OA- Step one work

1. Write on what brought you to program?

I found OA in 1988, after a search process following my divorce
in 1980. I found some help through friends in AA, but realized
soon that my addiction was food, although I believe the
emotional/mental problems are much the same. With the
help of a sponsor and later, with counselors,
I worked through the 12 steps and began to deal with some of the
issues of recovery.

If you have returned to the program from an absence,
what brought you back?

Without a local face-to-face meeting, I attended a Co-Dependents
group after moving to my current location in 1992. After a year,
that group fell apart. I had maintained abstinence from my worst
trigger foods but had not cleaned my diet of all the problem ones,
like those to which I'm allergic. I began to notice increased cravings
for foods and some emotional problems like spikes in anger
at the beginning of 2011. At that point, I was stopping about
once a week for supper from my favorite drive-through,
and I found myself craving certain foods from them more often.
A national media source outed this restaurant for not telling
the truth about their meat mixture. It had my very worst trigger,
the one from which I had been abstinent since 1988. Consuming
that wrecked that abstinence. I was once again reminded that I
can't do it by myself!

Lastly, what do you want from the program?

While I have some solid spiritual discipline through my church life,
I still fight food issues. I want to regain serenity and
abstinence I've lost, and I want to build on the ESH
I bring into the program. I want sobriety and
abstinence again from ALL foods that act as triggers
for me, and I want to regard food as FUEL,
not as love, not as problem solver, not as my
master.
2. Write about your eating history and
how much weight you have gained and lost.
My family motto, seriously, is that "we live to EAT,
we don't just eat to LIVE". I am one of several
in my family who have had weight problems as adults.
I am the only one who has sought help either through
individual counseling or through 12-step work.
Y'all will probably relate when I say that my family

considers me to be the only one with a problem.
As a child, I found my food intake strictly controlled
by my parents. We would have a movie or tv night
with snacks (usually chocolate) once a week, and
portions were limited. I didn't go looking for where
they were stored once the packages were put away.
However, at about 10, I did steal about $14 from
my older brother's coin collection (inherited from our uncle),
and I rode my bike to a nearby convenience store and spent
ALL of it on candy. How I survived that incident I don't know
--I recall no punishment other than my brother being really ANGRY.
I was a normal weight throughout my teenage years and into
college, although I was not skinny. I gained the "normal"
Freshman 15, the average number of pounds college freshman gain,
because there was a candy machine in the hallway by my dorm room!
I married at 23, and within that first year gained and
held onto another 10-15 pounds. I did Jazzercise
and tried to eat a better diet to bring that under control.
Issues and arguments with my husband kept me on
a roller coaster weight-wise until our divorce after 4 years.
I found when I exercised regularly and ate healthy
foods that my weight stabilized. However, I did eat
to deal with emotions. From a weight of about 118
when I married, my weight rose to the 130's in the
next decade. There was a period in the year or two
before I found OA when I didn't weigh myself at all--
but I knew I was the heaviest I'd ever been because NONE
of my clothes fit. The weight when I stopped
weighing was 160+.

Despite lots of sessions with individual counselors over
these years, I was NOT consistently addressing the food
addictions or the fact that I used food to deal with emotions.
I found OA in 1988. I discovered what my trigger foods
and binge foods WERE, and I began an abstinence from
them as I worked through the steps for the first time
with my sponsor. I was able to get my weight down
to the 140's.
I moved to another part of the state for a new job in 1992
and I was so busy and travelled so much that eating
enough was a problem! Frequent illnesses led me to get
allergy testing, and I discovered several food allergies.
Getting on an allergy diet literally left nothing but
healthy foods. I maintained my sobriety and dropped
about 20 pounds within just a couple of months.
I substituted another codependent's program for the
first year in this new place until that program fell apart.
From about 1992-2001, I lost 10 family members.
Dealing with all that loss, going to all those funerals
at which food medicated grief for my family members,
was a severe testing of my abstinence, but I continued
to maintain abstinence from my worst triggers. It was
the foods to which I was allergic that I would
occasionally binge on. How weird is it that we can
addict to those foods that actually make us feel WORSE?
With inheritance from my folks, I resigned my teaching
job in 2000, thinking a little less stress would be good
for me. Again, I sought counseling to deal with the grief
issues, and I did have an exercise regime to keep my
weight from soaring. I thought I would take only a year
off and that everything would be FINE after that.
I was diagnosed with a genetic disease in 2004,
and its symptoms included extreme exhaustion,
so returning to full-time work wasn't an option.
I tried a private school job in 2007, moved to
a nearby larger city, and bought my first house.
The physical toll the job took on my body with
several trips up and down 2 flights of stairs daily
plus my commuting for the first part of the year
caused me to fail at that job. While I lost 20
pounds over that year, bringing me back down
to the low 130's, I was also sick a lot and
was on lots of "coping" meds. I lost the job,
lost the house to foreclosure, and found
my health, energy level, and mental condition
to be deteriorating as my finances went down the tubes.
I currently am on teacher retirement disability (at age 58).
I have a contract part-time job as a church organist
in the small town 40 miles away. I am trying to pick up
private students for further supplement my income.
Finances are really TOUGH. I don't eat out (other than
the drive-through disaster) because that's no longer
in the budget. I seek out organic foods and am trying
to become more of a real cook, choosing the
least-processed foods possible. (I'm a microwave queen ).
My weight was approaching 160 pounds as a result
of the drive through-disaster earlier this year.
I am down about 15 pounds from that at this point--
I love what others have said about "releasing x-number of pounds".
I have lots more I want to release! For my height,
my appropriate weight would be 120-130. I have a ways to go.

