Mary, a compulsive overeater, hosts this workshop on OA’s Second Step: “Came to believe a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” Some regard Step Two as a bridge from the powerlessness of Step One to the resolve of Step Three.
For Discussion and Journaling:
- Have I come to believe that I need to change? Why?
- How do I feel about replacing my old ideas about God with a face that works?
- What actions am I willing to take that others have told me worked for them?
OA-approved literature used in this episode:
- The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous (link to Second Edition)
- For Today
- Voices of Recovery (link to Second Edition)
- Lifeline magazine February 2011 and February 2014 issues (link to Lifeline back issues)
- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions by Alcoholics Anonymous
- The Twelve Step Workbook of Overeaters Anonymous (link to Second Edition)
My name is Mary. I’m a compulsive overeater and Region One chair. Welcome to “The Importance of Working All Twelve Steps” workshop. Today I’ll be talking to you about Step Two. So Step Two, “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” \
My story began on September 16, 2002 here in Calgary. I had been a compulsive overeater since my teens, and possibly earlier. My parents grew up during the Depression. For them, having enough food in the house was a sign that they had survived, that they were successful. My mother was a caterer. She showed her love by putting a lot of food out, and all of our family events always revolved around wonderful food. I am the youngest of three children and grew up in a very happy family. When I was nine years old, both of my older siblings married and left home. What had been the family ritual of sitting around the dining room table, having our dinner and talking about the day’s events, changed. Almost overnight, my parents converted my sister’s bedroom into a den, moved the television in there, and we ate on TV trays instead of the dining room table. Instead of talking about our days, we now watched the six o’clock news every night. I don’t think I realized how much I missed that family connection. My parents had a good relationship; they were each other’s best friends. Even at 10 years old, I felt like a fifth wheel in my family, as if I were intruding on their relationship. I’m certain my parents would be horrified to know that’s how I felt, because they were very attentive to me, but I remember that feeling.
I was probably no more than 25 pounds overweight throughout most of my teen years. But this was the late 60s and early 70s, and I always felt out of the loop. I left school halfway through 11th grade and decided I would go to secretarial college instead. I got a job almost immediately. One fateful night, after having too much to drink, my boss walked me home, beat me up, and raped me. I never told anyone. I held onto that secret for thirty years, through a marriage and through a subsequent 18-year relationship, both of which failed. By the time that relationship ended, I knew enough that I had to figure out what the common denominator was in these failed relationships. And, of course, that was me.
Growing up, I really felt that my Higher Power was either Santa Claus or the emergency response call center: “I’ll be really good. If you do this for me.” or “Oh my God, I’m in so much trouble. Please help me.” It didn’t occur to me that I could talk to my Higher Power on a regular basis. I started to learn about Step Two by reading the OA Twelve and Twelve. And there was so much in it that spoke to me. It says at the very beginning, “Many of us compulsive overeaters tend to look at this Step and say: ‘Restore me to sanity? I don’t need that. I’m perfectly sane. I just have an eating problem.’ But how sane are we really?” I was a screamer and door-slammer. I had no idea how to express all of this pent-up anger and frustration that was in me. The Step continues: “We have eaten beyond the point of being full, beyond the point of being sick of eating. We have continued to overeat, knowing all the while we were disfiguring and maiming our bodies.” Those of you who know me, know this story. I cooked Christmas dinner for my family for 25 years in a row. I realized that they never got the turkey with the skin on. And they never noticed I was an ice cream leveler—you know, when you take a scoop out, and you have to level it out again. I just thought that everybody did that. Though I can remember feeling great shame, and I guess that’s why I leveled it off so that no one would know that I’d actually been in there and eating that ice cream. The Step continues: “Then, horrified by what we were doing to ourselves with food, we became obsessed with diets. We spent lots of money on weight loss schemes; we bought all sorts of appetite suppressants; we joined diet clubs and fitness centers; we had ourselves hypnotized and analyzed; we had major surgery on our digestive systems; we had our ear stapled or our jaws wired shut.”
