Reflections from Unity Day #2: Surrender

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In our previous post, we started to look back on what we heard at Unity Day. Here’s another gem from our speakers.

Compliance, they said, is not the same as surrender. Before we came to the program, many of us would comply with a diet program, lose the weight, then gain it all back…with “interest.” Why? Because we were just obeying. We didn’t surrender.

Surrender to what? To a lot of things. Surrender is a process that begins even before we walk in the door. “Step Zero” is surrendering to the idea that we’re in so much pain we have to do something about it. So we go to a meeting. That’s as far as some of us get because we may not yet be ready to surrender the idea that we can control our eating. Or our life. That’s the surrender of Step One, to the hopelessness of our disease and the damage it does to us.

As we hear others talk about their recovery in spiritual terms, however, we come upon another place to surrender. For many of us, Step Two feels like game over. We won’t go down the spiritual path because we’ve had negative experiences with religion, and we don’t want to admit we are insane. We might be able to surrender to the idea that God exists and has the power to help us, but we may not be convinced God cares about our food. We may believe that a Higher Power cares about others but not about ourselves. We might be able to surrender to the idea that we are bonkers about food, but at least that insanity is our own. Admitting to all of Step Two can be a lot to swallow, and we may need time, perhaps a lot of it, to fully surrender ourselves to it. Some of us require more “research” into the pain of compulsive eating before we reach a place of surrender. But that surrender must be ours.

Then comes Step Three with what feels like a monumental surrender. “We turned our will and our lives over to the care of God….” Even if we can surrender to Steps One and Two, we’re in a tough spot. Will we still be ourselves? Can I really trust a Higher Power? With my very life? Here’s the catch, though, we’ve trusted ourselves, and it’s gotten us misery. We turned our will over to food and let it drag us around to the fridge, to minimarts, to restaurants, to garbage cans, to other people’s plates, and worse. This was the best we could do with what we had, but now it’s time to try something else or, more accurately, Someone Else. We decide to surrender our will and our lives because it’s our last, best chance to live a life worth living. We didn’t come to OA on a winning streak. We didn’t sit through meetings to stay sick with this disease while others got better. We surrender to Step Three because the alternative is continued pain. It’s not until later, after we’ve tried it for a while, that we learn how joyful and how much easier life can be when we aren’t trying to run the show.

Merely complying with the Steps because a sponsor says we need a Higher Power just prolongs the issue. Pretending to turn our will and lives over to God doesn’t allow the solution to fully take hold. Even if we must “fake it ’til we make it” and “act as if,” we find at some point that we’ve stopped struggling and that even more surprisingly we’ve started accepting, if not downright believing, that this solution will work for us.

Reflections from Unity Day

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Unity Day 2015 was filled with helpful ideas about working the program and living in the solution one day at a time. Over the next few weeks, we’ll reflect on some of the most powerful ideas shared so that those who attended can hear them again, and those unable to attend can consider them as well. Today, weight “loss.”

One of our speakers said that they don’t like to talk about weight “loss.” That’s because when we lose things, it means we have a desire to find them again. But who among us wants to find the pounds we’ve shed in OA, whether it’s one or one hundred? Many of us have heard the funny but deadly accurate statement in the rooms: “I didn’t lose the weight—I know just where to find it.” We all know where to find it; it’s in the first bite.

Many members instead talk about releasing weight. When we cling to the weight it means we are clinging to our old, ineffective solution to life’s troubles, overeating. When we release the weight, it means we are on a journey toward trusting our Higher Power more effectively. Trusting a Higher Power and pursuing a food-based coping strategy are mutually exclusive. This is why one of our speakers today told us how spiritually painful it was during relapse to have a belly full of food and a mind full of program.

We might also hear members talk about “taking off” the weight. This can also be a powerful metaphor for us in recovery. Our bodies may be projections of our inner feelings, and those around us can tell that we are trying to protect ourselves from psychic pain through compulsive eating. We wear our disease in a way no other addiction does. Everyone can see that we are blocked from what the Big Book calls “the sunlight of the spirit,” except, perhaps, for us. But imagine us stepping out of our oversized bodies as if they were simply garments. It would be much easier for that spiritual light to shine on us and be reflected back out to the world.

Lastly, there are things in program we would never want to lose. Our abstinence, the fellowship of our OA friends, the feeling of usefulness that comes with service, the joy of living with a mind not clouded by our substance. When we do lose them, we search desperately because we are in pain without them. The great news is that we will never lose OA itself. It is always here for us. It will always help us stop eating, relate with others who share our problem, find a spiritual solution to anything that comes along, and pass it along to others as it was freely given to us. We never need to be at a loss again.

