We Can't Quit!

Like compulsive overeaters, normal eaters will sometimes find pleasure and escape from life’s problems in excess food. Compulsive overeaters, however, often have an abnormal reaction when we overindulge. We can’t quit. A normal eater gets full and loses interest in food. We compulsive overeaters crave more. ~  The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous (Kindle Location 68-70).

Sure, we can't quit eating when we first enter,
but it's a difference continuing, establishing our course.
We can with help from a greater power,
with tools and understandings, with working the steps,
but no matter how well we l know...and honor...the program,
We Recovery People cannot stop, must keep on keeping on.
doing what we have been doing, for we remain powerless,
we still have unmanageable lives, and alone cannot hold the prize,
if we fail to remember, we can't quit!!

Luminosity

...that where there are shadows, I may bring light— that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. ~ Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (p. 99). AA World Services, Inc. Kindle Edition.

Switch the light on.
Sometimes dim is better, but when it is
understanding, care, emotions bring the glow.
We can be the light, the joy, the glow,
or we can find it in others, make the place
comfortable, a source of good feelings,
so the inherent lights of others shine.
I can bring the light, find the light,
or help others to find it within.
Let there be joy and light wherever I go.

A Minute poem

The rules for a minute poem:

• 3 quatrains (or 4-line stanzas)
• 8 syllables in the first line of each stanza
• 4 syllables in the remaining lines of each stanza
• rhyme scheme: aabb/ccdd/eeff
• written in strict iambic meter

Recovery in twelve clear moves
each one improves
the life, the heart
and makes a start

to right existence, mend the soul,
reclaim control
of hopelessness
to happiness.

a simple, not easy way of life
made free from strife,
God's way, not mine,
the two align

a life worth living, peace abides
whate're betides
the life you'd choose
and then pursue

God Is my Oxygen Tank

My life is unmanageable by me.
I'm powerless over my obsession.
I have to have help, but not just assistance.
I'm dependent on my Higher Power
not just for guidance, for leading me
in the right direction, but for life itself.
Sometimes briefly I might muddle through
without the assistance, but if I am to thrive,
I need constant assistance like his providing
my every breath.

The Recovery Marathon

Bursting free from obsession
is never a a sprint,
a race once  around the circle.
It's not a do-it, done, over but a fixture,
a permanence, a staple of life.
It's not a billboard, all you need to know,
simplified to read in a glance.
It's holding the course along a road
flattened out for the long haul,
a way of life for the rest of your life.

Unity Day

Our common welfare should come first, personal recovery depends upon OA unity. Tradition One

The last Saturday in February all over the world
we recognize Unity Day in Overeaters Anonymous.
More than 6,500 registered groups in over 80 countries,
about 60,000 members worldwide, we recognize the bonds
uniting each of us, the strength we represent
when we put our hands in those of diverse people
speaking languages we don't understand,
facing challenges we've never imagined,  along with
the one we share, a desire to stop eating compulsively.
And we know beyond a doubt that together, hand-in0-hand,
we find love and understanding beyond our wildest dreams.

...and together we'll walk these steps.

The Newcomer

 She came in a few minutes after the meeting started.

Ginger was leader for the day and and answered her
"Is this where you talk about losing weight?"

with a "Yes, and other things. We're all people

who have compulsive behavior about food."

Ginger offered her a newcomer chip,
but she shook her head."I just want to listen," she said.

We continued reading from the Twelve and Twelve

then sharing about what we'd read and how it affected us.

When going around the circle she was next,

Ginger said, "You may read and share or only read

or only share or do neither."

She looked at the book she held and the next paragraph

and read, "We have stolen food from our friends, family,
and employers, as well as from the grocery store."
She hadn't finished the sentence when she sobbed,
groaned and bolted from the door.
There wasn't a dry eye in the room.
Dru and I followed her stopped her
at the door to her car.
We three sat in mine right next to hers
as Sue and I spoke for the others,
telling her we remember
vividly that feeling, that despair when we first came.
We told her welcome home, she had found her people.

 

If Only I Hadn't Acted like Myself

The habits are congealed, rock solid.
I’m a private person, a cosmopolitan hermit.
Small talk is water torture, chitchat anathema,
meeting people the bane of my existence.
I arrive on time, to the minute, leaving no time,
no interstices for pleasantries.
I sit in a crowd and listen, a silent voyeur.
Give me a leadership role or let me stay home.
I’m not a herd animal.

I attended my first Overeaters Anonymous meeting
twenty-something years before I joined.
I arrived as the meeting began, left when it ended.
I spoke to nobody and they reciprocated.
I left as soon as the meeting ended.
If only I hadn’t acted like myself,
That roomful of people had a program I needed
and would have found without wasting years
searching for what was there.

Nothing Will Ever Change

In the beginning God created the world
and it was…and is… good.
Nations rise and empires fall.
The climate heats up and ice ages come.
Species emerge and become extinct.
Horrible events happen and time heals wounds.
God is in charge and the world is…and will be good.

