How I have learned to watch what I ask for! Because that’s what I’ll get!
How many times had my sponsor said: “Ask God for help in the morning. Ask for help before each meal.” Okay, I can do that much. After several years of my sugar-free food plan, everyone started to get on my very last nerve—I was having a fit! The thoughts came, and I heard them so clearly:
This is too hard!
I can start again tomorrow.
I need ice cream.
I want ice cream!
Ice cream would make me forget.
Ice cream would give back that lost sense of ease and comfort.
Why should I have to do without it?
This business of making two program calls, reading OA literature, going to meetings, and listening to sponsor’s platitudes is all too much!
I just don’t care.
And with that I was off to the fast-food restaurant for a ninety-nine-cent ice cream cone. I began salivating while there were still three cars ahead of me in the drive-thru line. I became agitated at the time it was taking. I could taste it already. Finally, it was my turn to order, and I quickly got the words out of my mouth: “I want an ice cream cone.”
The server politely said, “I’m so sorry. Our ice cream machine has been out all day. We cannot serve you ice cream. Would you like anything else?”
I knew God was laughing out loud.
How many times had my sponsor said: “Ask God for help in the morning. Ask for help before each meal.”
For years, I justified fried onion rings as a vegetable in my food plan. I also rationalized that I didn’t have to order them, I could just eat one or two of my son’s order. Then a stroke of brilliance occurred, and I heard it so clearly:
Check the ingredients!
I did an online search for the ingredients in the batter of another fast-food company’s onion rings, and I discovered that it included their vanilla ice cream mix. Of course, I loved onion rings, but now I knew better. I had the knowledge, and I knew the facts.
But the facts didn’t stop me. When my spouse did not get the lawn mown in time to suit me, I left to get onion rings. Then, while waiting in line to order, a thought came, and I heard it so clearly:
Woman, if you persist in this behavior all the nice people before and after you will not get to eat anything fried because the “fryolators” will break down. Do you want to be the cause of these repercussions?
I laughed out loud and pulled out of line.
—Judith, Oklahoma USA
