« September 2007 | Main | November 2007 »
Still kicking. I'm crazy behin on my nephew's costume. My sister and nephew just left. I thought making the heads was hard. Getting the heads fastened on and keeping them upright is much, much harder. I haven't even started painting the faces yet. A few of my OA friends have said they can't wait for Halloween to be over so I'll shut up about the costumes.
I wrote this today and submitted it to my intergroup newsletter, but wanted to share it here too:
I just had a wonderful reminder of my life before program. It is 3:48pm and I was in the lunch room making herbal tea. A man at the vending machine sighed loudly and said, “This machine is the bane of my existence.” I laughed and said that I no longer look directly at it. He put his money in and replied, “I just happened to walk by and I’m having a rough day.” I remembered the countless times I stood there choosing my own poison. Sometimes I felt shame because I was breaking a diet; mostly I was beyond shame or thinking and just looking for my next fix. I was tempted to share that I no longer eat between meals, so the machine isn't a problem for me anymore. I certainly would not choose to make a meal out of the few sugar-free selections offered. Instead I just smiled and walked away. I am grateful that I have no relationship with that vending machine today.
I was at an OA retreat this weekend. It was nice. I met some really cool people and had some good conversations. I'm tired. I did some work on my anger and resentment at my dad. I did it on my own during my free time though. I expected the retreat to be a little more focused and go deeper than a conference. It kind of did because it was a smaller group (49 people) and there was more large group sharing, but it was basically a step workshop.
The speakers were great and my friend who spoke on steps eight and nine was phenomenal. The speaker on ten, eleven and twelve was a keynote speaker at a conference I attended. I want to get my CDs out from his talk. He is Big Book focused and no bullshit. This is hard work and no place to puss about.
I was ready to go deeper though and do some serious work. So I worked on one of the tasks my sponsor suggested to complete my ninth step. I started working on my unsent letter to my dad. I wrote for about 90 minutes. It was hard. I let myself ramble all over the place. It is a good first draft. Then I took a walk in the woods. I followed advise from a friend and took dad into the labyrinth with me. I "talked" to him about the anger and resentment I have over the past. I sat for a while in the center. I cried a little. Then I walked out with my higher power. It was nice, but still no burning bushes for me.
Saturday night, after the speaker talked about steps eight and nine, we were told to write down a character defect, resentment, anything we wanted to be rid of. I wrote some resentments at Dad. Then they threw them in a bonfire. Then we had a meeting around the fire. That was my favorite part of the retreat I think.
I've got to talk to my sponsor about what I wrote this weekend. I think that will help a lot. I saw a lot of long-term recovery there. It was uplifting to see.
There were a lot of people who weigh and measure their food. I think this weekend was the most I've ever talked about specific foods and calorie counts with OA people. I was a bit judgmental about the artificial crap people were using to make their food flavorful. I don't use any sweeteners and if want butter flavor I use real butter. I think I feel a bit superior about that. I better examine that. As I continue to lose weight I may need to eat fewer calories and find butter-flavored sprays are my best friends.
I think one of the problems of talking with a group of compulsive overeaters about specific foods is that we all have strong feelings about the right way to eat. In OA that is okay. We each define our food plan with the help of our sponsor. I really don't want to listen to a debate of how many calories a very large granny smith apple has though. Or that someone doesn't eat sugar but are sitting there eating cereal that has sugar as the third ingredient. Yep, I'm afraid I disillusioned two people at breakfast Sunday. Someone commented on my tiny box of shredded wheat. I said it was the only cereal without sugar in it. She said, "No, what about Cherios?" I went and got a tiny box of Cherios and showed her that it was the third ingredient when you followed the parenthesis. I told the story about how I can't eat Grape-Nuts because I binge on them. I don't know if it is the malted barley (sugar) or because I used to binge on them with a ton of sugar. So a woman across the table said that her Kashi Grape-Nuts look-alike cereal had malted barley, but it was way down on the ingredients list. I looked, it was number three. The custom flour blend took up four lines of text, but it was still just one ingredient. I don't know if it will effect their food plans. If they don't have a problem with it, they don't. I felt bad though, because when someone pointed out to me that something I ate regularly was loaded with sugar(McD french fries, fourth ingredient) I dropped it immediately. I haven't had one since. I miss them sometimes. I'm glad I found out, but it wasn't fun.
I plan to go back the this retreat next year. It is nice to know that some many people I met there will be there too. I love the continuity of this program.
I think my annual autumn depression is trying to lay claim to my soul. I’m out of sorts when nothing is different. I’m getting a bit stressed about running out of time to make my nephew’s Halloween costume, which could be contributing to my exhaustion. It’s probably allergies too. I take Claritin every day in every season except winter. It takes the edge off all be the worst symptoms, but I get tired. Compared to bronchitis and sinus misery it is a fine trade off.
I spoke at my Thursday night meeting last week. It was a crazy work week and I went directly from a go!go!go! work day to the meeting. I prayed before hand to be useful and according to one person I was. That is all I can hope for, but it felt awful at the time. Once others shared I finally felt the sanity and serenity I find at meetings. I felt then that I was ready to talk. To bad I’d already rambled for 30 minutes. The longer I’m in program, the more info I feel compelled to share. Next time I’m asked to speak I must remember to take time to get serene before the meeting.
I wanted to prepare for speaking this time. The first time I spoke my sponsor would not let me prepare. I still think that is a good policy, but I wanted to look at some old posts and see some progress I could talk about. I took literally two minutes before rushing to the meet to look back. I started WIT in November 2005. I skimmed a few posts and was dismayed to see that I’m struggling with the same crap now that I was almost two years ago: late bills, focusing at work, procrastination, stalling on steps and over-sleeping. It freaked me out a bit. I thought I had made so much progress, but it didn’t look like it in my blog. So I called my sponsor.
I still struggle with calling her. When my sponsees have trouble picking up the phone I can relate absolutely. When I talk with her I feel better. She always says something helpful, even if she is simply agreeing that something sucks. But I’m always making excuses when it comes to calling her. I’m trying to push past those excuses. If I think I should call her, I do it. So I called her Thursday night on my drive from work to the meeting I was to speak at. She told me it was all about degree. She was still dealing with the same character defects from 19 years ago, but to a much smaller degree. I can see this is true with me. Yes, I still pay some bills late, and I need to stop that, but I set up most of my bills to auto-pay so there are only three bills I need to worry about each month.
My character defects are still there, they always will be. But the degree to which they control my life is so much less than it was two years ago. I have made progress and all I need think about today is today.