In 2008, my knee finally gave out, and my top weight was over 300 pounds. I now have a titanium knee in my right leg, and I know that it’s a direct result of carrying around all that weight for all those years.
I joined gyms three times over the years, but never went even once. I paid that money for three years, three times. Every month, I would make that payment, but I never went because I was embarrassed. You know, I joined the gym to get healthy, but I just couldn’t get past the fact that I didn’t look like everybody else. The Step continues: ”Compulsive eaters are often people of extremes. We overreacted to slight provocations while ignoring the real issues in our lives. We were obsessively busy, then we were exhausted and unable to act.” If my daughter were here, she would tell you about how disjointed our holiday celebrations were. I would spend days making sure that everything was perfect, making her and my then-partner crazy with all of my preparations and demanding that they help me and make sure that everything was perfect. And then when everybody arrived, I couldn’t wait for them to leave. I was absolutely exhausted. It was exhausting being me. “Little by little, we saw how much pain our way of living was causing us. Gradually, we came to believe that we needed to change.”
When I entered my first OA meeting, I can remember feeling a sense of kinship, a sense of belonging. They were talking about the things that I was too ashamed to talk about, even to my closest friends. It was as if I thought that they didn’t know I overate. It was hard to miss, but somehow I thought that nobody knew. At my first meeting, I just felt like I had found my home.”Clearly, if we were to be restored to sanity, we had to find a Power greater than ourselves. At this point, most of us had trouble for one reason or another with Step Two. Some of us did not believe in God, We despaired of finding a solution to our problems if that meant we had ‘to find God’. I grew up in the Anglican Church, and I had always thought that God was kind and gentle and loved children. It didn’t occur to me that I would be loved as well. And it didn’t occur to me that my issues, my everyday struggles, were something that God would even care about. I didn’t think I had the right to bring him those problems, as he was solving world peace and everything else. What was I?
“Ours is a spiritual program, not a religious one. We have no creeds or doctrines, only our own experiences of recovery. Atheist and agnostics are welcome in OA and have found recovery.” It took me a while to understand the difference between a religious god and my spiritual Higher Power. Only through the help of several sponsors was I able to understand what the difference is. I’m not a regular churchgoer, but I strongly believe in my own Higher Power who talks to me, most of the time while I’m walking my dog, I’ve never been a great meditator, but I find that the rhythm of my footfall as I’m walking my dog simply puts me in that state where I’m able to communicate well with my Higher Power. My Higher Power has a great sense of humor. My previous relationship was with someone who was looking for someone to look after them as opposed to a relationship. It took me a while to finally come to terms with that. And I can remember thinking, “I wonder how long he has” and how my Higher Power stopped me dead in my tracks and said to me,”Do you hear what you’re thinking?” I went to my home meeting that night, and I told my group about this conversation. And because of the support I had in that group, I came home that night, and I ended the relationship. That was absolutely the best thing for me to do.
“In OA, God’s healing power comes to us through a caring community of other compulsive overeaters. Before we joined the OA Fellowship, our prayers for help might have gone unanswered simply because we were never meant to face this disease in isolation. We were meant to open up so that we might learn to receive love and to truly love others.” That came to me in stages, I was very closed off. I was so embarrassed, and ashamed of my behavior with food and the lies that I had told throughout my life, that my very first Step Four was just astounding, I think anyone who has gone through the Steps knows the power of Step Four. Every time you go through it, that was only through the only community that I was able to move through that and pass all of the pain and, and shame of my, my over eating, move on to this wonderful life that I have now. It says, “We became willing to start fresh with our Higher Power,” and that’s what I did. I learned through the help of my sponsor. And you know, none of this happened for me overnight. It took a lot of reading, it took a lot of listening to others. And that’s why it’s so important to go to meetings. I listened to what others talked about regarding their own Higher Power, and my Higher Power began to take shape, I think my relationship has been has remained that as strong as when it first appeared for me. But it’s got richer over time. We have this wonderful relationship that just come whenever I need to talk. And lots of times when I least expect it. And I sometimes call it sort of that fish in the forehead moment, you know, when I get slapped with a invisible fish that wakes me up and says, “Wait a minute. Pay attention to this. You need to learn this.” And I’m really grateful for that too.
