Leave the Peace

I'm right, you know. He's wrong. Why can't he see? No, it changes nothing, I know. But still -- It doesn't matter. Giving him that last word doesn't make him right, doesn't hurt my truth. If I could change his mind, I would. But I can't. I'll change my response, my rage, my pride. Any fool can quarrel. And anyone at peace can leave the peace.

Last House on the Block

Many OA members describe OA as the last house on the block. I do not know if that is true since I do not know where the block begins or ends. I do know that what I found in OA can be found only in the heart and mind of another recovering compulsive overeater. ~ Voices of Recovery (Kindle Locations 215-217). Where was your block? Mine was a physician's suggestion I have bariatric surgery and being convinced  could not when someone important to me had lost hundreds with a weigh and pay organization. I could not be weaker, could not "cheat" in my way of thinking. So I had to find a "fair" way to loose, something that had actively evaded me for half a century. It couldn't I knew, but someone I trusted said it would, and she was right! I now know that what I found in OA can be found only in the heart and mind of another recovering compulsive overeater. The last house on the block!

I Kept Coming Back

I'd come to meetings a month before I spoke, told my name, another before I could follow name with admission. Six months before I shared in group, tentative steps toward Steps. Thirteen years later, I see that slow works but cheated me out of joy I sought, but slowed down.

Implosion Exploded

aaaauuuuggghhh! Life sucks! My family won't speak or friends, either, except cussing, threats, dirt. I've lost my car, my home, my cat even! My life has imploded, all reduced to the lump of coal that's me. aaahhh!! Letting go feels so good! Others are like me -- and like me! Impossible evolves to doable, unbearable fades to comfortable. Love blossoms around me, exploding to heaven on Earth

The Program Packaged

One hundred sixty-four pages and eleven personal stories, one big book - made big with cheap paper, large type, sent out into the world, "one man with this book in your hand" and the belief it contains all you will need to begin. From three fledgling groups, one hundred strong, one big book was enough for millions of people, hundreds of thousands of groups, and hundreds of other addictions. One book, containing recovery.

A ind Is a Terrible Thing to Lose

It comes and goes, my sanity. Most time time I'm fine, or at least that's how it feels. Then stress and fear kick in as the mind dissolves to mush, fears take hold and fetch awful eventualities, pilfered from those who rebuffed the fears, refused to yield to stress, who kept sanity while I was losing mine.

As for those who were held in high esteem — whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism — they added nothing to my message. ~ Galatians 2:6 (NIV) An alcoholic who has recovered, but holds a relatively unimportant job, can talk to a man with a better position. Being on a radically different basis of life, he will never take advantage of the situation. (Alcoholics Anonymous: the "Big Book," Kindle Locations 1861-1862, "To Employers")

Wisdom has nothing to do with intelligence, education. Recovery doesn't come by degrees made up of letters and periods. Intelligent we are in many respects but insane – lunatics — where addiction is involved. certain simple things, commence on a simpler level,  follow a few simple rules. Simple, not easy, achieved only with the destruction of self-centeredness. Then comes wisdom, when intelligence, education,  experience have become tools of simplicity. God, please block my smarts until I grasp simplicity.

Holding Out for Purity

This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. (NIV)  Galatians 2:4-5 Soon A.A. was beset by these very problems on every side and in every group. But out of this frightening and at first disrupting experience the conviction grew that A.A.’s had to hang together or die separately. We had to unify our Fellowship or pass off the scene. (Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book Kindle Locations 97-99, foreword to the second edition.) Holding on to truth, holding out for purity staying the course without apostasy. Truth wields a mighty sword, impervious,  indestructible yet truth can fall to insidious mutation, to good intentions, to obfuscating clarification. A good thing, a godly thing, a god thing  we have here. God knows how we can keep it! God, save us from the conviction  we can always tweak something for the better.

Not a Glum Lot

The diet mentality made us all glum, defensive, angry. That's what many of us expected here in the rooms of recovery. Imagine someone...a lot of someones.... learning what you did to hide your eating, to keep people from knowing you bought a dozen sweetrolls "for the office" then drove a longer way so you could eat them all instead, stopping by a park to dump the wrappings before getting there. You'd want to bury yourself first, yes? But we would not, we in Recovery. We'd tell the tale and when the others laughed, we would join in, for everybody else knows, has been there, too! No, we are not a glum lot!

