Stephanie, compulsive eater and food addict, and Ronnie, a compulsive overeater, host the introductory workshop of a series designed to encourage OA members to work all Twelve Steps.
This episode explores the nature of the disease of compulsive eating and the willingness it takes to begin the recovery journey. Some refer to the state of being while in the depths of this disease and just before accepting the OA program as “Step Zero.”
For Discussion and Journaling:
- What are the reservations that cause me to resist recovery and resist working the Steps?
- What resources are available to me on the OA website?
- Am I willing to open my heart to a sponsor or to another person no matter what?
- Is what I’m doing still working for me?
OA-approved literature used in this episode:
- Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition
- Overeaters Anonymous, Third Edition
- Forewords and Appendices from Overeaters Anonymous, Third Edition (free download)
Transcript:
Welcome everyone. My name is Stephanie. I’m a compulsive eater and a food addict and the Virtual Services Trustee for Overeaters Anonymous. My partner in this workshop is Ronnie: I’m a compulsive Overeater and I’m calling from Tucson. I chair Region Three.
Today we introduce a series of workshops and discuss the nature of our disease and “Step Zero.” We’ll be referring to Alcoholics Anonymous – the Big Book – and Overeaters Anonymous, Third Edition. There’ll be time at the end of the workshop for sharing, and at the end of this workshop, we’ll be providing a few questions for journaling, to prepare you for working the Steps. Our workshop is being recorded and will be posted on the OA website podcasts page, as well as other podcast feeds.
Before we get started with this workshop, I’d like to tell you a little bit about how it came to be. In the fall of 2012, the Region Chairs did a survey called a Searching and Fearless Membership Inventory, which was presented that next year at the World Service Business Conference. It was discovered that 25 percent of the members who answered the survey had not completed all Twelve Steps. The Board of Trustees and the Region Chairs took this to heart. These virtual workshops were created as a part of the strategic plan for 2015, which is: to increase the focus on the importance of working all Twelve Steps. Region Chairs, Region Trustees, the Virtual Service Trustee, and General Service Trustees, along with other members of the fellowship, will share their experience, strength and hope, how they work the steps, and the importance of working all the steps. Each month we’re going to focus on the different steps. You can expect that during these workshops, you may get some suggested readings or writings. These sessions will be recorded, and they should be put up within a few weeks on the OA website at podcasts. Ronnie can start us off.
I’m going to briefly share my story. I came into OA in October of ’99. I was weighing well over 200 pounds. I think the difference between Stephanie and me is that I was more miserable than heavy, and she was heavier than she was miserable. I moved to the US in ’98 from Europe. I did not have a work permit, but my husband was working and I had money. So what I did is work on “Step Zero.” I was bingeing every day. And every day, I said that the diet starts tomorrow, and honestly, I really did believe that. The self-loathing, the self-hate that I experienced in those years was the culmination of years and years of bingeing, putting myself down, striving to underachieve, so that people wouldn’t expect me to do anything good. So if you just didn’t notice me, it was going to be easier for me and for you. At the same time, I was the most important person alive. So I had that addict dichotomy: that I’m a piece of nothing, and at the same time, you have to do everything that I ask you to do. If I don’t ask, you have to read my mind, because you should be able to know what I’m thinking. I don’t need to verbalize my thoughts; you should just need to know what to do.
I came to OA. I started my abstinence in California. I wasn’t working. And I made OA my job. I went to two meetings a day for about two years. I made OA the most important thing in my life. I gave service; within three months of joining program I started working at Intergroup. I didn’t want to do these things. I did them because my sponsor told me to. I didn’t argue. I was in enough pain to do all the stupid silly things that my sponsor asked me to do, that I had no doubt were not going to help me. I have since lived in Boston, I lived in Flagstaff, and I went to meetings in the Middle East and Europe. I did not work when I first came into program. Today I work, I go to school full time, I have three children. And I go to meetings, and I abstain, and I give service. So for me, the excuse of I’m too busy would never, I hope, work. I think that the more hectic my life is outside of program, the more I need to center myself in program: to give service; to make outreach calls; to be open. For me, this is a contrary action. It’s not what I would do naturally, it’s not what I want to do, and I don’t feel comfortable doing it. I would much prefer sitting in the living room with my kids now watching a movie. But I need to give service for the same reason I had root canal last week. I didn’t want it; I didn’t enjoy it. But I knew that in the long term it was the wise thing to do. And that’s why I’m here today. And I’m grateful. And now I’ll turn back to Steph.