3. How has food affected your life over the years?

Coming from a family of food addicts and control freaks,
food has been the controlling factor! My attention at
public, church, and family gatherings would be on what
food was brought, not on who would be there.
Food, prior to OA, solved all my problems, you know.
One of the greatest gifts I received is when I
achieved some abstinence over my very worst
trigger food. Once I realized my cravings for it meant
that there wasn't enough in THE WORLD, then I realized
I might as well just stay away from it forever.
I think dealing with all the craziness that
food addiction/control freakness (same thing, ya know)
caused in my family has had lasting negative effects
on my self-esteem and on my ability to relate to
other people. After OA, I can go back into those
family situations at Thanksgiving, Christmas, or at
funerals when food is the BE-ALL and END-ALL
and maintain my sobriety. I finally gained the ability
to avoid the bingeing because I finally realized
how bad I felt afterwards. As a single person again,
I found I COULD budget to go out and eat by myself
because I didn't really care about the company
of people---before OA--I could be alone with
the food and enjoy that more. My new goal is
to NOT eat out unless I have company and to
avoid drive-throughs when possible.
I know for sure that my weight rollercoaster
has NOT been good for my general health or for
my body--my knees and ankles are fragile because
I couldn't even get out and WALK much over the
past few years. It all would have been easier if I'd weighed less.

Write about the fatal nature of this disease and
how it has diminished the quality of your life
over the years?
I think food addiction (or ANY addiction) blinds us,
numbs us, stupefies us to what is going on in our
bodies and our lives. The goal is to make the pain
go away, whatever it takes. Part of all the counseling
I've gone through (outside of OA work) has been
to reconnect with FEELINGS and deal with them
after stuffing them for so long. I believe that
food addiction is the most dangerous of all
addictions because while addicts to other
substances and activities can QUIT, we can't just
QUIT altogether. We can eat ourselves into health,
mental and physical, or we can eat ourselves to DEATH.
I can grieve now over all the events and people
I no longer remember because I was numbed
by the food. Sobriety/abstinence brings SOME
of that back eventually, but I have lost some
portions of my life forever. I see no way to
mental sanity and physical health other than
through OA. All else is madness and death.
I know; I've tried it.

4. Discuss and reflect on the idea that you have
a devastating weakness. Discuss how this weakness
leads you to return to food for your comfort.

I was actually about 35 before I realized I wasn't like
the rest of the world. Because I grew up around food addicts,
I didn't know everyone wasn't LIKE that.
I was amazed to see folks eating food
because it was fuel, not because they craved
it or had to have it. I guess that, being the
youngest of 4 siblings, I had the experience
of watching my sisters try diet after diet, only to fail,
and I realized that DIETING would never work for me,
either. I never tried one, not once. I watched the diet pill
phenomenon, all the crazy diet food programs, and the
national big-time weight loss programs that just
controlled things to death.(My 2 cents; Your mileage
may vary) My weakness is that I never wanted to
give up control of what I ate to ANYone. My most telling
moment my first year in OA is that I came home after
a REALLY bad workday, walked into my little rent house,
put down my purse, and found myself standing in
front of the open refrigerator door, bawling my eyes out.
Thanks be to HP that I had a sponsor to call before
I ate everything in front of me! The fridge was NOT
going to comfort me or solve my problems. One of
my biggest challenges has been to avoid using food as
a REWARD. As a teacher, I was MOST resistant to
rewarding kids with candy, and that became MUCH
greater after OA. I just would NOT do that with my
elementary kids, and I caught some flack for it.
Having found a program to help me escape that
kind of mental training, I have refused to
implement that kind of thing in any class I've taught
since then. Also, I honestly would be likely to EAT
all the candy in my desk before I could hand it out--
THAT's the honesty of this deal.