Running Away

I never ran away. My sister Carol and I would take mystery walks, tossing a coin at street corners, heads for left, tails right... until we were getting tired and tossed until we'd get home quicker. The one time I really left, moved out, was a free woman...as soon as possible I went to see sons, daughters-in-law and a good friend, Abilene, Frisco, Tulsa, St. Louis, Springfield, Grand Rapids, roaming about Michigan with and without adult kids, back by way of St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, a Mississippi casino,  Little Rock, Frisco, then to Abilene. I'd love to repeat the trip, but I have no need to run away. I have no need for a geographical cure, no idea life somewhere else would  miraculously be better. I know wherever I am, there I am, my issues with me. If I were to run away it would be somewhere OA is strong, a meeting available every day, and I'd have reached my ideal place.

None of Your Business

In her fifth floor government office she worked with reams of paper daily, sending them to the clerk's office separated with paperclips. The clerk's office filed the papers, filling boxes of paperclips. One day she stood at the box filling pockets with clips she had sent. A bottom-of-the-barrel elected official saw, told her she should order them from supplies. Had she been schooled in program talk, she would have told him, "What I do is none of your business!"

Once Upon a Time

not so long ago, the world seemed overwhelming so I I tried to tame it, not like the wild people who bury awareness in alcohol or drugs or even promiscuity, sometimes even by shopping or gambling...the wild crowd. Not me! I was a good girl and followed the rules, just eating, so innocuous, everybody does it! But not to excess like I did using the semi-comatose state normal people get only at Thanksgiving and such. I was a good girl yet my drug of food competed in deadliness with heroin and meth! Yet, like those addicts, The most fortunate ones, I discovered Twelve Steps that can banish the shame, the guilt, and restore me to sanity!

No Longer Alone

The amazing secret to the success of this program is just that: weakness. It is weakness, not strength, that binds us to each other and to a higher power and somehow gives us an ability to do what we cannot do alone. ~ Overeaters Anonymous Suggested Meeting Format Have you felt most of your life you were all alone, understood by nobody, unable to rely on help from any source? Do you feel responsible for all around you? Do you find your comfort in a habit you hate...like eating junk food when nobody you know is likely to know? That was me. And if the clerk at the fast food drive-through reached the point she knew my order, I went there no more but found my treat at another location...for a while. Then I read a book of personal stories where they sounded eerily like me, found an online group of kindred souls then a meeting near me where I was home. I've been coming back for a dozen years and I'll continue to come. Why would I? I've found my people. I'm no longer alone! The amazing secret to the success of this program is just that: weakness. It is weakness, not strength, that binds us to each other and to a higher power and somehow gives us an ability to do what we cannot do alone. If you're our people, come find us. You'll no longer go through life alone!

Dear God

Okay,I've tried for years... was prescribed diet pills at thirteen, tried intermittent fasting before the term was in use, bought cookbooks by Weight Watchers (times 3), by Metabolic Research Center (times 3), Barbara Kraus' Calories and Carbohydrates, UNForbidded Favorites, Lean and Luscious, The New Cook Right & eat light cookbook, Butter Busters The Cookbook, and who knows how many more? I drove four hundred miles for a month's amphetamines was hypnotized, had a pin in my earlobe, charted multiple times what I'd weigh when... committed to write a book when I'd lost a hundred more pounds... but nothing fixed me. Then I learned of twelve steps beginning with the idea, "I can't, God can,  I think I'll let God." And letting God does work. It's high time I wrote you this Thank You note!  So, THANKS!!!!

Thanks for Coming

I remember that day, your first, 'cause it could have been my last. I got laid off that day, wanted bad to go back out, to look to my old comforts, the ones that don't work. I knew I needed the meeting, but fought it every step, stopped on the porch, self and God teeter-tottering doubt. Then I saw you, fighting the fly and yourself, saw the pain of being outside looking in, knew I never again wanted to be where you were, that inside was where you belonged--as did I. Hand in hand, each for the other, we find hope health and meaning. Together in the meeting.