The Last Supper

Tonight I am all alone and a little lonely. I also decided, perhaps because I am alone, that I would go to McDonalds and order what I have dubbed, "The Last Supper". I wrote the date of my last supper in my Big Book with the idea that one day I would look back and say, "That was when my abstinence day was." Anyways, like usually happens, I feel fat, bloated and somewhat sickly. I am trying to impress that feeling on my brain so I will remember that feeling in the future. I have also decided that I would ask a particular person to be my sponsor. With that comes the inevitable fear of rejection. I want to put days like today behind me and enjoy a feeling of balance in my life instead of feeling out of control in so many areas as I do. The only way I know how to accomplish that is through the 12 steps and with that I need help.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays to everyone. I hope everyone had a great time with family and friends without too much excess. Christmas is always a time of hope and with New Year's around the corner, a time of new beginnings. I always have a long list of resolutions which are impossible to keep and I always disappoint myself. So I plan to continue to make the changes I have already been trying to make. I will continue on with the steps. I will learn how to speak Spanish and will be ready for a 2010 winter holiday in a warm country. That is the plan anyways. And here is a word of hope from the Dalai Lama:

"Given human beings' love of truth, justice, peace and freedom, creating a better, more compassionate world is a genuine possibility. The potential is there."

A Thorough Step 1

It is for me very important to do a thorough Step 1 even though I am already convinced that I am an addict, alcoholic and compulsive overeater. It is not hard for me to relate to me eating as a disorder that I need help with and turn to the 12 Steps for help. I have been trying to control my eating with no success. In fact I have had the opposite of success. The scale is telling me the opposite of what I want to hear. (My scale does not actually talk.) I have lacked discipline where exercise and dieting have been concerned. Instead I have been more obsessive about food. I read diet books and plans and magazines and websites while eating things I should not. I finally decided that I already know enough about food - that no new book will tell me something I hadn't heard somewhere else. I need to address the mental and spiritual and physical aspects all together and OA looks promising. I relate to what everyone says and, though I haven't met any, there is apparently fellow alcoholics in OA as well. Imagine that - an alcoholic that switches addictions!

"The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death." (Big Book pg 30)

I just realized something. During my adult life I would switch addictions. I drank heavily and it took its toll on my psyche when I was young. Then I had children and didn't drink anymore. Then came food and I vowed I would never drink out of control again. Then life and stressors came and I was overweight. I started drinking more and eating less and I was overjoyed with the weight loss. Then what I didn't want happen happened. Drinking and marijuana use and pill use took their toll and I was flattened like I never was before. Then I quit the mind-altering substances and joined AA. Then I started eating more and more even though I had vowed that I would never gain weight again. But here I am powerless over my compulsions. My experience has shown me that "no alcoholic ever recovers control" (Big Book pg 30). Like the Big Book says, "I have tried every imaginable remedy" (Big Book pg 31). I give up! The Big Book also says that "if we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol" (Big Book pg 33). For me this applies to food. I am willing to try anything. The steps worked for drinking. I believe they can work for food.

The Big Book hints on a solution to come later in the book. It says:

"Once more: The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power." (Big Book pg 43)

I say, "Bring it on!"

"There is a solution"

I am slowly moving to Step 2 which is: " Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could return us to sanity."

"What seemed at first a flimsy read has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God." (Big Book pg 28)

However I am not quite there. There is still some Step 1 reflection.

"The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink." (Big Book pg 24)

Step One Again

It was easy to see the critical nature of alcoholism. Over a period of time I could no longer be a goodmother. I could no longer earn a living. I could no longer be present with what was happening around me. I could no longer face the world. I no longer wanted to live. In fact, with the help of alcohol and a few other mind altering substances, I lost my health and all of a normal life. It was a long climb back from the abyss that couldn't have been done without the help of AA.

Now that I am dealing with overeating, I am not faced with the same dire set of circumstances. But I am affected just the same. My health and well-being are both affected and both will suffer with more weight gain. The more I try to control my eating, the more I cannot control it. Dieting and exercise consume my thoughts but not my actions. The bigger I get, the more I want to stay in my home and hide. I don't want to buy clothes. Nothing feels comfortable. Discouragement waits for me at every corner. That is because I am impatient and want immediate results. I just want the problem to go away on its own. If I ignore the problem, maybe it won't be there anymore. I want to blame other things for my weight gain such as the stress at work and the unavailability of healthy food in the vending machines. If I wasn't so tired from work, perhaps I would have more energy for exercise and planning meals, etc. Work is a good thing to blame but life is not stress free. If it is not one thing, it is another.

