Whatever it takes

Still stagnant

Sigh.

It has been really hard for me to work my program lately. I still go to meetings and take calls. I even make calls. I've called my sponsor more in the last few weeks than I have for a long time. I'm just not feeling it.

I feel irritated by fellow OAers who don't stay consistent in meeting attendance. So many regulars aren't showing up anymore. It's frustrating. I really don't want to carry the key or lead meetings every week. I don't like being the only sponsor at a meeting. I much prefer my Sunday meeting where there are often 12 people and 9 are sponsors. I've grown impatient with those who haven't moved forward in their programs. There are so many people who are afraid to sponsor because they don't feel good enough. Nobody would ever sponsor if that were the criteria.

So what's going on that I want to take everybody's inventory but my own? I haven't moving in step 9 for months. Sure I do living amends all the time, just did some today. But I need to find someone I worked for 21 years ago and I don't really want to put in the time and effort.

Also still farting around with food plan changes. My food got a bit loosey-goosey for a bit there. I've been losing and gaining the same two pounds for months now. My food is clean this week and that feels better.

I talked my attitude over with my sponsor. She says I'm totally normal and this is a normal phase in my program. It feels good to be average. I resent like hell that the same effort I put in for the last few years isn't enough to keep me abstinent now, but it is awesome that I'm just an average compulsive overeater and this this too shall pass. I just have to keep showing up and working to the best of my ability each day.

Ugh. I read an article on becoming an early morning person instead of a night owl. I think I need to implement the steps. The main changes would be getting up at the same time even on weekends (Yuck!) and on awakening go outside for a 30 minute walk (What? Yuck, yuck, yuck!) There are a few other things, but those are the two that would be the biggest changes. I say I want to get to work on time consistently and become reliable. I'm I willing to actually make the changes that would make that happen?

Stay tuned...

Willing to be willing to be willing, I think, maybe

I keep tripping on the carpet today. This tells me I am not present in my life today. I’m not paying attention. I’m also indulging in a bit of fantasy. It’s fun to craft a future meeting with Doctor #10 (Tennant) where he finds me utterly fascinating and we commence a long distance romance. It is not fun to work on the defect that is currently making my life unmanageable.

My bed binging must stop. I hope that I have finally had enough. Am I sick and tired enough of my behavior that I’m willing to surrender it utterly? I was this morning. I got to work on time at 8:30. Yesterday I was still in bed at 1pm and finally decided to give it up and call it a sick day. I am tired of being unreliable and feeling ashamed at my lack of self-control. It feels just like binging on food: same mental processes, same numbness, and same guilt. I know that surrendering my food to HP and working the steps works. I know it. I’ve lived it.

And that’s one thing that scares me. I know it will work. I’m afraid to let it go. I met with my therapist last night and this is mainly what we talked about. I’m afraid of failure. I’m afraid that I’m not really ready yet and I’ll fall. To which my therapist said, “So?” My sponsor would say the same thing. I’m so afraid of being wrong that I’m willing to stay miserable and not try rather than make mistakes. Crazy.

I’m also afraid that letting go of oversleeping is letting go of my adolescence. As miserable as I get while I hit the snooze alarm for hours, I still enjoy it a bit. Is this rebellion? In a sick way it feels like freedom. It isn’t quite on the level of, “life isn’t worth living without sugar,” but it is close.

I left a message for my sponsor to call me. I told her I was willing to take direction. Okay, I chickened out and said I was willing to be willing to take direction. It’s a start.

Happy New Year!

Technically 2008 doesn't start for 8.5 hours, but happy new year anyway! This was the best Christmas I've had in years. No drama, good gifts, people I enjoy, and Rock Band. OMG! So much fun. I got a 99 on the vocal track once. Seriously fun game. Drumming is a blast, guitar part is just as fun as Guitar Hero and singing is fun if I'm not worried about sounding like an ass. (Besides, no one there can do it better. My oldest nephew sounds like a cat with his tail nailed to the floor.)

Did I mention no drama? Recovery rocks. So nice to surrender all the crap I carry in my head and just take life as it comes. I've felt much more serenity lately. I'm sure not working for 14 days has a lot to do with it, but truly, even hanging out with my dad has been okay. All the drama in my life is self-generated. How I choose to react makes all the difference.

My hope is that 2008 is a year of little drama for all of us.

Under the weather

I've been sick. Came down with a cold before Thanksgiving and am just getting over it now. Yuck. Being sick feels like relapse. I isolate and sleep and watch TV. I missed a couple meetings. It is so easy to get out of good habits. Miss one meeting and suddenly I don't feel like going to the next. But I go anyway because meetings and no sugar are my baseline.

I don't really have much tonight. Just trying to get back into the habit of writing.

Pre-Halloween stress

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.

Retreat recap - food work food sharing food food

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.

Moving on

The wake/memorial thing was okay. I saw a couple friends I hadn't seen in years and that was nice, but I didn't know anyone else. I did talk to Jamie's mom and brought her over to where we were sitting. She seemed touched that we came. I ate before I went and then went straight to a meeting. I don't know if I would have stuck to my food plan for dinner. I became a non-issue when my sponsor asked me to have dinner with her.

It was really nice. I need to make an effort to see her outside of meetings more often.

We scheduled time on September 2 to go over my eighth step. She said I need to move forward. We'll talk about the people I've finished writing about. Only the really hard ones are left: mom, dad, myself. I am to write on these 10 minutes at a time. I'm supposed to set a timer and stop at 10 minutes. Then next time, read what I wrote the time before and the set the timer for 10 minutes and write again. Apparently this is a way to write about ugly, painful things without killing yourself. I worried that I wouldn't really accomplish anything from one writing to another, but she said when I reread what I wrote before I'll come right back to where I left off. So this is what I will do.

