In which our heroine wonders if anyone is out there?

I haven't posted in 6 months. It is really hard to believe it has been that long. I have been slowly going through the steps by my workbook, and i have just begun step12. That's the one where you reach out to others and share the benefits of the 12 steps. I was thinking that if someone reads my blog and decides OA is for them, that might be a form of step 12.

However, I feel I am not a good enough "poster child" for recovery. I have been a chronic relapser, and since July 2006, when I tried to go off my antidepressants, I have slowly gained 40 pounds. I was blaming depression, but I have been back on my meds since October.

Although my food is kind of in the crapper - and exercise is nonexistent, which I think is a big part of this gain-- I have not given up hope that working the 12 steps will help me recover not only physically but spiritually and mentally.

And I have seen tremendous spiritual recovery. It's the emotional and the physical that are struggling now. They feed on themselves, I was depressed so I didnt have energy to do a proper food plan and exercise, and lack of healthy food and exercise decreased my energy level and lowered my mood.

At this point I am going to check with my health provider to see if my meds need adjustment. I have the willingness to do the things I need to do, but I don't seem to have the follow-through to put the willingness into the ability to do what I need to do.

I am going to try not to make it a 6 month gap between now and next posting. Thanks so much for the encouraging comments back in January.

In which nothing much seems to happen

I am trying to get back into blogging, and yet I feel nothing significant has occurred for me to write about. I am supposed to be doing a 10th step review of every day. I had emailed my sponsor about it and asked for some guidance on how best to do that. But I haven't heard from my sponsor in several days. I know he has some child custody issues, and perhaps that is keeping him busy.

There are some things at my morning job I haven't been very good at turning over. I ate over them today. Bah.

I teach my class starting Monday. I am almost prepared, but I have to come in to work anyway on Saturday so I will shore everything up for Monday then.

I just feel like I am not moving forward. I guess the good thing is that I am not moving backward?

In which there is an awakening and a moving forward.

I have finally finished my amends. I had an indirect amends to do to a bunch of people that I don't remember their last names or their name is so common i have no way of getting their contact information from the internet. I wrote out the amends on slips of paper, and then pulled each one out of a pocket, one at a time, said a prayer over the person and made amends in my heart, and then burnt the slip in a metal bowl. Outdoors. In the cold, and the wind. The next day, the ice storm came.

My sponsor tells me that one has a spiritual awakening after completing step 9. All I know is that in the middle of my amends I had the antidepressant fiasco, and a relapse. I have been getting back on track, but today two pairs of pants did not fit me. Now I may be retaining water which is why they don't fit all of a sudden, but when I was fitting into a size smaller last summer this is not heartening news.

I started emailing my food to my sponsor again. I think letting someone else (who knows what this disease is like) know of my food for the day keeps me accountable. My goal for the week is to make it to the gym the rest of the weekdays. I didnt go yesterday because of the ice storm, but I did go today.

My sponsor gave me something to read in the Big Book, and then I have to do some writing. I am asking to be willing tonight.

In which some simple truths are revealed

One of my libraries focuses on health care resources. Very popular in the health care field right now is a thing called "evidence based medicine." What this term means, is that we can assume things work by testing them. If scientific results show the desired outcome, then we can assume, by the evidence, that the treatment is effective or not effective.

While I don't have large, scientific studies for my own behaviors, I can use my own evidence to show me what I should and should not be doing. When I ate on my food plan, exercised regularly, managed my stress and worked the steps, I lost 30 pounds. When I stopped taking my antidepressant, I was unable to eat on my food plan, wake up in the morning to exercise, or manage my stress. As a result, from July to October, I gained 15 pounds. Getting back on my anti-depressant has meant crawling out of this hole in my lifestyle -- it is more than just my weight, it is my entire well being that has suffered. Evidence based self care has shown me what I need to do to keep my life in balance.

Usually for the New Year, I try to set some goals, and review my goals from last year. I don't think I achieved any of my goals from last year -- they were things like, take nutritional supplements, publish a peer reviewed article, benchmarks for exercise, etc. I did make progress on all of those things, however.

The "Big Book" talks about people who make alot of resolutions, but no decisions. Here is what I have decided to do this year:

(1) Work the steps
(2) Excersise to the best of my ability
(3) Eat what my body tells me to eat
(4) Manage my stress through yoga and meditation
(5) Work on improving my relationships with other people
(6) Manage my finances responsibly
(7) Manage my professional tasks responsibly

I guess this can all be boiled down to:

I will do what I know works for me.

In which our heroine talks to a tree

I have been calming down and feeling less negative. My food is back on track. And I got up a little early yesterday, and remembered to do something I have been putting off. I have finished most of my direct amends, and I need to do some indirect amends. A couple of weeks ago I had drafted a letter to a group of people who I harmed. I don't know most of their first names and none of their last names, so I can't really track them down without injuring someone else. Anyway, I had written them a letter, and my sponsor said, "What are you going to do with it?" So I asked HP, because I had kind of thought just emailing it to my sponsor was enough. I asked HP, and a gut instinct came back to me: "Read it out loud to a tree." Um. Ok.

So I was having all these negativity issues, and feeling really super dorky and like this program is a waste of my time. I did not read it to the tree. Even though I had a felt sense of exactly what tree to read to. It just felt... dumb. I would write my food in to my sponsor every morning and occasionally, he would ask, "have you read to that tree yet?" No. So anyway, for whatever reason, I was in the computer room yesterday morning, and it occurred to me I could print out the letter and read it to the tree before going to work. So, I did. And i felt like a fruitcake; and had to tell myself no neighbors were paying attention to me -- surely, they were all getting ready for work and not looking out the windows.

