Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

Step of the Month: Practicing these principles during the Holidays

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12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive eaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The holiday season is an open invitation to pig out. Christmas dinner, Hanukah festivities, New Years Eve parties, Kwanza celebrations. There’s food frickin’ everywhere. As OA members, we’re taught to use our program’s tools to support our abstinence, and this is always helpful advice. And if we need a little something extra, Step 12 provides a way.

If we recall the cycle of addiction, it always begins with a thought or feeling that we makes us uncomfortable. We obsess about food when we are mentally or emotionally activated. In recovery, we learn that to stop this cycle in its tracks, we must use the tools and Steps. But what if we could avoid this activation in the first place?

That’s what the Steps help us do. The holidays activate many of us because we spend them with the people who trigger us the most: our loved ones. They know how to get us going and which buttons to press to get us wrapped around the axel. They will assume the roles and characters they’ve always played in the family drama of our life. After all, they may not have a program, and we can’t expect them to change.

It is we who must play our part differently. If we do, we will be less prone to the mental/emotional activation that leads to the first bite.

But how do we do it? Step 12 suggests we apply the principles we’ve learned in the Steps. For example, the Big Book shares many important ideas, including the following:

  • resentment is the number one offender
  • fear is a corrosive thread in the fabric of our lives
  • kindless, love, and tolerance are our code
  • when we are wrong, we promptly admit it
  • our job now is to be of service to God and others
  • our only defense against the first bite is our Higher Power.

Even if we haven’t yet completed the Steps, we can put these principles into immediate practice. Here’s some examples:

Resentment is the number one offender
If we retain resentment against those we will celebrate with we have choices. We can not go. Or before going, we can work those resentments out using the 10th Step. At the very least, we need to acknowledge our hurts and be honest with someone about them so they don’t own us.

Fear is a corrosive thread in the fabric of our lives
Fear breeds resentment. Fear also breeds compulsive eating. If we are afraid of the situation in our holiday celebrations, we must ask our Higher Power for courage. Courage is the willingness to go forward despite our fear. We’ve been afraid all our lives, so we’ve eaten. Now is not the time to deny our fear and cross our fingers that we won’t be tempted to eat.

Kindness, love, and tolerance is our code
It’s easy to be fun and gentle around our easy-going loved ones. But what about the coarse, bigoted uncle who shouts his opinions at everyone else at the table? Or the bratty teenager who only cares about their phone? Or the sibling you’ve always butted heads with? We can ask ourselves a simple question: Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy? Nothing we say will change Uncle’s mind. Nothing we do will make that adolescent grow up. The more we try to control a sibling relationship, the more strained it gets. Instead of loading for bear, we can remember that we are as flawed as they are, if not more so and give them the same respect we ask in return.

When we are wrong, promptly admitted it
We addicts are prideful by nature. Our disease uses pride to generate resentments and keep us eating. So if we find ourselves arguing for argument’s sake, or if we find ourselves taking an invitation to a family fight, or if we are too snarky with someone, we can just admit it. Experience shows that we’ll be surprised and delighted by the results.

Our job now is to be of service to God and to others
Even if you don’t yet have a Higher Power, you can easily practice being of service to others. If you are visiting somewhere, ask to set or clear the table. Help with preparing food. Volunteer to go to the store to grab a missing ingredient. Pick up a baby or play with a little one to give a parent a break. Wash or dry the dishes. If you are hosting, mingle and talk with everyone one-to-one to help them enjoy the occasion. Be extra helpful to your spouse or cohost. Don’t try to control the day, just ask people to enjoy it with you.

Our only defense against the first bite is our Higher Power
This most of all. We can’t do it ourselves, but we are never alone if we invite the God of our understanding to show us the way to an abstinent holiday season. We don’t need stocking stuffers, holiday treats, or boozy drinks to feel aglow during the holidays. We only need to ask God to remind us of our gratitude for the blessings we have and to strengthen us in our times of temptation and need. Experience says God will be happy to do so.