 

Member Experience #6: Trying Hard and Hardly Trying

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SeacoastOA member experiences provide experience, strength, and hope anytime. Sharing our experiences also strengthens our own recoveries. Click here to share yours.

OA is full of paradoxes that make sense only when you have experience. For me, one of them is that in recovery I’m trying hard to be hardly trying.

Trying hard means that I’m doing the footwork that OA recommends. I attend meetings regularly. I work the Steps daily. I do service. I sponsor. I use the Tools. I try hard to make the program a part of my daily life. Most important, I don’t eat no matter what, and no matter what I don’t eat.

That last sentence is where hardly trying comes in. It means that I don’t need to be obsessing about how much or how little I’m eating, about my food plan, or about the results. This is because I now have a Higher Power. OA shows me that instead of trusting my powerless self to keep myself abstinent, I need trust HP to change me and make it easier for me not to eat. So I try hard to have a relationship with God so that I don’t have to try as hard with my food.

There’s another meaning to “hardly trying” as well. We’ve all heard of someone with a trying personality. They are a pain in the butt, always wanting it their way or trying to be the center of some drama. By trying hard to work the program, I am also taught that I’m not so important that I need to be trying to those around me. The program tells us that we need to learn to be humble, and humble people don’t act out. Whenever I’ve acted out in my life, the victory was short-lived, and soon I’d be eating again over that crisis and whatever crisis I was next brewing up. When I’m hardly trying, I find out that God will sort things out without my needing to make a scene. That’s better for me and everyone around me, and it reduces the number of feelings I might want to eat over.

I learned this through experiences: by talking with my sponsor, by doing the Steps, and by acting as if. I’m changing, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly, into less of a trying person and more of someone who is OK in their own skin. Best of all, I don’t have to eat like crazy anymore or beat myself up for doing so. I’m trying hard and hardly trying thanks to OA.

 

Member Experience #5: How I Maintain My Abstinence

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SeacoastOA member experiences provide experience, strength, and hope anytime. Sharing our experiences also strengthens our own recoveries. Click here to share yours.

I’ve been in OA for over 34 years and have had my share of relapses during that time. I now have 18 years of back-to-back abstinence, and I’d like to share how I am maintaining that. Each relapse reinforced that I had to be willing “to go to any length” to recover.

First, I need to say that “God does for me what I cannot do for myself.” This clearly means that I need to maintain contact with my HP through daily “quiet times,” prayers that I can say throughout the day, which come to mind quickly (i.e. the Third Step Prayer and the Seventh Step Prayer) and practicing conscious contact with God. I also silently say to myself different “slogans” that have helped me through the years to get through the “ups and downs”: “This too shall pass”; Live and let live”; First things first”, etc. These help me to regain perspective and provide comfort if I’m troubled or distressed throughout the day.

I have worked the Steps through many different processes…and personally, have found that the Big Book Step Study Process has been the most thorough and “life transforming” for me. I was able to thoroughly look at my part in my resentments and specifically do the “turnarounds” that helped me see exactly what had triggered the resentment. The “turnaround” piece of the inventory has provided me with a tool I can use when new potential resentments arise.

I also work the program like my life depends on it…because I really feel it does. I have a “cunning, baffling and powerful” disease and left to my own devices, the addiction always wins. When, in the past, I worked the program with “half measures”, I found that I would always eat again.

I commit my food daily to my sponsor and also have sponsees who do the same with me. I try to make an effort to call my sponsor if I have a food change. Although I have a flexible food plan (no sugar or alcohol), I also find it very important to commit my specific food plan daily including the amounts, which I weigh and measure when I’m home.

I attend meetings…. I try to go to three a week but sometimes only make two. I will supplement with more phone calls if I’m unable to go to three meetings. Phone calls are important because they keep me connected with others who are walking this path and gets me out of myself and my own problems. I also do service in other ways and find this is an essential part of my recovery. As the Big Book states: “Nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics.” I’ve done service on all levels (local, region and world service), and I find that the members of OA who give the most service generally stay in recovery. I try to say “yes” when asked to do anything in OA, if possible.

Another important part of my program is to practice gratitude! This, for me, means specifically identifying at least three things a day that I’m grateful for. This really helps me keep a positive perspective and decreases negativity and depression.

Member Experience #4: What About the God Thing?

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SeacoastOA member experiences provide experience, strength, and hope anytime. Sharing our experiences also strengthens our own recoveries. Click here to share yours.

