|
Greater Dayton Area Intergroup of Overeaters Anonymous P.O.
Box 1919, Dayton OH 45401-1919 Volume
13, Issue 1
January/February 2001
THE SANCTUARY
NEVER TOO CHILLY--ALWAYS JUST RIGHT
NOTES FROM THE EDITOR:
HAPPY NEW YEAR FOLKS!!!!
Hopefully you made it through the HO HO HO and the woopty-do with your wits still about you.
I bought a wizard hat to wear while I am at work, but you know I might let old Judy wear it while she is correcting the paper. I’ll hold the wand—just in case she starts fiending out, I can turn her into ______hum a errrrrrrrr. I don’t want to have to make an amends to her this early in the year, but it’s so hard not to whoop on her. Maybe I can turn over a new leaf this year. You think?
I have been thinking—what should the theme for this year be. The steps were good last year. Would they be just as wonderful this year? Yes, of course they would be. I never met a step I didn’t like—once I got used to it.
I’d like to study the traditions this year—look to see them in the paper.
We will also devote a section to the convention called Convention 2001, “A Recovery Odyssey,” to the hit parade as well. Those who are working on the convention can send in updates, etc.
It occurred to me while I was up online retrieving the article from the Lifeline, “Blessed with Joy,” that I’d like to write on three subjects for the next six issues—Love, Joy and Hope.
It is my hope that the people who were so gracious as to send in articles for us last year will do it again. I’d also like to encourage the rest of you to try your hand at sharing your experience strength and hope with us this year.
Sometimes folks think that they have to be a literary genius to do some writing. I assure you that it is not necessary. We pay Ms. Judy to plump this paper up before it goes out. If you hand her a scrap with some notes, I’ll bet she can whip it into a dream piece. And……. I have the ol' wand here.
If you have some ideas of what you’d like to see in the paper, please let one of us know. We will try to accommodate.
It has just occurred to me that it would be interesting to write on the daily reflections from some of the meditation books we have.
So with that stuff in mind--let the games begin!!
STEP 1
“WE ADMITTED WE WERE POWERLESS OVER FOOD—THAT OUR LIVES HAD BECOME UNMANAGEABLE.”
Now that the holidays have passed, if you have found yourself at Step 1 once again, start where you are today. No need to beat yourself up because it is totally counterproductive.
Remember the acronym W-H-O -- Willing, Honest and Open. Not what you’re used to hearing probably, but for me it is a better description of what I need to do.
I first need to be willing to say that I am powerless over food and my life is unmanageable. When I am not willing to admit that I have a problem, I am letting my addict mind still dictate and my ego run the show.
What I have found to be helpful when I don’t feel willing is to pray to my HP and ask or beg, depending on how bad it is, to help me to become desperate. Since this is for my highest good, my HP will honor that request because the answer for good lies within me. All I must do is choose again.
After praying to become desperate, the next step for me is to do a walking meditation of sorts. Someone else may have a different way of describing it. The walking meditation consists of trusting that the personal HP within me has heard my request and is manifesting a change within me.
Honesty is next in line. I need to be honest about the unmanageability of my life. When I am using, I still think I can fix it myself, and there just isn’t any way for me to fix it. It’s like leaving the goat to tend the cabbage or the fox to guard the hen house.
Openness is about being open to the tiniest possibility that I may not already know the answer or what it is going to look like, and that the answer may come from an unexpected place. I need to remember that self-knowledge will get me nowhere really quickly.
The fact is that when I am using I can’t think with a clear head. I can not trust my thoughts—so I must be open to calling my sponsor and other sober program people on a regular basis. My thinking is what got me a seat in the room.
Claudia and Judy
I have been experimenting with a different type of meditation for a few months now. It has been challenging, frustrating and rewarding.
It started off in the fall with the Joe and Charlie tapes. They mentioned that one form of meditation was about thinking about something and then turning it over to their HP and going on with the day. “Letting go.” I tried it as soon as I heard about it. You know it worked. I thought and prayed about a situation with Cubbie and then went on with the rest of my day. It was fabulous. My HP provided the answer. It was something I would have never thought would work. That, I believe was given to me easily, so that I could see that it was possible.
So, you might think. Hum—so, no problem then. She’s smok’n with this meditation process. I wish I could say that. That would be so cool. However, that wouldn’t be the case.