It says, “Then we acted as if God were really exactly what we wanted and needed our Higher Power to be. We became willing to let go of any concept about God, which wasn’t helping us to recover from compulsive eating.” And I think that was my belief: that I wasn’t worth it. That I wasn’t worth God’s trouble, that there were so many other people who needed God more than me. And I realized that I have every single right to call on my Higher Power, to speak to my Higher Power, because my Higher Power cares and wants to know, for all of us, atheists, agnostics, and religious ones alike, coming to believe was something that happened as we began taking actions, which others told us had worked for them. Again, that’s going to the meetings and listening to my sponsor and listening to my friends in recovery. As to how what their relationship is like with their Higher Power. This willingness to act on safe, then was the key to Step Two. It was the beginning of a healing process that would relieve us of the compulsion to overeat and bring stability to our unbalanced lives. My life was so unbalanced. I was really good at deflecting. People would say, “How are you,” and I’d say, “I’m fine, how are you?”—immediately I would deflect it away. And now I’m comfortable saying to people, “You know, I’m not having a good day today, but I know it’s gonna get better. In For Today, for the reading on March 28, it says, “Why am I still obsessed with weight? I’m abstaining. I’m trying to work the steps; but I can’t give up the scale. I’m terrified to stop the constant monitoring of my weight. What if I gain How will I know, if I don’t weigh? The problem is I’m trying to work this program without giving up control. But is that possible? The first three steps make it clear that those who wrote them and millions who followed proved they can only recover by letting a Power outside themselves regulate their unmanageable lives. If I say I have faith in a Higher Power, I can take the next step and turn my weight over to that Power, I can concentrate on taking the action — abstaining and working the steps — and leave the results to God. For today: If I stop “supervising” my weight loss, it will be taken care of in God’s time. I pray for the willingness to do that.”
So I talk to you today at 205 pounds. That’s not really where I’d like to be. I’d like to be at like 150 pounds, but I’m doing all the things I’m supposed to do. And I’ve found that when I reach a plateau—and I’ve reached a few plateaus during my time in OA—there’s something else I’m supposed to learn, and I have to discover what that is. That usually takes me back to working through the Steps again, and figuring out what it is that I’m supposed to learn. That seems to be how my Higher Power is working with me, and I don’t question it. That’s just the way that I’m supposed to work this program, so I do. In Voices of Recovery, on the reading for January 9, it says, “This willingness to act on faith, then, was the key to Step Two. Acting on faith means standing without my defenses to protect me, and assuming that my Higher Power will do the right thing for me, will give me what I need, if not what I want.” Isn’t that true, yes. ”Acting on faith means believing my Higher Power will always listen and encourage me when I’m in a situation in which I have to take risks. My Higher Power will walk with me through the scary situations, and will be with me to the end. When the trials are over. That’s acting on faith.” I am not a fan of change. I like to refer my to myself as “rut girl”—I like to be in that rut. I like to know what happens every day. And I don’t like surprises. Wow, I’ve been shook to my core in OA over and over and over again, I have been pushed and encouraged to step off and believe that I’m going to be okay that I’ve got to try something new. I have to keep up all of those things that I thought were keeping me safe. And trust that my Higher Power knows where I’m going, I have yet to find a new experience that was not wonderful. So now I really try and I still struggle. But I really try to remember that I take a deep breath, I push through that fear. On the other side, there’s always something better. And that’s the way it’s been for me all these years.