I did a lot of research about OA before I walked in the door of my first meeting. The God thing had me worried because I had finally shaken off my religious upbringing. I considered myself a committed atheist. In reality, I was an atheist who should’ve been committed.

I knew some 12-Step folks, and they told me, to a person, that I didn’t have to worry about the God business. Later I learned this was a gentle way of saying don’t let your pride and your prejudices get in the way of a joyful recovery. Soon, you all showed me that it didn’t matter what my belief about God consisted of, so long as I believed three things:

  1. There was a Power great than myself
  2. This Power had the ability to change my food behaviors for me
  3. This Power would do so, if I created a relationship with It.

Nothing there about beards, lightning bolts, or afterlives. Nor anything about my character or that I had to fear punishment. Nor anything about any appointed person I had to go through in order to seek this power. In fact, the three points I learned told me that this Power loved me and wanted a direct relationship with me. Perhaps most important: I could believe anything else about a Power greater than myself that I wanted to and that helped me recover.

It took me about six or eight months to fully comprehend this idea, but when I did, OA opened up for me in an amazing way. Abstinence wasn’t something I had to fight for, it was something that I asked for, participated in, and gratefully received. It took me another year before I comfortably used the word God, but it’s faster to say than “Higher Power.” It took me a little more time yet to be willing to capitalize the G in God. I do so now because it reminds me that God is a real thing, and because It has helped me, so I owe the respect of an uppercase letter. A small thing? Yeah, but for a former atheist, a huge change.

In the end, I suppose that the organized religion of my youth might yet consider me an atheist because I don’t believe in its concept of god anymore. That’s OK with me nowadays; everyone has the right to their own beliefs. And today I believe in a concept that works for me and keeps me out of the food and in OA. The God thing worked out just fine.

OA.org recently added a page to its site called To Atheists and Agnostics which is well worth a moment to read.

Member Experience #3: The Rewards of Service

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SeacoastOA member experiences provide experience, strength, and hope anytime. Sharing our experiences also strengthens our own recoveries. Click here to share yours.

For me there are two types of Service that I enjoy. One is helping at meetings with either setting up or cleaning up: dealing with pamphlets and books and chairs. This takes me out of my “I think I gotta rush” mode and keeps me in the present and grateful for the space and the other efforts of those who create meetings and/or make them successful. The personal outcome for me is usually one of greater connection to my Self, feeling good and happy. This reminds me, a recovering competition hound, that service does not have to be about creating thunder and being noticed, but quietly being helpful.

The other service is being available for phone calls and sponsorship. One does not necessarily preclude or exclude the other. The telephone may ring at an inconvenient time, and by answering it, I stay in gratitude for my own program and bless those who have made themselves available to me at various hours of the day. Answering the call says God must need me now—God must want to show me something about myself. When I help another I am helped, always. When I even think that the call is inconvenient, I pause and ask God for help ahead of time. I listen slowly to the person on the phone, I speak slowly to the person on the phone and try to listen to the Voice inside that may need to be repeated outwardly or just taken into my heart and pray for both of us, the caller and me. This too never fails to strengthen my personal walk.

I think it is important to do the service that edifies. If I am not enjoying doing it, then I have no cause to do it, because where there is the slightest resentment God cannot be present. These are things that help me grow and help me be free from “the bondage of self.”

Online Steps workshop!

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Working ALL 12 Steps Online Workshop2015 is our year of Steps, Sponsorship, and Service. Now OA is offering online virtual workshops to help you gain understanding and experience of the 12 Steps.

Listen to the introductory session on “Step Zero” at oa.org, which OA.org describes as:

Members talk about what gave them the gift of desperation, and journal questions are offered to help members prepare to work the 12 Steps as the workshop continues.

Each workshop is the second Sunday of each month, from 3:00 to 4:00 PM ET. Sessions are being recorded and will eventually be posted at OA.org.

So mark your calendar now, and on February 14th, call to join at:

  • Conference line: (424) 203-8405
  • Pin code: 952619#

If you have any questions at all, contact vst4oa@hotmail.com. Here’s a flyer to remind you that will also be posted on our front page. Please share with other members.

Member Experience #2: Nothing Tastes as Good as Abstinence Feels

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SeacoastOA member experiences provide experience, strength, and hope anytime. Sharing our experiences also strengthens our own recoveries. Click here to share yours.

I had been coming to OA meetings for about four months. Although I had not found abstinence yet, I had somehow been controlling the wildest of the bingeing that brought me to OA and had consequently lost about 15 pounds.

I spent a great deal of time in those early months unsure whether I belonged in OA or not. You know what they say about denial. In any event, by the grace of God, I kept coming to meetings. 

