Back To OA: Still CrAzY After All These Years!

Yesterday I returned to Overeaters Anonymous after a seven year absence…which was preceeded by some 23 years of fairly continuous participation.

Please note that during my extended absence from OA that I never stopped working the 12 Steps. Between my involvement with One Bite Fellowship (a group I started especially for MALE food addicts) and participation in a couple of other 12 Step communities (in person and online), I continued working on my recovery.

I stopped attending face-to-face OA meetings for a number of reasons. In 20/20 hindsight, I now believe that most of the problems I left over involved important issues. Seven years ago I believed that ALL of the reasons II left over involved “serious issues”.  Having attended OA meetings in many cities around the US (in Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas and Kentucky), I still believe that most of the reasons I left the OA fellowship had to do with problems that are unique to the fellowship here in Louisville, Kentucky.

When I write about OA, I’d like to believe that I know a lot about this organization, having spent over half my life in this particular 12 Step fellowship. Yeah…I’m 50 years old and attended my first OA meeting when I was a wee lad of 20 years old. Where did my youth go? It was spent in 12 Step meetings!

The meeting that I attended yesterday wasn’t what I’d call “terrible”. In fact, it was pretty good for an OA meeting here in Louisville. Then again, I’ve attended some truly AWFUL OA meetings in this town over the years! Meetings where men were bashed. Meetings where the 12 Traditions were repeatedly violated. Meetings where I could have sworn that the fellowship should have been re-named “Excuses Anonymous” (due to the lack of recovery of being shared by those in attendance).

Some of the things about Louisville OA meetings that used to drive me NuTs were present in yesterday’s meeting. My Short List: 20 - 25 minutes worth of readings being read at the start of the meeting  (Why can’t these people in Louisville simply follow the SUGGESTED MEETING FORMAT offered by OA’s World Service Office? YAWN!!!), a request to “NOT mention foods” by their ACTUAL names (for fear we would trigger another member to OVEReat compulsively — PLEASE!!!) and sharing about food plans and physical recovery (both during and after the meeting) that DISTORTS the OA message on these matters.

I plan on continuing to attend OA meetings for the time being (One Meeting At A Time), while remembering to “Take what I like and leave the rest” — or ar least “NOT OVEReat compulsively over the rest”.

Instead of the “larded-up” meetings here in Louisville, I much prefer just NO NONSENSE OA where the REAL message of this wonderful fellowship is CLEARLY and CONCISELY expressed! The OA meesage is NOT one that encourages FEAR and/or RIGIDITY about “sugar and flour”. It is NOT (and NEVER has been) a message of promoting rigid food plans. And the Suggested Meeting Format from OA World Service Office has PLENTY of essential readings that do not distort how recovery works.

Some positive things I experienced at yesterday’s meeting include…

I appreciated the warm welcome I received at yesterday’s OA meeting! The degree of warmth I experienced is a BIG improvement over the ice cold welcome I’ve observed being extended to newcomers at many an OA meeting I had attended in previous years. I hope that I extend an equally friendly welcome to newcomers that I experienced yesterday!

The topic (actually FOUR topics to choose from) were based on topics found in actual OA-approved literature! And what members shared was actually ON TOPIC! This is a BIG improvement over MANY meetings I’d attended previously.

If you read my previous journal entry about how I view my recovery journey as an “A La Carte Experience”, then you’ll hopefully understand why I wont (I did at one time, but wont just for today) put “all of my eggs” in the “OA basket”. Some OA members may believe that OA is ALL they need to recover or that they have (and follow?) the ONE food plan that I “should” be following (Please don’t “should all over me or others” — Just for today!). They are free to believe what they believe to be true…Just as I am free to believe what I believe to be true.

My recovery journey is influenced by numerous sources and OA is just one of them. My Christian faith guides my spiritual recovery. Weight Watchers offers a positive, sane influence in dealing with food and emotional issues that trigger overeating (At least at Weight Watchers meetings we CAN mention foods by their SPECIFIC names! and NEVER get lectured about the EVIL of “sugar and flour”. The philosphy that guides my One Bite Fellowship has been heavily influenced by my OA, AA, Al-Anon and Narcotics Anonymous recovery. And I can’t emphasize how important it is for me to TRUST the “earth people” who help guide my physical recovery, including my doctors, physical therapists, diabetes educators and dieticians.