In Voices of Recovery, on January 10, the reading states, “As we become aware of what our eating guidelines should be, we ask God for the willingness and the ability to live within them each day. We ask and we receive, first the willingness and then the ability. We can count on this without fail.” I had a hard time figuring out how to deal with this mentality that I had to have certain foods in my house for people that came over. And often those foods in my house were things that I actually couldn’t have and were toxic to me. And someone in program said to me, “If you had a child with a peanut allergy, you would never have anything with peanuts in your house; you would protect them. So why can’t you do that for yourself?” Wow, that was an eye-opening moment! So I cleaned out my house. I’m fortunate that I live alone, so I was able to get rid of the things that were triggers for me. I simply don’t have them in my house or in my life. When I see them in the store, I assume that they’re for other people. The message that my Higher Power gives me is “You don’t eat that anymore, you’re allergic to that and it makes you sick; you can’t have it.” I’m able to let go that way and I’m really grateful for that awareness. The reading continues: “At a time in my recovery when I could not stay abstinent, the words ‘without fail’ offered me comfort and hope. When I could do nothing else, I could pray on my knees every day, no matter what, for the willingness and the ability to be abstinent. The miracle is that the willingness came, and then the ability.” I continue to ask God for the willingness and ability to be abstinent daily, and it continues to work. I believe that just as God grants me the willingness and the ability to be abstinent, He helps me to overcome my character defects. If I pray for the willingness and the ability to do God’s will, I will receive the willingness and then the ability. Thank you God.
I’m Eileen, I’m an overeater. Hi, thank you for your service today. It was really great to hear your story and to hear about the Second Step. For me my Higher Power I choose to call God. And you know, I was raised, brought to church every Sunday forced to sing on the church choir and blah, blah, blah. And at that point, the God of my understanding with somebody that I just had contact with, either when I was in church or saying my prayers at night as I was taught to deal with a little girl. But through recovery, my concept of God has changed so much. Today, I have a loving God with me all the time. 24/7. And how I’ve used God in the Second Step was when if and when I want to eat something that’s either on my alcoholic list or get out of portion control, I do pray to God, please God, please remove this along with that and restore me to sanity. Because the insanity part is to think that I could have just one of something, anything that’s alcoholic, or that I could start getting out of portion control, and not get a grip back on it. So thank you for letting me share.
This is Linda, may I share? Go ahead, please. Thank you so much, Mary. I really liked the idea that Step Two is a bridge from Step One to Three, I like to have pictures in my mind, and that helps me think about this. I’ll have to go back and look at that Lifeline article to read a little more about that. And then the other quote about if I’m having trouble, it’s because I’m trying to work the Steps without giving up control. I really liked that quote. In order to do that, Two, I’m giving up the control, and then Three is I’ve given it over to a Higher Power. So I really liked that analogy and other things said another picture that if you had a child with a peanut allergy, you wouldn’t have them, you wouldn’t have those kinds of foods in your house. So why can’t you do that for yourself. And that when someone said that, that was enough to motivate you to get those foods out of the house. And I too had the same feeling that I wasn’t worth God’s trouble. And he’s busy solving world peace and all of those things. He doesn’t need to bother with my food. But in reality, he does care. I’m glad that I have found a Higher Power. And I’m able to turn the my my will and my life over to him. And thanks so much.
Hi, it’s Meg, may I share? Go ahead, Meg. Thanks very much, Mary, for your share. I love what you said about Step Two in the readings. Some of the things that I learned from my sponsor, that when I was really crazy about all the foods stuff—that’s what I loved about Step Two, and the Twelve and Twelve, and it really just laid it all out all the crazy stuff that I had done. And my sponsor said, “Well, is there anything you can do just for today?” And I chose something for that day, and the next day I realized I had done what I said I would do and it felt really good. That was the start of my learning one day at a time to be abstinent. I wasn’t abstinent right from the get go, but that was a big learning. And then also to realize that my Higher Power cared about what I ate, that it was important because two things: 1. When I’m into the food, there’s nothing can get through to me. It’s just me and the food, and my Higher Power can’t—I’m just not listening. So Higher Power cares that I don’t get into the food, so I can listen to guidance, I had to really test my Higher Power about that, so I would bring home groceries, and maybe it had a bag of stuff in it. And I take that bag out. and I said, “Okay, Higher Power, if you don’t want me to eat this, you got to do something right now.” And invariably, something would happen, my attention would be taken away from that bag by a phone call or seeing the dishes in the sink and I needed to wash them, or when I had a dog, it came up to me and wanted to go for a walk, or I looked out and saw the trees in the sunshine. And then I get involved in something else come back to that bag, and I didn’t want to use it anymore. And it was a miracle to me. And it was my Higher Power working in my life. really grateful to have that Higher Power, thanks to Step Two. Thank you. Thanks, Meg.