Did I mention, the tree had all changed colors: its leaves were a stunning crimson. It took my breath away.

So today, I pause on that gift. Tomorrow I work on my next, and second to last amend.

In which our heroine has some realizations

I had an appointment with my therapist on Monday. I am still struggling, but I am not overeating. I have to say, I like my food plan. I feel good when I eat according to my food plan. It gives me structure and the balance of nutritional food in it gives me energy and clears my brain.
I do not know if it is abstinence that I am having a problem with. I think what is going on is I dont want to be a "leader" in OA. I hated going to that Tuesday meeting because I had become one of the "experienced old timers" and others were relying on me. My sponsees relied on me, and I felt like I didnt know where the boundaries were in terms of sharing experience strength and hope versus providing advice (for non OA readers, sharing "esh" is good, giving advice is bad). So, I have been doing online meetings on Tuesday nights instead of going to a face to face meeting. On Saturday I will decide if I am going to the Sunday meeting. No need to worry about that day today, it is not here.

Another issue that may be part of this is the antidepressant question. Loyal readers may remember that I searched most of Summer 2004-Fall 2005 for a new psychiatrist, because I wanted to work off my antidepressant medication that I had been taking for 10 years. I am 6 months off of one medication, and that is when it is all out of your system. I have to ask myself if the problems I have been experiencing since July are partly due to being off the medication. My new psychiatrist said that the wellbutrin can make you "less sensitive" and I am wicked feeling "more" sensitive. The good news is there are other options if I do not want to be on this medication. I have emailed my naturopath, and my therapist (not my psychiatrist -- gosh, so many damn health providers!) has given me the name of a homeopath who may also help.

So, the realization is this: there are always options. I am always in a room with several doors. I just need to rely on the higher power of my choosing (which in my case is some vague Universe type energy source thing) to guide me to a key.

In which our heroine apologises for the lack of regular correspondence

Im' sorry. I've been lax. I am still having committment issues to blogging despite my revamped look and title. Monday is a good day to start things, so here is a post that catches you up.

I feel I have lost my committment to abstinence. As a result I told my sponsees that I am unable to sponsor them, and they should seek new sponsors. I feel disingenuous sponsoring them, when I don't have enough abstinence to give them suggestions for when they lose theirs. I can now see that I have been in relapse at least since I was teaching my class this summer, despite much progress -- I have been doing better than I did before I came to program, but I am not committed to abstaining from compulsive overeating.

The way I have been sponsoring, I have had contact with my sponsees every day, and work the step that they are on as well as working a step with my own sponsor. I have used this work with my sponsees as a reason not to continue on with my step 9 amends. I need to do those amends and move on to step 10.

I am nervous about an impending amend. I will talk it over with my ever-helpful sponsor, who says to save it to the last one, anyway.

I have neglected many facets to my program that enabled me to be successful: going to meetings, sticking to the food I commit to in the morning, exercising, blogging. I am going to focus on getting those items back. This week, I am focused on: getting up early in the morning with an effort to work back towards getting to the gym. Blogging today, but not committing to any schedule with that just yet. Planning my food and eating the food I plan. Working step 9, and maybe making some calls this week. An online meeting.

I know what to do, it's all there in my head. I just have to be willing.

In which an amends becomes something to obsess over...or not?

I am nearing the end of step 9, where I make amends to people. Most of the people I have made amends to have been very good to me. A large number of them told me no amends were necessary and they were glad we had moved beyond whatever issue and stayed friends, etc.

Last night's amends had some of that element, but the person I was making amends to said "I am suprised you are making amends for THAT THING THAT HAPPENED when there are probably other things that happened that hurt me worse." Or words to that effect: basically that I was making amends for the wrong thing. When I asked this person what things I should be making amends for, because I am happy to do it, the person said, "E., don't pick at a scab." And then went on with the usual "no amends needed" stuff as mentioned in paragraph one of this post.

It's not about the person's reaction to my attempt at amends. It is my sincerity in offering amends and restitution that counts. What the other person says or does is up to HP. But I am finding myself kind of obsessing about it today, and monkey mind is thinking I should send him a follow up email, etc etc.

But I think I am just going to try to (1) not eat over it; and (2) leave it up to my own HP. Hey! HP ~ are you listening? Do i need to do anything about this? Let me know please... thanks~

In which our heroine makes an observation unrelated to recovery...

I figured out what the ESPN pregame show is.... you know, the thing on before football on Sunday with a bunch of jocks talking over each other?

It's "The View" for men.

In which the concept of the blog is introduced, and my story begins continues...

The purpose of this blog is to share my story, especially my OA recovery from compulsive overeating. In the 2-plus years since I started blogging, I have come to discover that being overweight is a symptom of other issues, it is NOT the root problem. All the calorie counting, weighing and measuring, exercise goals and weekly weight loss targets do me no good. This is because my problem is spiritual: I feel isolated from my fellow human beings and a higher power. I feel different from them.

What the OA program has given me since 2005 (well really since I first attended an OA meeting in 1999), is a sense of belonging, and a sense of working on issues that have plagued me since childhood.

So, although I want to lose weight, my weight will not be posted for everyone to see. I will not talk much about my food plan, or my exercise plan, although I have them. Instead, I will talk about what is going on in my head, how I am relating to the people in my life and to my Higher Power.

In this way, I hope to utilize the writing tool on a regular basis. If you've come here from my old blog, welcome. I hope you enjoy this new approach. I expect, however that I will lose alot of the old readers. But that is not in my control. I may also gain some new ones. Whether you've been with me since 2004 or just happened upon this blog today, I welcome you to my new online home. It's got the basics but it's lacking some furniture and amenities which I hope to put into place in the coming weeks. I hope you'll check back often, and I welcome your comments.