Things Will Never Be the Same

Today is different from yesterday,
Tomorrow will be nothing like today.
Yesterday’s mistakes can foul today.
Right choices from past days
improve the prospect of today.
Things will never be the same,
but Daddy wasn’t omniscient
in saying “There is nothing new and improved.”
Today is different than yesterday
but we have tomorrow’s
promises in our quiver of choices.

Simple, Not Easy

They're simple, not east.
Twelve steps,
Eleven hundred forty-five characters,
Two hundred one of those spaces.
Awakening, principles, meditation,
overeaters, and unmanageable
the only words with four or more syllables,
thirty-two two-letter words,
Memorize the steps in a day,
work through them in a few months,
but spend the rest of your life
understanding what they mean.

Service

Do what you can for your fellows,
for strangers, for people who need
to find what you found.
Love because that's what's best
for you, for people you affect
It's the Twelfth Step,
It's one of the tools,
it's what keeps you coming back.
It's service.

Call Me at 6:30 Every Morning

I’m glad to be your sponsor
and grateful for the trust
You’ll call me and I’ll answer
I know it’s early but you must.

You’ll tell me of the day before
mistakes you made, the good and bad
of choices  that make you cringe or soar.
Say what you’ll eat that day - each tad.

I’ll ask you what that day may bring
to challenge you, to taunt, delight
and how you might do anything
to end the day content, just right.

We’ll work the steps, one every week
beginning with the first.
And in time you’ll find life that was bleak
has changed, brightened, the course reversed.

Cacomorphobia

The fear of fat.You might believe
the phobia to be the exclusive purview
of the obese, but you would be wrong.
It torments the anorexic, the exercise bulimic,
the person addicted to laxatives, even
those suffering from drunkorexia.
Fear is fear, and body issues
and fear of fat in any guise
has a solution,
and that is Overeaters Anonymous.

Techie Service

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

 

Giving service is vital
but when it matches
your abilities and interests

you can make a position
to serve with real service.
My attempts to act as treasurer
are inevitably misery
for me and those who
comprehend how to add
and subtract.
But taping speakers,
making them available
for years to come,
maintaining websites
and digital communication
I'm far from flawless
but even when far from flawless
this is vital Twelfth Step work.

 

What Is Sanity?

Now that’s sanity. ~ Voices of Recovery (Kindle Location 456).

The definition says ability to think and behave
in a normal, rational manner.
Edgar Allen Poe said, "“I became insane,
with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
Mark Twain proclaimed, "Sanity and happiness
are an impossible combination."
Carl Jung promised, “Show me a sane man
and I will cure him for you.”
But what does it mean when we say
we came to believe a higher power
could restore us to sanity?
It's defined, you know?
Knowing a new freedom, new happiness.
Not regretting the past or wanting to shut that door.
Comprehending serenity and knowing peace.
Seeing how our experience can benefit others.
Feeling useless and self-pity vanishes.
Intuitively knowing how to handle situations.
Realizing God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
That's sanity.

February

The second month is like Step Two.
You look around for help,
pass through birthdays of great men,
a day of love, wonder how the men were great,
what extra they might have had.
you wonder how a groundhog
could be right so often,
wonder if there is not something beyond,
some strength when sought to make greatness,
some source for love that might, possibly
turn around the issues faced in the first.

Do Recovery

The tools of Recovery
are acts, not thoughts
with one possible exception.
For meetings we go to places,
or pick up the telephone and dial in
or connect to a virtual meeting.
Writing is not thinking
but typing, keying, pen to paper
or speaking into a microphone
attached to a speech recognition app.
Literature can be read, listened to,
or responded to in a workbook.
A Plan of Eating is an abstract idea
until you eat the foods planned.
An Action Plan can be exercise
creating a schedule, listing gratitudes,
prayer and meditation, using other tools.
Sponsorship is meaningless if just a term.
If both sides of the relationship
are not actively involved,
not just "being" but doing.
The Telephone, the bane of existence,
or so it seems doesn't accomplish recovery
in purse, pocket or on desk –
it must be used for verbal,
texted or emailed communication
about Recovery.
Service is action. setting up rooms,
accounting for money, speaking, sharing.
Twelve-Stepping, many deeds.
Anonymity can be silence,
sticking to your own side of the street
but sometimes it's action...responding
"We have mutual friends" when asked,
"How do you two know each other?"
Mostly anonymity is what we repeat time after time,
"Who you see here, what you hear here,
when you leave here, let it stay here.
So, Do Recovery!

Principles Before Personalities

Your importance
matters little to me.
The titles you hold,
the list of your achievements,

goals you have reached.

Rather, I care what you know,
your understanding of
eternal principles,
your alignment with the universe.
Anonymity keeps the focus
as it should, emphasizing
principles rather than personalities.

 

Attraction Rather than Promotion

Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion... Tradition Eleven

We would not spend any time trying to convince anybody of anything because if they're not asking, your answers are just irritating. ~ Abraham

We have celebrities in Overeaters Anonymous.
But  we will not tell you who.
Who else would pass up that publicity?
It makes good sense, though.
Would you be more likely to respond
to one...or several entertainers
or to the person you know,
having watched their life change
from misery to a serene joy?
Come check us out
and see if after a while we don't all
seem like rock stars to you?

