Action (Rather than Willingness) was the Key to Recovery

Action (Rather than Willingness) was the Key to Recovery

For years, I’ve heard people in Overeaters Anonymous meetings talk about the importance of ‘willingness.’ In fact, many for whom abstinence had been but a hoped for dream, shared that they were struggling to find that ‘willingness,’ and even praying ‘to become willing to be willing.’ I thought I was willing, but when things got stressful or unpleasant, I continued to run to the junk food and the sugar. It just seemed I couldn’t conjure up enough ‘willingness’ that everyone seemed to be talking about.

Sadly I heard ‘willingness’ discussed so often, I nearly became convinced that since I seemed to lack this ever elusive ‘willingness,’ that I would NEVER be able to recover from my decades-long obsession with food!

Boy, was I ever wrong – and thank goodness for a wise OA sponsor who helped me understand what I had been missing!

After failing – over, and over again – to find abstinence, or to complete the Twelve Steps in OA, I had reached a point where I was feeling utterly hopeless and completely defeated. But because I’d also heard, “keep coming back” and “don’t quit before the miracle happens,” I kept going to meetings, and I kept trying to find out the secret to success in OA, which many had identified as ‘willingness.’

According to our Traditions, the only requirement for OA membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively. Being at an absolute low point, despondent about my appearance, and seriously fearful for my health given my obesity, I certainly had the desire to stop. Yet I just could not seem to put down the candies, pastries, pizzas, or soda pop that were the object of my incessant cravings! I was able to follow a diet or exercise plan for a period of time, but I could NOT remain stopped from the insanity of my food obsessions!

Fortunately for me, I screwed up enough courage to ask yet another person to be my sponsor and to take me through the steps. That act of bravery – what some might call ‘willingness’ – led me to discover an important point that had eluded me for far too long.

When I met with my new sponsor – a woman with strong recovery and highly evident serenity – to talk about working the steps with her, she asked me what actions I’d taken in the past towards my own recovery. I told her I’d attended meetings, read the OA literature, and done my writing assignments, including putting a plan of eating together, exactly as requested. She asked me to tell her more about what I’d done in the past and urged me to describe both my plan of eating and my action plan.

Hmm. Action plan. What, exactly, was that? Wasn’t I doing an action plan by attending meetings, reading the literature, and working the steps?

Together we reviewed the Nine Tools of Recovery, focusing on the description for an action plan: identifying and implementing attainable actions to support our individual abstinence and emotional, spiritual, and physical recovery. Then, she patiently described to me the process she went through, and the specific things she did (on a regular basis), that comprised her own OA action plan.

Every day, upon awakening, she said a prayer (of her own creation) to ensure that she was focused on an open and honest relationship together with establishing constant contact with her Higher Power, taking the time to thank her HP for at least 3 things she was grateful for, while also inviting her HP to be there with her through the ups and downs of her day. She then read from an OA daily reader and took note of whatever she saw in the reading that could help her to be a better person or as a point of focus for her day.

At breakfast, she thanked her HP for the food she was preparing and for allowing that food to ‘be enough.’ If it was a work day, she took her HP to work and invited that HP to help her be ‘a better worker among workers.’

At lunch, she would take 15 minutes to meditate somewhere quiet (often closing the door to her office or going to sit in the park nearby) before she had her meal, and always thanked her HP for making that meal ‘be enough.’

Throughout her day she would check-in or call upon her HP for guidance or assistance, and look at how she might ‘be of love and service.’

Before returning home, she would thank her Higher Power for giving her a job and a purpose, and ask that her HP guide her driving and her actions on the busy highway home.

As she prepared dinner for herself and her loved ones, she would again connect and thank her HP for the food and for the love in her home. Then she would attend an evening meeting, or spend some time reading with a sponsee and working steps.

She had ‘working out at her local gym 5 days a week’ in her action plan, as well as attending 4 meetings, working with 4 sponsees, and checking in with her sponsor. Then, before retiring, she would examine her day and look at what she had done well, as well as what she could have done better, and would write down the name of a person to whom she might owe an amends or with whom she wanted to share an appreciation, as well as how she might be of service in OA, to her family, and to her job.