I should have been ready to make amends yesterday when I saw a friend I hadn't seen in 15 years. I made sure I got her contact information though and she is living in state again, so at least I don't have to track her down before I make my amends to her.

Fat Death March

Last night I watched the last 20 minutes of Fat March. This is the latest reality show obsessed with weight. It broke my heart. A group of obese (most are morbidly obese) people are walking from Boston to D.C. to lose weight. The first stage was sixty-some miles.

I tried to walk 60 miles twice. I participated in the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day walks twice. The training was brutal and the event was killer. I couldn't finish either attempt. I signed up for the walks to force myself to get in shape. It didn't work either time. I was heavier the second year and my feet were injured.

One of the guys on the show was 500 pounds. He was unable to walk the last 13 mile stage. Not only were his feet painfully blistered, the doctors thought there were stress fractures in his feet. He didn't want to quit, he felt this was his only chance to lose weight. He didn't want to quit even though he could barely stand. His teammates voted him off. I'm glad they did.

I hate this show. I have no idea what they are feeding these people or what kind of mental help if any they are getting, but having a 500 pound man walk 60 miles in 8 days is dumb. This seems even more irresponsible than The Biggest Loser to me. That show pisses me off when they teach the contestants that they can eat 10 sugar-free jello cups instead of one bowl of ice cream.

These people need more help than two trainers dragging them cross-country. I couldn't turn it off, but I hated it. Next season we'll see Xtreme Dieting where contestants pit their crazy diets against each other. Cabbage soup diet versus liquid fasting versus some crazy magazine versus Atkins. I think the thing I hate most about it is that a still-crazy part of me wants to get on the next season and kick lose some serious poundage.

I can weigh myself tomorrow or Thursday. I feel like I've barely recovered from last month's weigh in.

Karma is a bitch

I’m getting back some of what I’ve put out there. I’m learning what it feels like to work with someone who doesn’t show up at work at a regular time. It’s 10:51am and I am stuck until a coworker does his part. He isn’t here. He isn’t on line. He hasn’t responded to anything I sent after 3pm Friday. So I’m stuck and there’s not a thing I can do about it.

The worst part is that I am still pulling my shit. I didn’t get to the office until 9:45 today. I’m trying to get there at 9, but I guess I haven’t really surrendered it. I’m dicking around with my snooze alarm like I dicked around with my abstinence. ARRGHHGG! I get so tired of my bullshit.

There isn’t anything particular I’m dreading at work today, or this week. Work is fine. I don’t feel guilty about anything but my continued lateness. So why did I spend a few snooze cycles fleshing out the scenario of my dad dieing in a car crash in Missouri (he’s traveling) and me getting to take several weeks off work and getting his house? I’m a sick bastard right? Who envisions the death of a parent to get some time off work? Me. I don’t really want his house anyway. Not yet. I can’t keep a few plants alive on my patio; I certainly can’t handle a yard and garden.

There was also the thought that I wouldn’t have to make amends to him if he died. Bleck. I’m not a well person. I’m stuck in step eight because I don’t want to write about or become willing to make amends to my dad.

But other than that, I’m fine.

Follow-up note: (The very next day) How shitty do I feel when I show up at 9 am this morning and my supervisor thanks me for coming in early? Pretty shitty. He wasn't being sarcastic, he was just really happy I came in on time because we have so much going on. Must practice surrendering this consistently. I don't want people to be happily surprised when I do what I say I'm going to do.

Humble pie

Crap. I broke my abstinence on Friday night. I was at an OA Big Book Study retreat. After a really powerful part one from the speaker I went to my room, got ready for bed and got into bed. I then got out of bed and got most of what I had brought for breakfast. I had realized when I read the menu that I would not be needing it for breakfast. I ate 8 triscuits, 1/2 cup sunflower seeds and a large granny smith apple. I left one serving of triscuits and an apple uneaten.

The foods and even the amounts are not the problem here. The problem is that I do not eat between meals. I purposefully choose to act in a harmful way.

The good news is that I was able to get back on track the next day. I didn't tell anyone about it until lunch time. I called my sponsor and an OA friend that afternoon. My sponsor had me write down all the things which led to my binge. (For make no mistake, this was a binge of compulsive eating.) Here are some of the things that led me to break my abstinence:

• I'd been keeping secrets. Little things I ought to have talked with my sponsor about right away I kept to myself. Sometimes I shared in meetings, but this is not the same.
• I stopped reading from the Big Book in the morning and before bed.
• I stopped writing here at WIT.
• I hardly made any OA calls.
• I ignored a new sponsee when she emailed and left messages.
• I delayed calling my sponsees back.
• I did not work on my steps for several months.
• I wallowed in fear (new job, refused favors, fear of rejection)
• I started feeling like I wanted to get away with stuff in my food plan. My portions got really big and my choices became more starchy.
• My morning prayers became more difficult to focus on and say completely.

I didn't stop going to any of my meetings, which before has been an obvious warning sign. But each of these things about were moving me toward the food and away from my higher power.

The speaker pounded it into my head that every action is either moving you toward God or moving you toward the food. There is no middle ground. Every thought and action moves you one way or the other. Knowing that the food is fatal puts the spotlight on how crazy I am to take a single step toward the food.

I ate because I am a compulsive overeater. I am abstinent today because I am working my program.