First Step for real

Hi ____________,

I don't have much advice but can tell you my experience and feelings.

I just celebrated 19 years of sobriety, have been in OA for about 4 years and only now have strung together 3 or 4 months of fairly healthy abstinence. I've had periods of healthy eating before and lost and gained many pounds but never like this. This time the insanity of my eating disorder seems to have been removed and my abstinence feels comfortable. The foods I eat taste good and I don't feel deprived of anything. Actually, right now the term "abstinence" doesn't even sound or feel appropriate because it sort of implies I'm missing out on something fun or forbidden. I don't feel that way at all. This is a miracle to me and I don't take it for granted at all.

I wrestled with the First Step constantly since my first day in OA. I was very confused as to why I did so well in AA/NA and had such a hard time applying those same Steps and principles to my eating disorder. My recovery experience from drugs and alcohol felt intense and profound. Staying clean and sober was an all day every day job that consumed all my inner resources and then some for the first 3 to 4 years of my recovery. The first time I did the First Step in AA, I was literally shaking and trembling with fear and astonishment at the insights — it was a life altering experience that shook me to the roots of my soul.

Nothing like that was happening for me in OA. I'd do some First Step work and nod my head and that was it. I thought I understood Binge Eating Disorder and just how it had seriously screwed up my life, but the impact was almost nil. It was an intellectual exercise only.

I did finally and fairly recently, have a profound feeling level (spiritual) experience about my compulsive relationship to food. This happened in a 24 hour grocery store when I was on a four in the morning run to satisfy a craving and break my abstinence one more time again. I heard a voice saying, "you might as well just drink Dave, and I flashed on all the things I did way back in the bad old days to get and stay high. I saw and felt the direct relationship to my behavior back then and what I was doing with food now. I call this my doughnut epiphany. I was then able to go on and see clearly many areas that I had still been in denial about. Things in my recovery that I still wasn't accepting responsibility for. That was also the instant that my cravings disappeared. All of a sudden the thought of junk food turned my stomach. I then had what felt like an instinct to quit poisoning myself with processed foods and empty calories.

One of the things I was then able to add to my OA First Step was just how many ways in my life that food was a "mood altering substance". It wasn't just the eating of the food, it was planning a binge, hiding stashes of goodies, eating in secret, isolating, feeling stuffed and sick after a binge, worrying about what people thought of me, worrying about breaking chairs when I sat in them, shame... all these things altered my mood or masked things I needed to deal with and feel. I finally gave up the reservations and ambivalence I had long held about Binge Eating Disorder really being in the same league as chemical dependence and substance abuse. It should have been obvious how powerful my eating disorder was because I was in the pre-op processes for gastric bypass surgery. But that's how denial works. I was willing to undergo several hours of dangerous radical surgery with uncertain long-term consequences to my health, but not willing to choose to do other more obvious things like eat healthy food and exercise. That's not to say I had the power before my doughnut epiphany to make those healthier choices. Well, I did, but I didn't realize it at that point, or wasn't ready to make better choices until that very instant.

I also discovered a set of resentments I had and where I was letting my ego get in the way of my recovery from compulsive overeating. I resented the fact that after all the hard work I did in AA and NA, that I would once again be back at Step One over something as everyday common as food. I felt like this COE thing somehow put into question my experience and knowledge of the Steps and recovery process. I had to deal with these feelings and get my ego in check.

All that said, It took me countless food relapses and "I'll start again tomorrows" and failed eating plans to become willing and ready to realize I did have the power to make the choice to not abuse my self with food one day at a time (with the help of this group and my higher and helping powers). I need to look at each so-called failure as part of my recovery process. Don't get me wrong, I am not "healed" and I have a great deal of weight yet to lose. This is just an outline of my story about how my relationship to food has changed. For some people it happens really quick. I'm not one of those.

I think the main difference between this COE thing and recovery from alcoholism and drug dependence is that a lot of good things and healing can take place without being perfectly abstinent. It's not an All or Nothing proposition. Food may fog our thinking a little but not like being drunk or high on drugs. If you aren't ready or able yet to give up all the junk food, purging, restricting, or binging, do one small positive thing each day. Perhaps it's very small like eating a raw carrot with your lunch, changing from white bread to a more healthy whole grain bread, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator, but it is a step in the right direction and is progress you can give yourself credit for. That's pretty much how I did it. I didn't actually plan it that way, but that's how I changed what appealed to me over time. Slowly I developed a taste for healthy foods and even a preference for them. Over time my binging became less frequent and my ideas of abstinence less restrictive (diet like) and more well rounded. I guess the biggest thing is to "keep coming back" and to not give up before your miracles happen.

Love, Dave 10/15/2003