Leaving a meeting one evening, I suddenly decided it would be a good idea to hit a drive-thru window, and not just for the scintillating conversation. This would be a transgression of a self-imposed bottom line, but that didn’t seem such a big deal at the time. I ordered and ate with no real satisfaction. As I finished the last of the bag’s greasy contents, I had a moment of truth. And I saw the truth. I had eaten a bag full of empty calories, without my own permission. It was in that moment I decided I want what you OAs have and was willing to go to any lengths to get it. 

I called a fellow OA member the next day, put together a food plan, and committed to abstinence. I’ve been able, through the tools of the program, the support of fellow OAs, and the grace of God, to maintain my abstinence on a daily basis since then. I can’t say I’m glad I hit that drive-thru, but if that’s what it took to bring me to what I have today, I certainly don’t regret it. And nothing tastes as good as abstinence feels!

Share your experience in 2015!

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Reach out, share your experience

You have to give it away if you want to keep it.

This year, SeacoastOA wants to hear about your OA experiences! We hope to post OA member experiences as frequently as possible in 2015 to help as many compulsive eaters as we can. You can help by sending us a little nugget of your experience!

We’ve made it easy to share. We’re looking for quick, inspirational experiences, not whole stories. These will be completely anonymous, no names attached. This is open to our local members as well as anyone in the OA fellowship who stops by our site and wants to join in. We’re glad to hear from all those joining us on the road to happy destiny!

Here’s all you have to do.

1.) Pick a topic—Here are some suggestions:

  • Getting Abstinent
  • Staying Abstinent
  • Why I Keep Coming Back
  • Step of the Month
  • Tradition of the Month
  • My Favorite Tool
  • Sponsoring
  • Being Sponsored
  • The Rewards of Service
  • The Power of the Fellowship
  • one of your own choosing.

2.) Write 300 to 600 words—One side of a piece of paper or both.

3.) Send it to us whichever way is most convenient:

  • Email—SeacoastOA@gmail.com
  • Snail mail—Seacoast OA, Box 666, York, ME  03909
  • Hand delivery—Eric C. or Barbara B.

4.) Relax and take it easy—We’ll proofread it carefully, and we will safeguard your anonymity by withholding your name.

That’s it!

If you enjoy it, send us another! There’s no limit on how many of these little nuggets we’ll accept from one individual.

If you have any questions at all, drop a line to SeacoastOA@gmail.com. Member experiences are the most popular kinds of content on our website, and we hope that in 2015 we can provide many more of them. Ideally, we would share one a week, but even one fortnightly or monthly will help a lot of people.

We have to give our recovery away if we want to keep it, and sharing is one of the most basic ways we do service. It helps your recovery, those of our local members, newcomers, and those outside the Seacoast region who visit our site each day (and they do!). Please share what you’ve learned with others.

Thanks in advance for your service,

The team at SeacoastOA.wordpress.com

 

Unity Day 2015 Coming to the Seacoast

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Unity Through DiversityIf you haven’t heard, Seacoast OA is hosting Unity Day in our area. It’s been a long time since we’ve had the opportunity to do so, and we’ve got a dynamite day  planned. Details below!

What is Unity Day?
A day to recognize the strength of the OA fellowship worldwide. As the first Tradition says—”Our common welfare should come first, personal recovery depends upon OA unity.” The Traditions, the solution we find in OA, and our group conscience bind us together in unity and common purpose. “I put my hand in yours and together we can do what we could never do alone!”

Who’s invited?
Everyone! Come one, come all! Newcomers, returning members, and long-timers alike! A great opportunity for sponsors and sponsees. Bring a program buddy for a fun and inspiring afternoon.

How will Unity Day help my recovery?

  • You’ll hear three diverse experiences of attaining and keeping the abstinence that helps unify us, with speakers from Intergroups in the nearby region.
  • You’ll join OAs worldwide at 2:30 PM for a powerful moment of reflection that reaffirms the strength inherent in OA’s unity.
  • You’ll enjoy a special focus on our common solution to compulsive eating with a workshop on Steps 1, 2, and 3, guided by a member of the NH Intergroup.

When will it be?
Saturday, February 28th, 2015 from 1 PM to 4 PM.
SNOW DATE IF NECESSARY: March 14th, 2015 from 1 PM to 4 PM.

Where will it be?
Portsmouth Community Campus
100 Campus Drive
Portsmouth, NH 03801

Is there a fee or registration?
No, there is no fee and no registration.

Is there a flyer I can share with members at my meetings?
Yes, you can download it by clicking on the 2015 Unity Day flyer, and you will find it on our front page and under the Meetings menu above.