 

Feelings: To Feel Them Or Stuff Them Down, That Is THE Question!

Many years ago I had a pastor who impressed me with both his great wisdom and delightful sense of humor. He would often quip that he had been known to “cry at supermarket grand openings”!

I can relate to his comment — at least at times. Sometimes I cry with little or no provocation. At other times I do a pretty good job at “stuffing down” my feelings — ALL feelings — including feelings that lead to tears.

I’ve heard it said of food addicts that if we don’t “Face Our Stuff” we’ll (eventually) ”Stuff Our Face”. I’ve found this is VERY true in the sense that some of my most painful feelings have surfaced during periods of sane eating.

How vividly the lyrics of Simon And Garfunkel’s song I Am A Rock captures the emotional pain that many of us addicts have tried to stuff down…

“I am a rock.
I am an island.
I’ve built walls –
A fortress deep and mighty
That none may penetrate…
I have no need of friendship;
friendship causes pain.
Its laughter and its loving I disdain….
I touch no one and no one touches me…
And a rock feels no pain.
And an island never cries.”

As a recovering co-dependent, feeling MY feelings should NOT be too difficult a task to handle since (in active co-dependency) I had NO problem feeling EVERYone else’s feelings. But the reality has been that running from, denying and stuffing down (”stuffing” comes about with my ingesting EXCESS amounts of food) MY OWN feelings has been my pattern.

Many years ago I heard it explained that feelings, also referred to as “emotions” , are “energy-in-motion” (think “e-motions”). My understanding is that ingesting any any mood-or-mind-altering substance can (and does) “block” the processing of emotions. Hence the state of “emotional constipation” that many of us addicts experienced during out days of active addiction.

I don’t know why, but feeling MY feelings CAN seem overwhelming. At times I’ve found myself wondering if I was going to “e-mote to death” by allowing myself to feel my feelings!

The Overeaters Anonymous brochure entitled, A Plan Of Eating: A Tool for Living - One Day at a Time (Copyright 1988, 2001, 2005 Overeaters Anonymous, Incorporated. All rights reserved.), addresses the connection between food and emotions with these words:

“For a compulsive overeater, eating is attached to emotions. We are never fully satisfied, no matter how much we eat, because we are eating for emotional reasons rather than physical reasons. We eat for excitement, love celebration, loneliness, escape, pleasure and comfort. We devour food to anesthetize ourselves. We eat out of anger, resentment, envy, jealousy, fear, pride, guilt and grief.”

The good news is that, through working the 12 Steps, I’ve actually been able to discover/uncover whatever feelings I’ve been stuffing down with excess food. Through working the 12 Steps while working with other addicts I’ve found the strength to NOT act out with food in an addictve, compulsive or impulsive manner, despite feeling some intense and pretty crappy emotions!

Recovery doesn’t magically protect me from feeling painful feelings. Recovery gives me the strength and courage to discover, feel and then move beyond my feelings without the need to swallow excessive amounts of food or avoid physical exercise. How does all of this work? One Day, One Step and One Feeling at a time!

 

Should We EVER “Avoid” Food To Protect Our Recovery?

Since I stated in a previous post that I do NOT believe that food is something to be “feared” by us addicts  (either in terms of seeing it, smelling it or (gasp!) even thinking about it), I’d like to discuss the issue of when and if it is ever approriate for a food addict to avoid food.

What I’m sharing about this (like hopefully most everything I discuss on OveractiveFork) is based on my experience, strength and hope. This means that what I’m about to share is based on real life experience and is not some sort of intellectual theory that has not been tested in my own life.

Fact 1: We DO have to deal with food in the “real world”. It surrounds us everyday and everywhere. 

Fact 2: We really SHOULD have to eat some food each in order to survive. So “avoiding” food entirely isn’t a sane option.

Considering the two facts presented above, why is it that some food addicts expect 12 Step recovery — recovery intended to help us overcome our addiction, One Day At A Time – to play into, encourage or enable the fear of facing food?  Authentic recovery, IMHO, recogizes that food is not our problem!!! Our “problem” is the addiction to overeating (and, for many us, we also have an addiction that leads us to avoid physical exercise at all costs). Treating our addiction – not devising schemes to avoid food – is the proper focus of my recovery efforts.