WOW! This sponsor was a humble and dedicated woman of ACTION! She had a living, breathing, complete, and very thoughtful action plan for her recovery! No wonder she was so serene and had been able to take off – and keep off – her extra pounds with such a comprehensive action plan!

But, I had asked, what about ‘willingness?’

She smiled and told me that although she wasn’t always ‘willing’ (and even sometimes downright ‘unwilling’ to read one more page or do one more act of service), she did it anyway. And in that process, she came to experience her heart opening, her patience and perseverance expanding, and her awareness of the goodness and sweetness of her life grow exponentially. Yes, she definitely had what I wanted, and she seemed to have it in spades, all because of this OA action plan!

She proceeded to point out to me the three pertinent ideas on page 60 in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous:
(a) That we were <food>aholics and could not manage our own lives.
(b) That probably no human power could have relieved our <food>aholism.
(c) That God could and would if he were sought.

She explained that there were specific actions required of us contained in these 3 pertinent ideas. First, to surrender to the fact that we are compulsive eaters whose lives are unmanageable (without a program and clear set of principles to guide us). Secondly, nothing of human making can EVER help us out of our food addiction – and this means that self-will and will power were utterly useless.

However, if we took action and ‘sought’ a Higher Power, then that power (who some choose to call GOD) ‘could and would’ help relieve us of our obsession!

Where any concept of ‘willingness’ does come into play, is mentioned on this very same page: we must become “willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.”

Further on page 60 it says, “The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show…”

She took me to page 62, where the following is made clear: “Selfishness – self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate…So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the <food>aholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so. Above everything, we <food>aholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible.”

Today, I clearly understand I absolutely NEED a God or Higher Power, and that I am NOT God – nor can I play at being GOD. I am neither well-suited to that job, nor was I ever going to be able to run the show, or control anyone on this planet, let alone my own crazy food addition/compulsive eating.

As much as I craved sugar and flour, and junk food of nearly every variety, I have NEVER been able to stop eating compulsively, and STAY STOPPED! I needed to surrender my stubbornness, my ego-self, and ask for help with my compulsive eating and bingeing!

What I had needed all along was not willingness, but to take action to forge a working relationship with a Higher Power, along with a set of principles (the Twelve Steps) to help guide me through the challenges and struggles of daily living so that food would stop serving as my ‘go-to’ crutch (or fix) for any bad feelings, boredom, or whatever other excuse I could find for stuffing my face rather than facing my problems or dealing with my feelings. What I definitely needed was to take action to grow spiritually, and that was going to take an action plan!

My wonderfully wise and supportive sponsor helped me to understand that writing out a clear action plan, and then TAKING ACTION daily to follow it, was what would help me grow an attitude of gratitude as well as the kind of perseverance and steadfastness that could translate into a strong recovery, abstinence from my ‘alcoholic foods’ and a sense of peace and serenity as I go through my day to day life.

Well, I not only managed to get through all Twelve Steps and experienced the psychic change (or spiritual awakening) as a result, but I’ve also studied, and now live by, the Twelve Traditions as well. The long-elusive abstinence and food neutrality I had once sought is now part of my day-to-day experience because I finally, and fully, surrendered to my Higher Power all those unhealthy foods that had been terrible binge triggers for me.

With the creation of, and daily adherence to, my OA action plan, I now have peace of mind and the key to a life happy, joyous, and free of food obsession, excess pounds, as well as the awful, and extremely negative self-talk I had suffered with for decades. Thinking about and putting together an action plan – that I act upon daily – has been a game-changer for me! At times, I’m still not willing, but I do take the action, however imperfectly, to seek my Higher Power and to follow what I set out as my OA action plan. It has continued to grow and evolve, just as I have, and I trust that so long as I am taking action, I will continue to grow along spiritual lines. Thank you, OA!

– A Grateful OA Member