5. Discuss the phenomenon of craving as it
appears in the three levels of your life:
Emotional, Spiritual and Physical.

I have had a revelation about cravings since I found these
online meetings. I can't recall now, over 20 years later,
whether my face-to-face meetings banned any mention
of foods, etc., as TRG now does. However, the possibility
that my mention of food A, substance B, or activity C
would shake or destroy someone else's
sobriety/abstinence rocked me to the core.
I recognized years ago that if my emotional
needs weren't met, I would experience a craving,
and food was my satisfier of choice. Loneliness
would trigger cravings, as would many negative
emotions, but HAPPY emotions could do the same
thing! We have to celebrate--with FOOD!
I am finding that as far as getting emotional
needs met, neither EATING, nor REFUSING TO EAT,
is going to help me.
OA is helping me be more consistent about
meditation for spiritual growth, but I've always
been a pray-er, and THAT helps me with cravings
in the spiritual realm. I crave a closer relationship
with my HP, of course. Food doesn't enter into that,
it seems to me. I AM willing to give up control over
my food cravings to God; That's the only answer
I have that works for me. HP has developed in me
the patience to wait. out. the. craving. It will go
away if it's not healthy.
Substance addicts really have to avoid their old hangouts,
their old friends, their "gateway" substances to regain
abstinence. Activity addicts have to avoid those same things.
We food addicts can't avoid our families, the dinner table,
restaurants--that's just crazy! I have enough ESH that I
CAN be with my family and see the wonderful foods I used
to crave, praise the cook or baker for them, and NOT
eat them. I have occasionally ordered something at a
restaurant and found it , when delivered to my table,
to contain or be garnished with, a major trigger food.
I am able to send it back if it was done in error,
eat around the trigger, or just not eat it at all.
The fear of embarrassing myself or my meal companion,
the "waste" of ordering something and then not eating it,
NONE of that is worth loss of my abstinence. I have also
become a dedicated food label READER, and I know that
food companies lie and deceive us to increase their sales.
I aim to NOT deceive myself by assuming a food is safe
when I haven't researched it. My loss of 23 years of
abstinence is due to that very thing. It is very costly.


6. Discuss and reflect on what sort of thinking
dominates when the compulsive overeater repeats
the desperate experiment of trying just one bite.
Discuss and reflect on how this applies to your eating history.

Well, I never tried just one bite of anything! lol I did try
to control the heck out of food by playing the
numbers game. Just ONE bar, just the SMALL box.
It's okay if you eat it for breakfast--you'll burn those
extra calories during the day. It's the old doing the same thing
over and over and expecting different results, which
someone defines as INSANITY. I remember the pain of
failing over and over. I thought I could eat just one,
but I wound up eating the whole bag, or box, or container.
Then there's the craziness of bingeing and saying,
"well, I'll start my diet tomorrow". I found it--
after my first time in OA--much easier and much
less painful to just NOT take any bites. As I say
with my main trigger food, (and people think I'm kidding!),
"Well, there isn't enough of it here, or in the WORLD,
so I'll just not start."
7. Discuss and reflect on the things you must do in order to stay alive.

I've seen some really good answers to this the last few days!
I must recommit to abstinence every day, hour, minute,
second, whatever it takes. Having found ESH in OA,
I must stay connected to this program in whatever ways
I can, on a daily basis. I must continue the spiritual work
I've begun but expand it to avoid isolation and to
provide service, to give BACK. I must seek out deeper
relationship with my HP and continue to give over to
him the control over food and my program. I think I'll
have to find face-to-face meetings here as well,
although the ones I'm aware of are 30 miles away.
I need that honesty of sitting in a room with folks.
I need to work my program in whatever situation I'm in,
whether I'm with other OA folks or especially if I'm NOT.
Sharing the message with my family is particularly important,
as they are "those who still suffer". At some point in the future,
I want to become a sponsor. As a teacher, I learned that students
really retain information better and learn its application in their
lives when they teach and foster someone else.

8. In step one, we admit powerlessness.
How is admission of powerlessness the first step
in liberation for you? Do you believe the program can liberate you?
I think addicts come into a program having beaten
themselves up trying to control an addiction. I certainly did.
After trying and failing to control the heck out of it,
I KNOW I can't do it alone. I'm tired of fighting.
That gets my ego out of the way, and I must recognize
that there IS a HP who can handle things and lead me to
recovery. I then stop blocking what my HP could do through me,
and I can become a CHANNEL. I believe the OA program
is the only way to sanity and serenity for me. I've tried it alone
--didn't work. Freedom sounds really good.

9. Why must a person fully accept and comprehend
step one before beginning step two?

That acceptance of one's powerlessness is essential--
we have to get out of the way. My first sponsor told me
that recovery works only if we're willing to try things
any one else's way. We must recognize and admit that
all the ways we've tried to control food and our respons
e to it have failed. Part of it is unblocking that numbness
we've created by staying in the addiction.


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