Yes, Step 1 of Alcoholics Anonymous begins, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol…”, but it does NOT state that we are powerless over our elbows, our mouths or making choices that will ultimately enhance our recovery. We addicts ARE powerless, to be sure, but we are NOT hopeless!

Does that mean I go out of my way to “test my recovery”?  Not at all. My recovery from my addiction is a precious gift. My recovery is not a game to be played with. So I do not go out of my way to tempt myself to overeat (or underexercise). Likewise I would never encourage any other addict to play games with their recovery, nor would I encourage them to fear food or take “heroic measures” to avoid it.

My experience in meetings of Overeaters Anonymous over the years has given me exposure to some fellowship members who need to avoid even the thought of food. IMHO, this is more about trying to control the behavior of other members than it is about working their own program of recovery. So if attend an OA meeting where someone states that the mere mention of food is NOT allowed, please find a DIFFERENT meeting to attend!!!!  Telling a member that they can’t mention food by it’s actual, specific name is nothing less than flamingly co-dependent behavior!

I’ve personally checked (on a number of occasions over the years) with Overeaters Anonymous World Service Office (www.oa.org), OA’s Regional Trustees and other trusted servants of the OA fellowship and ALL of them have stated to me that NO official (or even suggested) rule exists about prohibiting (or even discouraging) the mention of food during meetings. To the best of my investigating, it appears that this is yet another crock of crap that has come about thanks to the anti-carbohydrate fanaticists known as the dreded “H.O.W. Movement”. To says the least, these ”sugar-and-flour-phobics” do not represent the besting thinking found within the Overeaters Anonymous fellowship!

Find me a H.O.W. Movement devotee who has long-term recovery from weight loss — I just dare you to find even one!  Yes, you can find some who have lost lots of excess weight, but find me one who has been at goal weight for more than a year or two?  They just can’t be found! NObody can follow their food plan (rigid, perfectionistic and unbalanced as it is).  That food plan is one of the most extremely dangerous forms of a diet (NOT a “food plan” in the healthy sense, but a “diet” in the worst sense of that word) that has ever existed.

If you know about the history of Overeaters Anonymous, then you know that the original writer of the “Grey Sheet food plan” (which has been mal-adapted by numorous H.O.W. cultists over the years) was written by an OA member who wasn’t even a dieticician! I don’t know about y’all, but I’d trust another addict to write my food plan as much as I’d trust a pyromaniac to be a fireman! –> In other words, It is NOT a good idea!!!

Now that I’ve warned y’all about the H.O.W. Movement, I want to share that – based on my experience, strength and hope — that working and living the 12 Steps (O.D.A.A.T.) is the best way I’ve found to rob food of it’s power to control my thinking, let alone my choices when it comes to what and how much I eat.

Working and living the 12 Steps – over and over, O.D.A.A.T. – relieves me of guilt, shame, fear and a whole host of other negativity that kept me both in bondage to food and yet also fearful of it. The 12 Steps have allowed me to overcome (O.D.A.A.T. — it doesn’t usually happen overnight!) my co-dependency issues that kept tangled in UNhealthy relationships with toxic individuals. I no longer have to stay involved in (or stuck in woundedness from) UNhealthy relationships that only fed into my addiction to OVEReat.

Do I ever “avoid” persons, places and/or situations where I would likely find it only too easy to overeat?  Yes, from time to time (even as recently as this past Sunday) I do avoid such situations…BUT NOT because they can “magically force” me to overeat. Rather I stay away from this persons, places and/or situations because I (stated positively) make choices today that enhance the quality of my life and my recovery. Hanging out around “food pushers” only adds to my stress level. They can’t “force” me to overeat, but why hang out with people who almost certainly get on my nerves? It just doesn’t make sense.

Just for today, I don’t choose to keep certain foods near me (in my kitchen) because I know “my history” with those foods. Why place myself in constant temptation to overeat? Thankfully I’m following a nutritionally-sane food plan that allows me to choose from a wide variety of foods, so I don’t get bored just because I choose to stay away from certain foods. But I’m NOT staying away from any food because I’m afraid of it. I simply respect my history with it and don’t choose to repeat it. I seem to recall that someone once said“Those who can’t remember the past are destined to repeat it”.