I’m someone that grew up as a fat kid my whole life. In the early ’80s, I was introduced to Overeaters Anonymous as a solution. And when I went, I didn’t like it much. I didn’t like the God parts. I didn’t want to do the Step parts, but they gave me a plan of eating that seemed to work to take the weight off. I’m quite sure that I never worked the Steps. I went because it was a matter of convenience. I worked in a hospital, and for the kind of work I did I needed a lab coat to go over my uniform. They didn’t have lab coats that were that size, and I had to drive to Indianapolis to get one. So it was like well, okay, maybe I’ll do it. I didn’t feel at all desperate, I thought I was a perfectly lovely, wonderful, large woman. And that if they could just get me to a size so I could wear a normal lab coat, that’s really all the help I needed. And that’s really all I did. And after a period of time, I dieted down, and it really was just a diet. The people were lovely, and the reason I came back was because they were friendly. But I didn’t see any problems with my life; so I wasn’t unhappy in my life, except that I was fat. I thought that being thin would solve all my problems. I was in so much denial because I hadn’t worked the Steps, that when I got thin, I thought everything was hunky dory. And after a period of time, we moved from Indiana to Florida and I couldn’t find a job and I altered my food plan a little bit. I had been pretty true to the plan which eliminated sugar and refined carbohydrates. So when I picked up the sugar, it was like I fell off a cliff. In a period of a year I gained over 100 pounds. And I was just desperate. I was really at a low place. I could only imagine getting fatter and things getting worse. It was beginning to impact me physically. I had trouble walking, I had trouble finding clothes, I had trouble doing my job. It was just miserable. So what I did was what seemed reasonable to me. I pulled out that magical food plan and tried to stay on it; I couldn’t stay on it for more than a couple of hours. I’d start out with a reasonable breakfast, and I couldn’t make it to work without stopping at one of those shops along the way. But I remembered that it had worked, and I kept thinking well maybe if I go back it will work. I was desperate enough that I got a sponsor. And, one of the things I’m going to talk about later is where the Overeaters Anonymous book talks about compliance or submission versus surrender. I was submitted. I was willing to be compliant to do what my sponsor said, but I hadn’t really surrendered. I was still the gatekeeper, I was still the one that wanted to be in charge. So I did what I was asked to do. I lost 120 pounds, 125 pounds, got to a normal weight. Everything was great, I thought. During that time I did have a sponsor who helped me work the Steps, and we used the Tools on a pretty regular basis: I did regular writing, I participated in service at my meeting. But I was still in charge. I hadn’t really given up. Then, about four years ago, I had a bad automobile accident. My dad died, and I was convinced my Higher Power was mad at me and didn’t like me. I was pretty mad at him too. I continued to stay in OA and it took me about a year to get abstinent again. And it planted that thought that I could handle it. That I could manage it, if I tried hard enough. I’d been taught in childhood that if I tried hard enough, I could make it happen. And so over the next 14 or 15 years I continued to have periodic relapses. It wasn’t the falling-off-the-cliff kind of relapses, it would be a bag or a box. And what happened is over the next two years, I gained about 35 pounds. And I could rationalize it: I said I lost 125 pounds, what’s a big deal about 35 pounds? But I didn’t like the way I was looking, and I was having to start wearing larger clothes, so I picked up bulimia. There’s a part in the AA Big Book where it talks about pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization; whenever I read that, I think about myself. I had my binge, I could not say what I’d just eaten; I was telling God, I’ll never do this again, just let me puke up the rest of this. I’d say, I will never do this again. And then an hour later, I was back in the bathroom doing the same thing. A head full of OA, certainly kills that crazy eating, and I knew that something needed to change. So I began to talk. I was very secretive, but I began to talk to people, and I got directed to a gal who was helpful to me. She was a directive kick-ass sponsor, who said, “Don’t eat no matter what; no matter what you don’t eat.” And her approach was you put down the food, which is my understanding of “Step Zero.” I needed to put the plug in the jug. Because when I’m eating, my brain is so crazy, I can’t see the true from the false. So she helped me put the food down. She had me work the tools every day until I could begin to get clear-headed enough to stay abstinent, so that I could begin to work the steps. Currently, after 28 years in OA I have ten and a half years of back-to-back abstinence, for which I’m truly grateful. For me, the beginning was putting down the foods; because when I was in the food, I didn’t know there was anything wrong with me. I just thought I was a perfectly normal fat lady. And when I put the food down, it all came back in full force, all the things that were problems. And so I’m really grateful that I felt that pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. And with that, I’ll pass it back to Ronnie, who is going to talk about the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book.