Many situations have come up since then, some complex and some simple. I am not always able to pray and let go. I seem to want to hold on to the problem at times turning it over and over. I believe it’s called micro managing. My ego says, stay with the problem Q and you can solve it. Or if it involves another person—stay with it kid you know you’re right and if you stay with this you can figure out how to help and instruct them into a greater state of perfection. Another one I have pulled recently (not new) was to kick the dirt, waiting for the person to say sorry. I can’t change anyone and it frustrates the heck out of me when I try to. They’re both ways that I use to hang on tight.
I have just been through that with a family member. Finally with the help of my sponsor I came to the realization that it was time to let it go. That was the start of the meditation process. I prayed again with a new attitude asking my HP to direct my thinking and to give me the answer to my situation. It was in the actual willingness to let go that the answer came and I didn’t get there easily. I cried and grieved at letting the problem go.
When I did, the gift began to come in the form of a direction to take. It seemed odd, but I am following it. It seems that these God things are odd like I said. The instruction was buy that person the tiniest gift.
So, I went out in search of the gift and it materialized. As soon as I had it in my hand some of the pain began to melt from my heart. That is when I knew that it served my highest good.
I don’t know what will happen when I send the gift, but I am going to trust that the result will be good. I have faith that my HP knows the perfect outcome.
In fact, for me the outcome is complete—my pain has been melted with a tiny gift. The gift is Serenity and another lesson in trusting that my HP has many miracles in store for me--if I am willing to travel inward.
Q
AN OA "DRESS FOR SUCCESS" STORY
This is a story about a dress---a hand painted, silk dress bought at a wearable art gallery showing. This dress became my god (kind of like Oprah Winfrey's Calvin Klein jeans). The dress was bought about 9 years ago when my male companion, a colorful musical conductor for a local orchestra, wanted me to dress in ways that accentuated HIS taste for thin, artsy dressing, exotic looking women (yes, I put him in my 4th step...). I binged, starved, and purged through over-exercise for weeks in order to get into this skimpy dress for an upcoming concert that he was conducting. He was pleased, I was miserable. Eventually, we had to go our separate ways...but I kept that wisp of a dress!!! Thanks to OA, I was able to wear that dress again a month ago. However, the dress has come to symbolize more than weight loss. Even though the dress represents physical recovery, this new physical reality reflects a new emotional and spiritual reality as well.
For instance, even though I can wear the dress again after 9 years, I no longer lose weight for a person, event, or thing. Weight loss today occurs because of my desire to live better by abstaining from compulsive overeating. Although a clear food plan provided structure for physical abstinence, my physical abstinence has been guided by the emotional and spiritual recovery granted through working the 12 steps.
Today, simply getting into a dress is not a big enough or healthy enough goal for me. The "dress as god" has been replaced by a loving, intimate relationship with my Higher Power. My Higher Power has taught me to want more than superficial reasons for losing weight (superficial reasons like losing weight for the sake of thinness alone, losing weight because the man in my life wants me to serve as his "thin ornament," losing weight because of an upcoming wedding or class reunion, etc.). Today, I want ALL OF THE PROMISES mentioned in the Big Book (pages 83-85). With the promises as a clear vision of what recovery can look like and be like for me, the 12 steps and the 8 tools most adequately describe my latest outfit and how I dress for success today!!!
Aaron
THE COFFEE SHOP
I was sitting in a coffee shop listening to two old men talk. The first one (who is 80) said that he never married, that he only had an eighth grade education, and couldn’t afford a wife.
The other one asked, “Why didn’t you find a woman with a job?”
To this the first one replied that he had once had a sweetheart but she had sent him a "Dear John Letter" when he was in the service.
I can’t read the old man’s mind but I can’t help but wonder, did fear keep him from trying again? Now, at 80, he faces the world alone. He sits in this coffee shop every day at 3:00--no wife, no children, and no family--no one but the company of strangers to talk to.
Facing my fears is the only way I move forward. If I sit and do nothing, I will be 80 and life will have passed me by. Today, I choose to move forward.
Mike J.
BLESSED WITH JOY
I find joy in knowing that as a compulsive overeater I have choices in life.
I can choose excess food to try to fill the bottomless void of fear, loneliness,
self-loathing and hurt feelings; or I can choose abstinence and refrain from
compulsive eating. Choosing abstinence clears my mind to look at my fear and
hurt feelings and to see what I should accept. I can turn these feelings over
to God and trust that "this too shall pass." I can commit to my sponsor
that I will take the action she suggests. When see my growth from taking action,
the joy of progress fills me.