Needing a Meeting!

In cities it's not hard to find a meeting
when you need one...when life grabs you
and you could be pulled away without
the life vest there is a meeting.
And it's most likely to happen on holidays
with the pressure of family, feasting,
traditional...sanctioned...bingeing.
And if the crisis strikes at two in the morning
what can you do? Find a meeting,
even if you live in a village.
Get online and find a telephone
or virtual meeting, gather with people
from various countries, in your hometown,
in cities, hamlets, farms and ranches.
Put your hand in ours
and together we can do what
we could never do alone.

Handling Abstinence

“God willing, we … may never again have to deal with drinking, but we have to deal with sobriety every day.” ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition (Kindle Locations 6456-6457)

God willing, when we get to Overeaters Anonymous,
we're here for the rest of our lives. When we're in the food,
we know the goal. Don't do the insanity any longer!
While we may dream of gradually
adding back in the foods we craved...
imagining it really could be in the past tense,
that we can learn moderation now when
it was lightyears beyond the possibilities then...
No, in our heart, in our minds, we know
that's a pipe dream, or actually a gutter pipe nightmare.
Instead, we have the gift of abstinence, and it is a gift
even on the days when the "good-old-days" beckon,
and that does happen, when we don't cherish the gift of abstinence
well enough to keep it. It's true, we have to deal with sobriety,
with abstinence, every day of our lives, but it's worth, that's
our wishes come true!

A Hibernating Pregnant Bear

Food, give me food!
I've eaten the berries, the leaves,
the twigs, nowI'm gnawing the trunk.
Honey! Give honey me! I need sweet!!
I found a hive, ate the honey, the honeycomb,
the bees, the hive!  More honey, Give me more!
I ate a whole meadow bare, roots and all.
There was a moose there, I ate him first!
I'm so hungry! Give me food!!

 

I'm not really a bear, I just ate like one,
but I couldn't sleep through the night,
got up to prowl, sometimes to make a 3-o'clock

run to get more, a couple of cakes,

a tub of ice cream. I was like that,
but now I'm not, have found twelve simple steps
that made me human again.

Nothing Normal About It

Wake up, get on the scales
before breakfast, naked.
Eat the breakfast you serve the family.
Garb a cappuccino and apple fritter
on your way to work, dump trash
at recycling center a couple blocks
from work. Run in and weigh
at the chiropractor's next to office,
settle in to work station with coffee
and one of the sweet-rolls Susan brought.
Hit the candy machine at eleven.
Go to buffet with your diet buddy...
if she's blowing it you can, four plates.
two for dessert. A Blizzard on the way home,
drop off the cup at the convenience store trash.
Weigh then make yourself vomit
then dress for dinner, the special
includes dessert, so you've got to eat it.
Put the exercise tape on, start,
but give it up and go to bed.
Tomorrow you'll do it right.

  

Restored to Sanity

I feel a calmness and a confidence that produce realistic expectations under adversity. Now that’s sanity. ~Voices of Recovery (Kindle Locations 455-456).

The program talks of coming to believe
a Power greater than I could restore me to sanity?
What?? Sure, I can see I'm powerless over food
and that the remainder of my life
had passed the point of my being able to manage it.
But how could those two statements define me
as insane? Insanity: a severely disordered
state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder.
I've looked at the DSM's specific disorders and they're not me!
Anxiety Disorders, Bipolar and Related Disorder, Disruptive,
Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders, Dissociative Disorders,
Feeding and Eating Disorders -- oops!!
Surely that's not really one.Neurocognitive Disorders
Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Personality Disorders
Sleep-Wake Disorders
Somatic Symptoms and Related Disorders
Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders
Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorders
Anxiety Disorders, Bipolar Disorders,
Dissociative Disorders...
In legal settings insanity is
unsoundness of mind
or lack of the ability to understand
that prevents one from having
the mental capacity required by law
to enter into a particular relationship,
status, or transaction
or that releases one from criminal or civil responsibility.
So just how did I need to be restored to sanity?
If it really means feeling
calmness and confidence
that produce realistic expectations
under adversity... that I needed,
and I'll accept that marvelous promise!

Enough Time

A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace. Ecclesiastes 3:6-8(NASB)

Obsession.
I had it. I kept it.
It remains here.
No! I will not give up.
I will find it.
It’s mine.
I give up seconds,
minutes, hours,
weeks,
months,
years,
but I will find it.
No matter what I miss
looking for the prize.

God, give me perspective.
Give me today
and keep me
from throwing it
away.

Change the Way You Live

Since you’re animated by the eternal Tao, this tale’s message of greatness invites you to change the way you live and to see the life you’re living change. ~ Dyer, Wayne. Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao (p. 117).

Look where you choose. This is the Tao,
created something like 2600 years ago,
or at least a 21st century version of the thoughts.
Paul, having left behind the misery of being Saul,
wrote from prison, saying, "I've learned to be content
anywhere, in any circumstances. Abraham-Hicks says,
"You send out your rocket of desire of what you do want,
and now you stand in a fresh new place."
This is the message of Recovery...Act as if and you will become.
Choose your own Higher Power and change your life
and find the life you want to have.