Back, from outer space

         I have been thinking a lot lately about allowing for God's will to guide and direct me. OA recommends submitting one's own will, with the suggestion that personal willpower will not heal us. Sometimes that can be confusing, don't we need willpower to stop overeating?

I think it's good to admit confusion with OA principles (or with anything), but I do also know that in general when I'm worried or fearful I always feel better the more fully I am able to "give it to God." So it makes sense to give the fear that causes my overeating over to God.

When I overeat, it is out of fear and worry. Sometimes I eat because I'm happy, or seemingly that's why I'm eating, what I've realized is that I often run into fearfulness that I'll lose happiness. So even happy times cause great anxiety. I'm often waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Returning to this blog a little over a year later, I would like to focus more on the positive. I think when I began in OA it was important to me to feel like I was being honest about my shadows, acknowledging my compulsive behavior, looking my addiction square in the face.

And of course that is still important. But I also want to be honest about my strengths, my joys, about the progress I've had.

I am newly abstinent again. I've moved back to eastern Ky to be near my family, and that's been a great change. Partly due to OA, and additionally from getting back to my roots and my sense of rootedness, I'm happier at this point of my life than I've ever been. At the same time, even while continuing to become happier and better adjusted following a major depression in 2006, I haven't been abstinent for a long time.

Abstinence itself doesn't bring happiness. But I know, that as a fairly calm and contented person (these days! and believe much I'm much happier and more centered even than when I started this blog) that I deserve, in my contentedness, to be treating myself with good health and with the continued mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being that comes with abstinence and the freedom from the insanity of compulsive eating.

Irrational and Self-Destructive

"As I look with complete honesty at my life, how have I acted in an extremely irrational and self-destructive manner where eating is concerned?" --Step 2, Question 1, OA 12 Step Workbook

I've made myself physically sick, pushing myself close to having problems with diabetes. I've caused myself to gain enough weight that my knees have had difficulty bearing my weight. I've found it difficult to do things that people of a more moderate size can do (like fitting into an amusement park ride, an airplane seat, finding pantyhose that fit well, finding clothes easily).

I've eaten so much that I've made myself constipated, and then still ate more. Once I ate so quickly I started choking, and then tried to take another bite while still choking on my last bite.

I've convinced myself I couldn't afford "healthy" food but then spent a ton of money on unhealthy food. I've hidden how much I've eaten. I've stolen food, putting myself at legal risk.

I've gone to a buffet before, thinking to myself "I bet these people think I'm just stuffing myself, but they don't know that I'm actually losing weight because I'm exercising." I've convinced myself on multiple occasions that I could be losing weight even though I was overeating.