I feel joyful when I see the
hope in a person's eyes when I say the program works. When I look around the
meeting room at my recovery family, I feel the joy of gratitude for their support.
I feel joy in knowing that I helped someone when I shared my experience, strength
and hope. Joy for my physical recovery comes when I can wear the same size clothes
for several years.
The joy of emotional recovery
is feeling my feelings and then letting them go. God enables me to recognize
when my character defects resurface. I receive the grace and courage to turn
them over to my Higher Power and make amends when needed. The willingness to
ask God to remove the defects comes with prayer and meditation.
Spiritual recovery is the joy of knowing God is always near to guide, support and care for me. God uses my mistakes to teach me to seek His will for me. I feel peace and joy in knowing my Higher Power will never abandon me. God is there to hear my cry for help, as well as my gratitude for the strength to work through life issues. Joy filled my heart when a non- program friend said to me, "You are more calm and serene since you joined that program." The joy of Twelve-Step recovery in Overeaters Anonymous has truly blessed me.
n LIFELINE, November '98
N.D., Muskegon, Michigan USA
TREES
Trees continue to grow until they die. They add a ring each year to mark the passing of time. They come back after the cold harshness of winter. They withstand high winds, plagues of insects, and all that nature can throw at them. Some become twisted and bent by all they endure. Still they survive growing towards the sun until they die.
I can be like a tree—letting my spirit grow, ever learning, ever reaching for more understanding, until the day that life ends.
Mike J.
This month I’ll write on Love. You know Valentine’s Day and all. I know it seems odd that we could be looking at the old hearts and flowers day of bliss so soon. But, it is upon us.
When I came to OA I had no sense of self. Believe me I was a mess. I didn’t love myself, and I didn’t love you. I learned later that until I choose to love myself, I cannot love you. Not fully, the way you deserve to be loved and honored.
Today I was talking with two people that I know. We discussed self-love. I'm amazed that this subject keeps coming up for me. I think it’s the principle known as, we teach what we need to learn. And, I am definitely a candidate for that course. While I am learning daily about it, I don’t think that I’ll ever be done with the lesson.
Anyway, what I heard myself saying was this— “I think that we are basically taught to think and say, ‘I am not good enough just the way that I am.’ I shouldn’t utter that I think I am wonderful—or a bright and shining star. That would be boasting.” One of the people in the conversation said, “well, it’s okay then to know that we are good enough—a star so to speak—we just don’t say it out loud.”
You know, that is the part of the lie that keeps me in self denial about my goodness. I am good enough just as I am and it is okay for me to say so, out loud. When I give myself permission to be a wonderful bright and shining star, I can then give you the permission to be the same.
When I deny myself goodness I deny you too. I am learning that when I am denied my basic right to love, I become starved; and when I am starved, I will find a way to fill myself up. The places that I have gone to fill myself up before where places that drained every bit of self-love out of me.
Denial of my right to self-actualization leads me to hunger, and hunger leads me to practice my addictions, and to practice hate for my neighbor. To practice my addictions is to practice dying.
I don’t want to hate anymore—not me and not you. I want to be free to reflect the goodness that my HP has so richly given me; hoping that when you see what is being done in me, it will reflect for you and you too will proclaim your unabashed love of self and others with no reservations.
I am also learning that the more I proclaim love for myself the more recovery I get. When I practice self-hate or even a mere self-doubt for my goodness I stop growing in my recovery. When I fail to grow—I begin to rot.
I urge you to proclaim your goodness to anyone who will listen. Remember you are stars—and you are right where you are supposed to be!!!!!
Claudia has brow beaten me into writing something for the Sanctuary so I thought I would send this along. I hope that OA people, being Big Book readers so much, can tolerate this article which I intended on sending to the AA for publication. Try inserting the words "OA" wherever you read "AA" and see if that works for you.
For years now, as a triple or quadruple "winner" in OA--e.g., I also have attended NA, ACOA and CoDA, and now presently attend AA, Al-Anon and OA concurrently—I have always wondered, when it comes to hard-core institutions like jails, prisons, hospitals for the insane, why haven't some of these other programs gone "inside" and taken their message inside those facilities.