This is Jerry, can I share? Yes, please. Hello, thank you. I’m Jerry and abstinent food addict/compulsive eater in recovery 21 years and maintaining 100-plus-pound weight loss. And thanks so much for this. You know, even new insights on Step Two, and I love that it is a bridge between not having any power to getting to that point where you think, well, maybe there’s a Power out there greater than me and greater than food, which was really the Power in my life that could restore some sanity to me. And then when I get to Step Three, I’m able to look at another Power that could help me to restore me to sanity, so I really love that description. And, you know, if they ever do ask me to rewrite the Steps form, which I know they never will—I’m actually reading the new OA3 book, and I’m in the middle of Rozanne’s story and how she initially did change the Steps to take words like God out, and it just tickled me that through, you know, our effective group conscience, we helped Rozanne to see that that really wasn’t a good idea we now have the Steps the same as they are an AA except for changing alcohol to food and alcoholic to compulsive eating. So thanks very much for letting me share.
Hi, it’s is Gloria. May I share? Yes, please. Hi, Mary, it was wonderful to hear you. Again, you have such a great, powerful story. One of the things you mentioned was the line in AA Twelve and Twelve, about on Step Two about the hoops that you have to jump through being very wide. And that was always gave me a great comfort, because initially I struggled a little not so much with Two but Three, and it was really the people I met in the rooms people like yourself and everyone who’s participating in these that really made me believe that recovery was possible for me as well. So I really so much appreciate your service. Thanks, and I look forward to more workshops. Thanks, Gloria.
Hi, I’m Natalie, compulsive overeater. May I share? Yes, please. Hi, everyone. Thanks, Mary for your share, and everyone else to share too. I was sitting here thinking, what does it mean to be restored to sanity? A lot of ways I have never been sane, so being restored to it is kind of new ground—it’s like I am someplace that I’ve never been before. But one of the most amazing ways I’ve been restored to sanity is through of quality of consistency. One of the things that’s the most powerful in my recovery—I’ve been in the program almost five years and have 75-plus pounds of weight loss, and the reason I was able to achieve that—one of the reasons—is this quality of consistency. I email my food to my sponsor every day, I attend meetings regularly, I write in the Steps regularly, so there’s a lot of other things I do. And when I was in the food, the only thing I did consistently was eat and go to the food. That was my Higher Power. And then everything else in my life, I would try—no, I wanted to lose weight, so I would go on a diet, but I would do it for a week and stop. And I would go back to eating food. Or I would—anything in my life, not just the food, I would try to get a new job, and I would do something for a week and then stop or for a day and then stop or even a month and then stop. I never was consistent. I thought it was so boring to be that way. That just really came up for me while I was sitting here listening to you all and thinking one of the most powerful actions I’ve been taking—we talked about that, one of the questions had to do with that—was was to be consistent. Even if what I’m doing is very small to keep doing it every day, one day at a time, taking the consistent action, it has a huge snowball effect. And so many of the promises have come true in my life because of that willingness just to be consistent, where before I wasn’t. I just wanted to share that and say thanks. I’m so glad everyone’s on the call.
Can I share? Yes, please. Hi, thank you, speaker. I really enjoyed all you had to say. I got a kick out of “leveling things off.” I’ve never heard anybody talk about that, but that was very consistent with my disease. I was having to try to hide it: “level everything off.” So I have been in Overeaters Anonymous for over 25 years. I do have to say, I’ve had some long periods of relapse and that I am in recovery today. And Step Two, I realized recently, is probably the Step that carries you through those relapses. I came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. And it was the hope in that that kept me, you know, he kept me going and got me in recovery again. And I liked what you said about act on faith. Because I, for many years, especially in relapse after finding a faith in this program, I had the faith, but I had not learned to act on it. And I’ve had to learn to act on that face and do what I’m being told to do: call my sponsor every day, be abstinent with my foods. And I am forever grateful. Thank you.