Have a joyous and abstinent holiday season!

9 ways to turn Black Friday into Cyber Monday

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For us compulsive eaters, “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” can have very different meanings than for everyone else. One that we don’t like, and one that can really help us.

Thanksgiving might be better termed Amateur Day. All those normal eaters out there have their big turkey feast then fall asleep on the couch while watching the Lions or Cowboys. These normal eaters have seconds and feel as stuffed as the bird they were just consuming. Meanwhile, we compulsive eaters are just getting started. Actually, we probably primed the pump well before company arrived or before we got to our feast destination. Once there, we graze on appetizers, pick at the turkey to get the choicest pieces of skin, take extra helpings of everything, then pile in the pie. By 5:00 while everyone else is groaning about their bloated bellies, we’re thinking about turkey sandwiches.

Then comes our Black Friday. It might begin in the wee hours of the morning, with a sudden awakening to acid reflux. Or maybe we’re so full we never got to sleep in the first place and stayed up berating ourselves for gluttony once again. We get up in the morning feeling lethargic, burping, and wondering whether we’ll ever be able to control our eating. All the while, we know deep inside that we’ll never gain control, but our pride tells us to fight anyway. In this way, Thanksgiving is no different than many other days except in the volume of food at the dining room table.

Over the rest of the weekend we might tell a spouse or friend that we’re going on a diet on Monday. Or maybe after Christmas. Or in the New Year. We just need to get through the holidays. As Friday, Saturday, and Sunday roll by, we feel that familiar sense of failure and remorse, and our misery continues. Thanksgiving dinner didn’t fix it.

Luckily for us, however, we can interpret Cyber Monday in a different way as well. We can see it as an opportunity to look for the solution. We can go online to locate all kinds of OA resources that will guide us toward recovery from compulsive eating! Here’s a few examples for people in different parts of their OA journey.

Prospective members

  • Not sure if you’re a compulsive eater? Take this quiz and find out.
  • Visit this page for newcomers at OA.org to see what happens at meetings and hear podcasts of member’s experiences.
  • Read OA’s FAQ to learn the answers to questions commonly asked by newcomers.

Newcomers and returning members

Members who struggled on Thanksgiving

 

Support for Getting Through Thanksgiving

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keep calm and stop eatingWhile normal eaters plan what to eat on Thanksgiving Day, we compulsive eaters plan what not to eat. And we need a Higher Power to help us turn that plan into action. That can be a tough order if we go it alone, but we have two opportunities for support here in the Seacoast.

Seacoast OA’s annual Thanksgiving Day meeting

Join us for our annual face-to-face meeting in Portsmouth for a great start to an abstinent holiday!

9:00 AM to 10:00 AM
Thanksgiving day
North Church Parrish Hall (site of Thursday evening Portsmouth meeting)
355 Spinney Road, Portsmouth (corner of Spinney and Middle Road)
Enter through back door
Contact: Eric (207) 361-7032

OA Thanksgiving Day Phone Marathon

This all-day phone marathon features hourly meetings beginning at 8:00 AM East Coast time and lasting through 12:00 midnight. These are national phone meetings so you’ll be able to enjoy hearing from members in other areas. The marathon theme is Count Your Blessings.

8:00 AM to 12:00 AM
Thanksgiving day
Call-in number: (712) 432-5200
Conference ID number: 4285115 followed by # sign

Additional holiday phone marathons will be conducted on other holidays, including:

  • Veteran’s Day (November 11th)
  • IDEA Day (OA’s International Day of Experiencing Abstinence, November 15th)
  • OA 12th Step Within Day (December 12th)
  • Chanukah (December 17th)
  • Christmas Eve Day (December 24th)
  • Christmas Day (December 25th)
  • Kwanza and Boxing Day (December 26th)
  • New Years Eve Day (December 31st)

The call-in and conference ID numbers are the same for each. For more information, including the themes of these marathons, please click here for the 2014 Holiday Marathon Schedule. This schedule will also be posted on our front page and on the Meetings page of this site.