Amazingly enough, as a regular visitor to a guy first at Orient Prison, then London, I can say that there are prisoners who appear to have an eating problem. And I can truthfully say that there are very clear signs that many men inside prisons and jails appear to have serious codependency issues. I am sure, likewise, that ACOA or CoDA would find plenty of takers inside those places, and frankly, might not have to deal with the crap that the AA and NA meetings do—namely, guys and women coming in to play games with their release hopes attending AA or NA even though very very few would admit, much less accept, that they have an alcohol or drug problem.
So, for what it is worth, please try reading this "message" and not shooting the "messenger" when you consider the idea of "service" in OA. There may be a place where OA can help so far as institutional service. So Public Information pamphlets might be, for instance, submitted to the local jails and prisons, to see if the administration feels there is a problem with compulsive eating disorders inside.
And, if nothing else, perhaps this article can serve as some form of inspiration for those who want to reach out and "give it away" in order to "keep it" in OA. There are never any guarantees that our service work will fall on fruitful ground, but that is not the issue. It is truly giving our recovery away, without any pretension of "pay back" that will help us stay in recovery. And for that, today, I am grateful.
Jerry E.
"... when I was in prison you visited me." Matthew: 25:34-40,
For me AA "service work" has been focused primarily, around three different areas. I chair meetings regularly, give leads when asked, and have worked with and among and part of the Vietnam Vets in AA recovery. In addition, over the last ten or eleven years, I've gotten involved with AA work and meetings inside various local jails and prisons.
Somewhere around 1988, an incident occurred between me and my second wife's ex-husband where I felt close to homicide. My first sponsor suggested I come down to Nova House, where he worked, and see what it was like inside a "locked" facility. He basically said, “Well, if you are so angry that you want to kill someone (and I was) then come and see what your life will be like behind bars.” The rest of your life, he meant. Shortly after that, maybe a year later, a guy named John H. asked me if I wanted to come out to the Dayton Workhouse and help him with AA meetings. I did and I kept going for a long time.
Later, another friend, who was doing meetings at the old Monday Program, which was located inside a dungeon-like building, asked me to give a couple of leads. I did. And then later still, when I came down with Fibromyalgia, my second sponsor said one way to avoid self-pity was to do more service work.
Someone I knew at the Thursday night "Introduction To The Steps" meeting was going "inside" at DCI -- Dayton Correctional Institute. So, I began doing that. And also, from time to time, going into the Montgomery County Jail. I did both until I just totally burned out. What burned me out? The location for the meeting at DCI was difficult. In the Chapel, we had to separate into two rather large groups. There were racial imbalances. Most of the black inmates hung together. The majority of the white inmates went to a separate group. There were crossovers, but that was often more a function of just how many chairs were in one circle than the other. In those days, there were simply no black men going "inside" DCI.
AA is color blind, but there are clearly people inside the program who can reach someone better because there is one more thing to help hook into the program. Their race, background religion, or affiliation with, say, the Vietnam War or having been in the military, bikers, card players, whatever. To deny that would be dishonest to me. And there is, to my way of thinking, great power when a black man or woman goes "inside" because the bitter reality is that there are almost always more black men and women inside than white.
So, sometimes there were racial dynamics inside that were draining. Perplexing. Whatever. That is not meant to be stereotypical. It is simply meant to reflect my view, not AA's, on why, after a time, it just got to be too much for me. Also, lots of inmates posturing, making a BIG deal out of, “I am not an alcoholic—I am an addict!" Moving to Yellow Springs, after divorce #2, was also a factor. It is a helluva long drive to DCI from YS.
Eventually, though, I got the leading, as Quakers say, to go back inside. And I had heard that another long-timer in AA was trying to get some AA in Greene County Jail started. Eventually, we got a meeting started in the jail in downtown Xenia. And then, a women's meeting started there. And now, with the addition of a new facility, there are actually two AA meetings inside Greene County Jails for men and one for women.
AA work in prison or jail is not for everyone. Once, while working at the Montgomery County Jail, we were forgotten downstairs. We were down there for several hours after the meeting ended. Finally, one of us used the pay phone, called his wife, and asked her to call the jail and tell the deputies that we were still downstairs. For a few minutes, it got pretty claustrophobic for me down there but the Serenity Prayer helped, and I realized that I was in God's hands, not mine.