Hi, I’m Ronnie. When we started talking about these workshops, I said the Steps are the most important thing in my life. To explain why it’s so important for me to work the Steps I have to explain what was my “Step Zero,” what it was that made me willing. When I first came to program I was introduced to the Big Book before I was introduced to the OA literature. That was 14–15 years ago. I think that the most important part for me in the Big Book is “The Doctor’s Opinion.” I hope to never forget the relief I felt when I first read it, because for me, I was a functioning member of society, I could tie my own shoelaces, I could dress myself, but I could not put down the fork. And I thought I was really stupid because of that, because many good-intentioned people would just say, eat less, or skip a meal. And in my head, I’m thinking, don’t you think that if I could do that, I would have? Don’t you think that if I had the ability to stop eating and eat like you do, I would do that? Do you think that it’s pleasant to walk around weighing over 200 pounds? I had two surgeries on my ankles. I still have back problems today. But good-intentioned people are not addicts. It took me to come into a room of people who ate from the trash like I have, who stole foods like I have, who stole money to buy food, like I have, who have scars on their hands when they tried to cut into frozen foods like I have. This is when I met my people. This is when I felt relief. My sponsor told me to read “The Doctor’s Opinion” I think it’s an invaluable piece of literature for me as a compulsive overeater. “The Doctor’s Opinion” explains to me why diets don’t work. This is the essence of “Step Zero.” “Step Zero” is about what is unacceptable in my life that I will go to any lengths to change. The Big Book says that we agree to go to any lengths to recover and for victory over alcohol. And any lengths mean not what I’m comfortable doing. I will do whatever you tell me, and I will suspend my disbelief. I will not think that it’s not going to work; I will not argue about why it won’t work. Because if I truly surrendered, I would be willing to do whatever it takes and go to any lengths to stop this horrible, killing disease.
What I understood from “The Doctor’s Opinion,” is that I have a two-fold disease. I have an obsession of the mind, which, in lay terms, says I’m crazy. And I have an allergy of the body. Another word for allergy is an abnormal reaction. I don’t have to break out in hives when I eat certain foods. My reaction, however, is not like the normal person’s. My reaction is I can’t stop eating. This is my abnormal reaction to food. And because I have those two things, that makes me an addict. On the one hand, I cannot choose when to start bingeing. It’s not under my control. And when I do start bingeing, I can’t choose when to stop, because that’s not under my control either. That explained for the first time, what the difference between me and my sister is. She is allergic to peaches and to a million other things. But the difference between me and her is that after she doesn’t eat peaches for 30 days, she doesn’t say, “Now I can eat peaches for 30 days.” And she doesn’t come home and say, “Ugh, my boss was such an a-hole, I’m going to have peaches because that’s going to make me feel better.” She doesn’t have the obsessive mind, she has only the allergy of the body. If I had either the obsessive mind or the allergy of the body, but not both, I wouldn’t have been an addict. And it’s these two components that make me the addict that I am. I’m grateful to understand that, because 90 percent of my self-hate was released when I read “The Doctor’s Opinion.” It’s very important for me to realize that it doesn’t matter why I binged. It doesn’t matter what caused it. I’m an addict. And this is what we do. I binge to solve my problems. And I needed to understand that when I binge, I take everything food gives me. So yes, it gives me great taste, it gives me some kind of euphoria. But that doesn’t last. The other thing that food gives me that I can’t refuse, is the overweight, the health problems, the self-hate, the snapping at other people. My tongue was so sharp that, to this day, when I call my sponsor, some days my commitment for that day is just to restrain my tongue. Because today, I know how hurtful my disease can make me.
