Saturday (9/11/21) was the 20th Anniversary of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the militant Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States of America on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. I spent much of that particular weekend reading about that day’s infamous events and watching a very detailed (and amazingly thorough) documentary that […]
Category Archives: Higher Power – God
Improving My Relationship with My HP
Step Eleven: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. “Our Higher Power is the only source of help that is always available to us, always strong enough to lift us […]
Humbly Asking and turning it over
Step Seven: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. ”Each of my character defects is replaced by its opposite, and I am equipped with a new set of survival skills.” — Voices of Recovery, October 7. If I’ve done a good job at becoming willing to let go of my character defects, turning them over […]
Growth is Taking Responsibility and Being Self-supporting
Tradition Seven: Every OA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. “Taking responsibility is a meaningful sign of spiritual and emotional growth.” — Voices of Recovery, September 8. When a basket gets passed at a meeting or the meeting treasurer posts a donation link in the chat window, it reminds me that this […]
The Deadly Disease No One wants to Discuss – Compulsive Eating
To sustain life, every living thing must eat – and, typically, human beings must eat several times a day from a wide variety of food groups. And yet, each of us will come to develop a relationship with food that can either lead to a happy and balanced way of being, or it can result […]
During the Pandemic I found a Quick and Easy Tenth Step Inventory: AEIOU and Always Y!
As a low bottom compulsive eater (that used to turn to all kinds of unhealthy binge foods to stuff my negative feelings until I became overstuffed, bulimic, and obese), one of the real gifts and surprising blessings that came into focus during the COVID-19 pandemic has been the widening availability of OA meetings and events, […]
Thanks to Step Two I Came to believe
Step Two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. “Having reduced us to a state of absolute helplessness, you now declare that none but a Higher Power can remove our obsession. Some of us won’t believe in God, others can’t, and still others who do believe that God […]
Tradition Two: One Ultimate Authority
Tradition Two: For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority–a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern. I don’t know about you, but I just love running the show, being in charge, telling other people what to do. When […]
Abstinence
Tradition Three in Overeaters Anonymous tells us: The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively. When I attended my first few meetings, I heard people talking about abstinence and, in some cases, abstaining from certain foods and eating behaviors. I was appalled. I had spent a lifetime dieting and restricting as […]
Again
Alone in the dark How did I get here? Again I didn’t want to Yet here I am Again Every day I wake up I say “not tonight” Every night I’m here Again Self loathing Obese Isolated Body Aches Again Then I met you I act “as if” I write to you I hit my […]
How OA and Zentangle helped me untangle my life
I was fortunate to find a sponsor that was not merely extremely kind, patient, and loving – but someone willing to challenge my old beliefs about art and my own creativity! When I was a child, my parents had discouraged my keen interest in art by advising me it was “a complete waste of time.” […]
What Do You Mean By “Doing the Footwork?”
Soon after I got into OA, I heard “Let go and let God.” Later it was “Just do the footwork.” I tried to understand how I was supposed to turn things over to my Higher Power, but also do the footwork. I couldn’t figure it out. What was the difference between taking back control of […]