The quote from Matthew became personally relevant to me after one Christmas Day night AA meeting at the Montgomery County Jail. I am eclectic in my spirituality—I have a Higher Power that I call God, and believe Jesus is who Christians say he is. But I also have a philosophy that is primarily Buddhist, and that philosophy powerfully effects my prayer and meditation. I also have a Hindu view of the cosmos and time and Native American influences so far as the life and spirit of all things living on the earth—including the earth herself.
Nonetheless, that Christmas Day evening, several of the men inside said, "I can't believe you came inside here on Christmas Day! I can't believe you left your families and comfortable houses to come in here and do an AA meeting for us! I really appreciate you coming inside and visiting us today."
I told the guy who went with me, Frank C (now in Florida), that for the first time in my life, I had a direct and personal experience of the New Testament (however, not the only, but most assuredly, one of the spiritual awakenings AA has given me.) I felt the understanding of that passage of the Bible, experientially, and very much personally. Of how Jesus said, "whatsoever you have done for the least of me, you have done for me."
It was clear to me that the passage from Matthew does NOT say, "You believed all the stuff I tell you about my case, about how I have been 'screwed' by the system, that I am innocent of charges, that it was someone else's fault, that you are coming to slip me some cigarettes or get me out of here." The passage from Matthew simply says, "When I was in prison, you visited me."
Attraction rather than promotion. How many men have I seen in AA meetings who have been in some of those several hundred meetings I have done inside prison or jail? Only a couple. Currently, in addition to going "inside," I write to two AA inmates. One I met at Greene County Jail. A third time felon, he is starting his thirteenth year inside prison. He has been in prisons in Massachusetts, Florida, and now Ohio. He has never had a visitor, except in MA, while incarcerated. He certainly knows no one in Ohio to visit him. His mother will most likely never come and visit him at London. Each of his offenses has been connected to blackout drinking and has involved some form of violence.
The other guy I write to is a third time felon, also doing his fifteenth year in prison, for theft and assault with a deadly weapon. Both of these guys are 40 years old. Both starting their forties with three felony convictions—both in and out of AA. The latter has been in AA for several years at a time. But, in both cases, when they stopped going to meetings, for them, the slip and slide also took them back to prison.
As a Quaker, we have a term when something inside of us is "calling to us" to do something. It is called a "leading." If you are "being led" to do some service inside one of the correctional meetings in the AA area, do it. If someone needs a "lead" inside a facility, the guys at Central Office know how to get in touch with me. Or, you can send me an E-mail. I am known as Zennhead@aol.com. Some folks just call me Jerry E, some Zenn. Regardless, I find this type of service work very spiritual and very rewarding. Let go of the outcome. Just carry the message. It is easier said than done. But, it works if you work it. There is an urgent need for men and women in AA to do this kind of service work. Sign up now. Do it. Just "do it."
Regardless of what your mind tells you ... that what would that have to do with "my problems." Just do it, if that is what your heart calls to you.
Jerry E.
CONVENTION 2001—
A RECOVERY ODDESSY
There was a meeting of Dayton Intergroup Officers to determine the split for work between Dayton and Columbus on December 12th.
Becky held a short meeting after the Saturday meeting on December 16th. She said there was a good turn out. Around eight people stayed to volunteer for work. We also have had many E-mails from members volunteering to do service.
It will take a little bit of work from all of us. If you have already volunteered to help, thanks. If you haven’t—I’ll see you at a meeting. J Beating bushes is my specialty.
On January 27th, The Convention Committee will be meeting with Columbus at the Fairborn Holiday Inn to begin work on the convention. We will be splitting up the work load and getting the contract signed.
TRADITION 1
“OUR COMMON WELFARE SHOULD COME FIRST; PERSONAL RECOVERY DEPENDS ON OA UNITY.”
For me this Tradition means that I will need to put the needs of the many before the needs of the few or more specifically myself.
It is not about the wants or needs of myself or just a few people but of the group as a whole. The group conscience is what determines what is best for the entire body.
I believe this is where the statement that “the
Traditions teach me to live with others” comes into play.
They teach me that I don’t get my way anymore. I must learn to see what is for the greater good of my fellows. This isn’t easy—it isn’t what I seem to have done while practicing my disease. When I was in the throws of my disease, I wanted what was best for ME. I can’t recover if I am in the "me me’s."
If the group does not survive, I will not survive. I need other recovering addicts in this community in order for me to recover.
Claudia