This is where my Higher Power comes in. This is where I’m totally powerless. I’m not even trying to control it. I am not trying to solve it. For me, the relief came when I absolutely stopped fighting. I think that if I need to try and control my portions that I have a problem with whatever food it is that I’m eating. I weigh and measure three meals a day, and I have for years now. But if I go to a restaurant, and whatever is there that is not on my food plan, and I say I’m just going to have 10, or I’m just going to have 2, or I’m just going to have 30—that is probably the type of food that should not be on my food plan. I talked to Stephanie earlier today. And we checked the definition of surrender versus compliance. The definition of surrender was to agree to stop fighting, hiding, or resisting, because you know that you will not win or succeed. Compliance, on the other hand, is doing what you have being asked or ordered to do. For me this is the difference between following my food plan and doing the steps because somebody told me, or knowing in my heart of hearts, that this is what I need to do. And I have this objective person in my life, my sponsor, who guides me, who I have to trust 100 percent. I can’t hide things from her, because it will hurt me. In order to recover, I need to reveal my weakness. One person, this one sponsor, I may not necessarily want what she has, but I know for sure I don’t want what I have. That’s Step 0, for me to realize that what I have, I do not want, and I’m willing to go to any lengths to change it. If you give me flyers and tell me to walk down the street naked and hand out OA flyers, I would do that because it will solve my self-hate, my low self-esteem. It will make me a functioning member of society. It’s important to suspend disbelief in “Step Zero.” I can criticize everything. And I need to stop that in order to recover. My disease is so strong that sometimes it will convince me that I’m better than that, I’m smarter than that. I don’t weigh 400 pounds yet, I’m not as bad as they are. I need to let that go, I need to trust OA as a higher power, in my sponsor, a higher power in the cloud, I don’t care. As long as it’s something outside myself. I believe that my channel will be cleared, starting with Step One and following the rest of the Steps, so that I can channel what I’ve been given. Because only we who binge, who hate ourselves, over-exercise, undereat, overeat, whatever it is I do compulsively, I have the gift that I can talk to you, and you will know that your story is mine. It won’t come from a doctor, it won’t come from my best friend, because they’re not addicts. They don’t know what it’s like to dig food out of the trash. They don’t know what it’s like to have to have it right now or else. And I know what it’s like. I think only people who, like us, probably got a Ph. D. in “Step Zero,” we can transmit that to others. And that way, our recovery will be attractive to others. We won’t have to sell OA; it’s not a diet club. But when you look in my eyes and you see my serenity, it all comes from OA. OA has credit for my three healthy kids, for my home, for my dog, for my school. I credit everything to OA. And I’m grateful, and I’ll turn it over to Steph.
Thank you, Ronnie. I too love “The Doctor’s Opinion.” In the Overeaters Anonymous book there are several appendices that talk about a disease of the body, the dangers of the mind, disease of the spirit. Our newest Overeaters Anonymous, Third Edition, has two new pieces added to it. The first one is a foreword by Marty Lerner, who’s a clinical psychologist, and, who, like Dr. Silkworth, worked in the field. He says that the measure of the problem is not what we see on the scale, but the consequences of our physical, emotional and spiritual disease. And there’s a new appendix added by a dietitian that also describes it as addiction. What that does is help me relate more closely to alcoholism. He says “addiction is characterized by an inability to consistently abstain, impaired in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response.” Wow, I surely qualified for that. But I didn’t know it until the food was down. As Ronnie said, my experience was that I needed to put the food down before I could see that I had any problems. Like some alcoholics, I had not lost my house, I hadn’t lost my marriage. I had a job. I made money. I’d been to school. By a lot of ways that people click off success, I was successful. And I didn’t really think I was unhappy except for the food. I was one of those people who thought “if only”: If only I wasn’t fat, I’d be fine. If only my parents hadn’t done that, I’d be fine.” It’s really important for us to identify the foods and parts of the foods to which we are sensitive, our trigger or binge foods or alcoholic foods. I came in because I was fat, and I didn’t want to be fat. When I came to Overeaters Anonymous, I wasn’t looking for an emotional solution, because I didn’t have an emotional problem. I wasn’t looking for a spiritual solution, because I didn’t think I had a spiritual problem. I’m grateful today that I was guided to put the food down so I could see the truth.