I can trace my weight gain to a couple of factors. I gained weight when I got a car and no longer had to walk either to my destination or the bus stop. I gained weight when I started to take lithium. I gained weight when my job became more sedentary. Of course my consumption of junk food has gone up gradually over this period of time. I feel myself wanting to withdraw and have done that to a certain extent.

"Under the lash of alcoholism, we are driven to AA and there we discover the fatal nature of our situation. Then, and only then, do we become as open-minded to conviction and as willing to listen as the dying can be. We stand ready to do anything which will lift the merciless obsession from us." (12&12 pg 24)

I made the decision to go to OA. After having experience in AA and seeing it work in my life, I thought why not give the 12 steps a try again. I have seen the obsession to drink lifted from me. If that can happen, why not the obsession to overeat. I have tried everything I can think of to lose weight. I am open to doing this.

Compulsiveness - Part of My Step One

I thought a chubby bear would represent my compulsive overeating. But he doesn't look unhappy with himself. I am not just compulsive with my eating. I drank compulsively. I smoked dope compulsively. I drink compulsively. I buy and read books compulsively. It seems that whatever I do, it has to be compulsively or not at all.

In the book, The 12-Step Buddhist, the author recommended a three pronged approach to our recovery. I've been going to AA for 8+ years and have recently started going to OA. A 12-step program of recovery is one of the prongs - check. I recently connected with a lama for spiritual guidance. That is a second prong - check. I am being treated by a doctor for bipolar disorder, the third prong - semicheck. I don't have a regular doctor at this stage of the game which I really miss. And it is a situation that I have to rectify. But doctors are in short supply where I am and it is not an easy feat.

I've been reading lots of literature on step one. There are times when you have to start at the beginning. Mostly this is in relation to the stopping of compulsive overeating. I don't need to drink or smoke dope or take any mind altering drugs anymore. During my life I would say that booze was the drug of choice and when I couldn't drink, food became my drug of choice. Gotta love those carbs. During the times that I was not drinking, I was eating and gaining weight. I am there now. I would lose weight because I would stop eating (anorexia) when I was drinking. Both are unhealthy ways to be. My boyfriend cannot understand my all or nothing approach to life. He is always preaching to me, "Moderation!" Moderation is a concept that I find difficult to grasp. OA tells me that I must avoid all those foods that are triggers for me such as chocolate, donuts, etc. I had already come to that conclusion though I wasn't able to quit on my own. I am to come up with a food plan and communicate this with a sponsor which I do not yet have. But I just started going so that is ok. I still have my AA sponsor. I have hope that things will fall into place very soon. I am getting my ducks in order. And if I was the bear, I would eat them.

Step One Continued

I found a workbook to follow while I go through the steps at www.12stepworkbook.org. In it it talks about the "six essential characteristics of alcoholism and other addictions" on pg 10. The name of the workbook is "A Twelve Step Workbook: Al Kohallek Goes Stepping".

The six essential characteristics are as follows:

1. Allergy: "...the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all..." (Big Book pg xxviii) For me, I know I cannot drink. Now I plan to use this for my food addiction. Whenever I eat anything sweet I find it hard to stop. My stomach can be bursting but I want more. I never just have one chocolate bar in a day or one donut when they are available. Nuts are also awesome but I don't have one handful. I like bread too, especially fresh bread and two slices are too many and 100 are not enough (slight exaggeration).
2. Progressive: "We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better". (Big Book pg 30) My drinking career got worse over time and eventually included prescription and OTC medications to enhance the effect of alcohol. Then marijuana was added to the mix and it was a quick steady descent towards my bottom that led me to AA. My food addiction has progressed as well. Now I am almost a daily muncher. I try very hard to stick to foods that are good for me but I can't leave the sugar alone and the scale is showing the effects. I worry about health complications like diabetes, etc. Yet I continue doing what I do. Cunning, baffling, powerful.
3. Self-Delusion: "The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death." (Big Book pg 30) At the end of my drinking career I wasn't even worried about normal drinking. All I wanted was oblivion and I knew how to get it. I had reached the point where I couldn't live with or without drinking. I have been studying the drinking and eating habits of other people. I watch people take a whole morning to eat a chocolate bar or a bag of chips. Whatever I eat is gone in no time. Even a regular meal is polished off way before everyone else. My delusion is that I will eat what I want right now and start over tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes. Only the "Why did I do that?". There is also that belief that whatever I eat in private doesn't count. I know this is pure silliness.
4. Distortion of Attention: I couldn't find a Big Book quote right now but I know with my eating, I think constantly about dieting, exercise and losing weight. It feels like almost every waking minute is spent obsessing about this topic. After all the thinking, I feel tired to diet and exercise. The scale goes up and that is about it.
5. Loss of Willpower: "Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol... They are restless, irritable and discontent unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks - drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink agian. This is repeated over and over and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery". (Big Book pg xxviii-xxix) I so want to eat right and be healthy and feel good. I always feel guilty when I go to the vending machine. I always vow not to do this anymore and yet again I find myself doing what I want to stop. Where is the willpower? It is not working for me.
6. Withdrawal: "They are restless, irritable and discontented unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks..." (Big Book pg xxviii-xxix) I must say alcohol did a better job at getting rid of restlessness, irritability and discontentment. It is hard to feel these things when you are comatose. I would say at best that I have a few seconds of relief while I eat a chocolate bar but as soon as I finish the feelings I want to avoid are intensified. I have an almost constant feeling of "rrrrggghhh" that I can't describe but leads me to always look for an easy way to relieve it. I know better but I keep doing it.

Surrender and Acceptance

SStep 1

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation - some fact of my life- unacceptable to me and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes."

- The Big Book, pg 417

When I was ready to get sober, it was easy for me to admit Step 1. I had made a mess of my life and my family's life. I was full of guilt and shame and self-hatred. Even though I had admitted powerlessness over alcohol, I still hadn't reached a point where I could accept it and I didn't know how to surrender. I agonized over why I chose to do the things I did. I was full of self-pity as I had to face the consequences of my actions. Somehow I thought that if I could figure out why I was an alcoholic, I could relieve some of the guilt and shame that I was feeling. I never did figure out the why but I have come to accept that I am alcoholic. When I drank I didn't know when I would stop. Drinking was no longer fun but a way to escape reality by drinking as much as I could in as short a period as possible so that I would pass out. I needed to accept the reality as outlined in "The Doctor's Opinion" on page xxviii:

"...the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once havinglost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve."

That was over 8 yrs ago that I admitted powerlessness over alcohol. I agonized over the fact that my life had become unmanageable. Those addictive tendencies have not left me though. I don't drink today and don't want or need to. The urge to drink has been removed. But I have new addictions that might not cause me as much grief but trouble me just the same. I never quit smoking and that affects my health. I replaced an alcohol addiction with a food addiction and, to a lesser extent, a shopping addiction. I am slowly gaining weight and feel powerless to stop. I just wish I could get addicted to exercise and oat bran! I believe that if I was able to find a happy life of sobriety using the 12 steps, I can use those steps again to deal with my other addictions and find more contentment. My life has vastly improved since those first days in AA but one must keep making progress.

I am going to spend some time contemplating step 1 and what it means to me in my life. I am going to work on acceptance of my shortcomings and acceptance of who I am as a person. The program is an ongoing way of life and I am going to "continue to practice these principles in all my affairs."

Welcome:)

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

I've been in the program for a few years now and tried to apply the principles in my life. It is an ongoing journey and I still have a lot to learn. I have learned that I am not perfect and I am thinking that I never will be. Progress not perfection as they say and hence the name of this blog. I am going to come full circle and start over again with Step 1 and I invite you to join me as I share my insights with you.

I found a good website at 12Step.org with lots of inspiration. Here is some of what I gleaned from the site:

The Three Spiritual Gifts From Practicing the 12 Steps
The Awakening to the Presence of our Higher Power and to be in conscious union with this presence.
The Awakening to the Love that we are, that all of us are.
The Awakening to the individual Self we were created to be, with purpose and meaning. In other words, to consciously live our Heart's Desire, God's will.

We have failed many times, but we are not failures. We have been foolish, but we are not fools. We have done many bad things, but we are not evil."

We will repeat the same problem until there is real healing.

Through doing the steps, not only do we find a spiritual awakening but we also heal. The promises as they are listed on page 83 of the Big Book state that:

We will be amazed before we are half way through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

This will be my journey and encourage you all to take the journey for yourselves. Each of our paths is different but we are united in a common cause - finding a happy, rewarding and meaningful sobriety.

Coming soon: Step 1