to my life.  And it is this newly-found sanity that gives me the strength to be kinder to myself, to like myself, and to take care of myself.  On my own, I self-destruct.

Well, yesterday was the day.  In classic style, I did not eat or shower, and on the drive up, I tried to estimate what the number on the scale would be.  Since this was to be my second weigh-in on my newly revised (and minimized) food plan, I was feeling good.  Last time I had lost 3 more pounds, so, “according to my calculations,” I figured I had to lose at least that much.  Then I subtracted another pound just because I was feeling so “light,” and because that would make my grand total a cool 80 pounds!  HOORAY!!  Then I subtracted another pound for those two “are you losing more weight?” complements I got in the same week.  Hell, might as well make it TWO, one for each!  Surely I was shrinking fast.  By the time I pulled-up at the counselor’ office, I had successfully sold myself on the delusion that I had lost at LEAST 6 pounds.  IMAGINE!  I actually THOUGHT that all these incidents “added-up” to a physical number that would register on a scale!  No WONDER why that device always held such “weight” with respect to my self-esteem!  Too bad it was all pure LUNACY!

With empty pockets and shirtless, I stepped onto the scale.  I had only lost one pound!  ONE!  After all my SACRIFICING?!  Are you KIDDing me?!  I was really upset…for about ten minutes.  Luckily I usually have just about that much time alone in the waiting room before I get called-in to see my counselor.  Since this has happened many times in the past year, I have learned how to cope – by praying and focusing on the positives,…  But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed.

To me, this is the exact moment when all the program work I have been doing for the past six weeks really kicks-in.  If I have spent that time praying, meditating, spending time with God, going to lots of meetings, talking-out my feelings, and “doing the next right thing,” I am able to have enough sanity and clarity-of-thought to turn to my Higher Power and know that I will be able to get past this disappointment and move forward just like everyone else does.  However, if I have spent the past six weeks turning away from my Higher Power by getting wrapped-up in all the petty details of my life, giving-in to my negative ruminations (which is a form of mediation that hurts you rather than helps you), and isolating, then I am very shaky and run the risk of entertaining that most insidious question: why I am even bothering?  But I have come to realize that THAT RIGHT THERE IS the disease itself.  It is that gnawing feeling that keeps trying to convince me that all my hard work won’t pay off and that I will never be able to continue this for the rest of my life.   But in reality, I don’t HAVE to do ANYthing!  All I am doing is CHOOSING to do this ONE MORE DAY!  That’s IT!  That’s ALL I have to focus on!  TODAY I am going to be abstinent, and TODAY I am not going to worry about tomorrow!