Food for Thought for Over Eaters Anonymous

[MajestyJo]

From the book: Food for Thought
Dec. 20

A No Fault Illness


Formerly, we may have blamed our parents, a disappointment in love, economic insecurity, or a million other factors for our addiction to compulsive overeating. We probably spent much time and energy trying to figure out why we overate.

When we get honest with ourselves, we assume the responsibility for our own actions, instead of trying to shift it somewhere else. Many of us come to believe that we would be compulsive overeaters no matter what the circumstances of our lives. As we recover, we see that the why of our illness is unanswerable and unimportant. What counts is how we control it.

We do not continue to berate ourselves for having this illness, or consider ourselves physically, morally, or spiritually inferior for having contracted it. Blaming ourselves is as useless as blaming someone else. We accept the fact that through no one's fault we have the disease of compulsive overeating. Then we get on with the business of learning to control this illness with the help of our Higher Power and the OA program.

I blame no one for my illness.

For many years, I didn't realize that I had an eating disorder. I used food to deal with my emotions. For many years I blamed my dad for my alcoholism. I blamed my mother for many things, mostly not being able to be there for me. It wasn't until I was in recovery that I could see where she was coming from.

In today, I am sure she had Fibromyalgia. It wasn't even a thought when she died at the age of 40 as a result of being overweight. I was 21, so that was 53 years ago. How could she know what she had never been taught. How could she know, when her doctor didn't know?

I am given freedom of choice. It is up to me if I take that next bite, like I am doing now. I just made some chocolate chip cookies and I decided to have #3. What makes it worse, is the fact that they turned out to be big cookies. Not good for a diabetic, not good for someone who thinks 'more' when she eats sweets.

Just for today, I will pray to my God to help me with my thinking. It is the thinking that leads me to that next one or an attitude of, "What will more one do, I have already had two." This is what AA means by an attitude adjustment, sufficient to aid recovery, one day at a time.