One of the reasons that I love OA literature is that it’s written by compulsive eaters for compulsive overeaters. I don’t have to do any translation from alcoholism. It’s interesting, because a lot of what’s in the appendices and this new forward describe the same kinds of things that are in “The Doctor’s Opinion,” except in OA terms. I think that the analysis is very similar. Our disease is progressive, and that is one of the things that is identified there. I’m going to read this one statement that the dietitian Teresa Wright wrote. She said, “I believe that people can be addicted to food. And it’s important for them to identify and remove from their life, the foods and food elements to which they are sensitive. They’re called trigger or binge foods. They give people cravings, obsessions, or the inability to stop. Any food can be appropriate in an abstinent food plan. But if a food causes problems for the person, it needs to be removed. Then the food addict is free to use the Twelve Steps to create the life he or she really wants to live.” When I read that, it was like, “Wow that made a lot of sense.” I am really grateful that we’ve added those bits of information to the OA edition three. As Ronnie was talking about, we discussed submission and surrender or compliance and surrender. I thought I had surrendered, you know, when I needed to give up and I thought I’d given up, I was doing what I was asked to do. I didn’t really realize that I was compliant. My multiple relapses showed me that I was still in charge. I tend to be a people pleaser, and so wanting to please my sponsor, I did what she asked me to do. And being a pretty accomplished liar, I was able to do that sometimes the same way that I did with my parents: if I wanted my parents to think that I was a good girl, I just told them what they wanted to hear, whether I did that or not. And sometimes I did that with my sponsor. And one of the things I learned through my relapse was that what I was doing wasn’t working. I did read the books. I did do writing, I did go to workshops, I did do the Steps, I thought. There was a time where my sponsor made a suggestion that I give up a certain beverage. And I really didn’t think I had a problem with it; I had all this rationalization, and I could tell you up one side and down another that I didn’t have a problem with it, and and pass a lie detector test because I absolutely positively believed it. But I had this rule with my sponsor that if she told me something I didn’t want to hear I’d take it to quiet time for three days before I approached her about it. So after the third day, I realized that it really didn’t matter whether I believed it or not; that it was part of my spiritual practice to practice that surrender. And that has been a really meaningful thing for me to practice. I don’t have to understand why I need to do it. I just have to do it. If I see that it works in others, as Marty Lerner says in the foreword, that is hope by example. And that’s the way it works for me. My weight, my size, my discomfort about how I looked got me into OA. And then I saw that this works for you. I’m so grateful that Rozanne has taught us to keep coming back no matter what, just keep coming back until the miracle happens. I saw people that it works for, people were kind to me, people helped me, people supported me. And that’s what I needed. Because my mind is very strong-willed. And it’s important for me to give up and take direction. It’s not what I like to do, but it’s what works for me.
I’m grateful that we have these appendices, because they talk about how our disease is physical and emotional. In other words, I can’t just go to my doctor if I have this allergy and he can fix me. I can’t just go to a psychiatrist and he can fix me, because both pieces have to be together. And the solution comes from working with all Twelve Steps. And one of the things we really want to emphasize in these workshops is that no matter how we come to “Step Zero,” whether it’s through the food, the emotions, or being spiritually bereft, however we come there, the solution is through these Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous. I’ve been taught that I don’t get to pick and choose. There were several that if I had been given a choice I would not have chosen to do. So I think that we have a lot of important information and literature available to us in Overeaters Anonymous. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, the OA Twelve and Twelve, the Overeaters Anonymous, Third Edition and Second Edition, are beautiful pieces of literature that help us see the truth about who we are. I would encourage everyone if you haven’t read this literature, please do. I think you’ll find it very useful to your recovery.
