The First Step
Part 4 - Updated

"We admitted we were powerless over food — that our lives had become unmanageable"

The identification, admission, and honest acceptance of circumstances in which one is powerless actually increases one's power. No one can tell us that we have a serious eating disorder. No one can convince us with enough authority and conviction to make us go to the lengths necessary for recovery to begin. We must answer this for ourselves, and in such a way that all doubt is removed. If we hold any reservations, no matter how small, our recovery is in danger. The point where we give up all reservation is often called, “surrender”. We surrender to the facts. We cease fighting the truth. We surrender to the idea that we can’t get out of this mess by ourselves. This act of “surrender” offers us the freedom to begin recovery.

In Step One, the emphasis is on recognizing what we do and don't have control over. Step One involves becoming a better observer of reality, taking stock of ourselves in the most honest fashion, and eventually empowering ourselves to heal and grow. As we admit that we are powerless over some things, we begin to recognize that we do have some power over other things. We find we do have the power to cope with our feelings and begin to change our behaviors. We can learn to trust and become involved with other recovering people who accept us—who will love us until we learn to accept and love ourselves.

The foundation of our recovery hinges upon the admission that we, by ourselves, do not have power over our eating disorder. But we cannot stop there. If we do, our foundation will not be strong. A second admission must be made. We cannot say on one hand that we are powerless over our eating disorder, and on the other, that when or if we get our lives together, we will somehow have the willpower and personal drive to control our eating. This thinking eventually leads us back to our active disease and more compulsive overeating. We must understand that our eating disorder affects all areas of our lives, not just our eating or weight. Also that our compulsive eating disorder does not go away. We can keep it in remission, but it will always be there waiting for us to let our guard down.

Once we have an eating disorder it no longer matters, in any practical sense, which came first, the chicken or the egg, i.e., our weight problems or our living problems—our abuse issues or our eating disorders—our low self-esteem or our obesity. The fact is that successful recovery demands a balanced approach at healing all areas of our lives, physical, emotional, and spiritual.

Compulsive overeating as an illness is progressive and potentially fatal. This is a hard pill for many of us to swallow. In part because our society as a whole is still in denial about this disorder in much the same way it once was about the disease of alcoholism. But consider the statistics if the truth were told. Doctors and coroners rarely state that a person has died from compulsive overeating or from obesity. Instead they say for the record that someone died of a heart attack, stroke, or other resulting health problems. A study that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1999 stated that approximately 280,000 adult deaths in the United States each year are attributable to obesity. This is probably a very conservative figure. Eating disorders are also a very secretive type disease. Unfortunately many of us suffer alone and binge in secret. We don’t tell our doctors what we do when we are home alone. Another study suggests that the direct medical costs due to obesity in the U.S. are above 50 billion dollars (yes, billion). So the stark facts are hard to dispute. When one clears away the layers of denial it becomes apparent that compulsive overeating is progressive, debilitating, and can be fatal. Most of us are relieved to find out that we have an actual eating disorder rather than a moral weakness. We are not responsible for acquiring our disorder, but can assume responsibility for our recovery.

It is said that compulsive overeating affects us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The spiritual aspect of this disease can be viewed in a multitude of ways. It can be seen as an overtly religious problem to that subtle sense of chronic emptiness some of us feel in our lives that we inappropriately tried to fill up with food. It may manifest itself as a gnawing resentment that keeps us embittered and constantly reliving past painful events. It may come out as a series of failed relationships or chronic insecurity that leads to jealousy. It may be that we make excessive demands on those around us or we may appear distant and aloof to those who need us most. Perhaps we suffer from the agony of not really knowing how to give or receive love.

The book called “The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous” states, “We hid from our pain by eating, so we didn’t learn from our mistakes; we never grew up.” Admitting that we “need to grow up” requires a leveling of pride and a measure of humility that stems from the act of surrender. That place where we not only admit intellectually, but we feel deeply in our hearts that all of our attempts to control our eating behavior by ourselves have failed and that we are not managing our lives very well. The 12 Steps are intended to help induce a spiritual awakening—in other words, a growing up or maturing—the necessary change in attitude and perspective that is needed to heal and grow past the obsession and denial so we may recover. The principles in the Steps (Honesty, Hope, Faith, Courage, Integrity, Willingness, Humility, Self-Discipline, Love, Perseverance, Spiritual awareness, and Service) are areas of our lives that can be improved upon. Working a 12 Step program and practicing the principles of the Steps in all our affairs guides us to this more mature and less self-centered life where we can live comfortably on a daily basis without obsessing about or abusing food. This is described in the Big Book of A.A. as, growing along spiritual lines. Bill Wilson, cofounder of A.A., put it this way, "We are only operating a spiritual kindergarten in which people are enabled to get over drinking and find the grace to go on living to better effect."

Implied within the taking of the First Step is a great leap of faith— the faith that even though we haven't been able to control our eating behavior by ourselves and our lives had become unmanageable, help is available. At this point we don’t have to know exactly what it is or understand how it works. In fact we cannot. We just have to believe that our old ways of thinking did not work—and will never work— and that the Steps are worth our most serious effort. This is where the power of the Fellowship of Overeaters Anonymous steps in. The newcomer can draw on the experience, strength, and hope, of those who have gone before. They can see and hear first hand the results of the Program. Without this first inkling of faith—this spark of believable hope—the First Step makes little sense and I’m not sure I would recommend it. This was the great discovery of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous—the power of one sober alcoholic talking to another alcoholic who is still suffering. At the time, medical science had nothing to match and little else to offer. To this day nearly all treatment programs for chemical dependency utilize the 12 Steps. These same 12 Steps are the great starting point where many of us have finally found solutions that here-to-fore escaped us.

Step One takes Honesty, Open-mindedness, and Willingness. An Honest self-appraisal of how compulsive overeating affects your whole life—an Open-mindedness that puts aside all contempt prior to investigation—and a Willingness to go to any length to recover.

Upon completing Step One you have:

1. Admitted that by yourself you haven't been able to manage or control your compulsive overeating and that taking the first compulsive bite causes a lack of control and the loss of choice.
2. Admitted that the compulsive use of food has caused major problems in your life.
3. Admitted that as the result of your compulsive eating disorder, you have not been able to manage your life very well.

4. Admitted that you are powerless to manage your life effectively as long as you continue to eat compulsively.

Questions for journaling and contemplation.