Hi, my name is Mary, I’m an anorexic/bulimic, may I share? Yes, please. I just wanted to say thank you so much for sharing. I’m only on here today. My sponsor had sent this on an email out earlier today, so I was just really grateful to be on here. I’ve not listened to this before, but I just really appreciate what was shared about working the program or asking God to come into your life, but still wanting to be in control. And I know that. You know, my sponsor and people have told me that so much in the past, but somehow how you shared it today just really rung true with me. And I’ve had five years of not throwing up, but I’m still running my life and running my program and running/controlling my weight and doing everything, the way that I want to do it. So except not throwing up, five years into recovery, I’m feeling every bit as miserable as I did before recovery, so I know something’s not going right. So I wrote down your questions, and I just really appreciate all you guys being on here ,and it feels good to be back. I haven’t been to an OA meeting in I don’t even know how long. Just appreciate being here today.
Hi, I’m Pam, compulsive overeater. May I share? Yes please, Pam, I enjoyed your story very much. I appreciate Mary—all that you had to say. But what got me the most was the fish in the forehead moment. I never knew what it was called when you came to when awakening and God smack you on the head. I thought that was terrific, and now it just made me laugh. And I appreciate all that you said. Thank you so much.
This is Anne L. from Washington State. Can I share? Yes, please. Just want to really thank you so much, Mary. I’ve never heard your story before it. It just was loaded with such great information and insight and deep feeling, and it really got through to me. One of the things that you said that just totally jumped out at me is that this recovery process that we’re in, goes through different levels and stages. It’s not something that I’m going to get overnight. It’s something that I’m going to just gradually grow with and in—that the root of it all is spirituality. For the last—oh I don’t know—few months and on and off for the last couple of years, really, I’ve been—after 14 years of 100-pound weight loss and 90-Day OA—I’ve been flirting with the idea that I could do things my way again, and I’ve just been really kind of shocked and confused at that discovery. But lately I’ve come to understand that what it’s signaling me is that I’m at one of those plateaus, and I’m ready to really grow in a strongly in another direction around spirituality. And one of the things I’ve come to see is that for the first 14 years, what I’ve really been doing is—one of the things you said—still hanging on to my own willfulness and my own need to control what was going on with me around food; that really what I’ve been doing is white knuckling it out of fear, fear of losing my abstinence, fear of so many different kinds of fears. And I’m at the stage now. and ready—finally, after all these years—I’m finally ready for Step Three, and that what I really need to do now is to go back and rework Step One, Two, and Three, and this time, do it with an open heart and an open mind, and get ready for a huge change in my life. Because I can see that when I really live in harmony, breath by breath, with my spiritual Power, when I’m really doing that, life happens, unfolds in an entirely different way than it’s ever unfolded before. So it’s an adventure, this program that we’re in, I’m ready for the next level of the adventure now. Your wonderful share today helped me move closer to the faith that it’ll take to live in this new way. So I want to thank you very much, and I pass. Thanks so much, Anne. How great to hear your voice.
My name is Pat. What I’d like to say is it’s like a member of the clergy of the church that I was raised in—although I hadn’t been going for years—being in the Twelve Steps and really working the program versus—you know, cause I’d been so angry at that for so long—so here was this alcoholic in recovery person—really kind of reading up, I’ve been able to, you know, be in recovery—he’s been dead now for several years. But I know that he was sent to me by God. And what’s also very humbling to me is how even after 25 years in this last several months, I realized that my food needed to be cleaner and made those changes—thank God I’d been talking to a lot of recovery people and what not—and so it’s just humbling to me how I thought initially when I came in, oh gosh people that I had five years well they’ve really made it and how I just keep learning more and how much more there is to go on. So thanks so much and thanks everybody.
Thanks everyone. I think we’d like to close now. But again I’ll be that means expressed here today are those of individual OA members and do not represent OA as a whole. Next month’s on March 8 will be Step Three and till then stay in your shoes and keep coming back.
