wipeout

My abstinence has been shot. It's not a matter of a crouton or an ounce extra of something. This is more like going to the sushi bar with a few old buddies and blowing over $200 on sake and raw fish. It's not like it at all actually, it's exactly like that. I was celebrating our reunion, and I was running from problems of my own. My boy was at his grandmother's and this was a chance to really let loose the way I used to. I knew the chance would not come again for a long time, or EVER because I was trying to lead an abstinent life. It's the EVER part that is really making me crazy. So I made a conscious decision to blow it all.

I also want to report I had the time of my life. This is factual and the more I think about it the less I really think I regret doing it. What I regret is what came after. After dealing with a minor hangover for the morning after, I went out to the supermarket and loaded up on all the crap I had been craving for months. Then I found every drivethru in the area, and sampled those for a few hours. My day was shot on just eating. My wife had no idea where I had gone when I told her, "I'd be right back". I abandoned her and my son for a period of hours where upon I just gorged myself to sickness. That was Sunday. I ate through most of yesterday too.

As for the possible excuses, I had some uncertainty at my job as some people close to my position were getting laid off, and I screwed up my checking account so it was overdrawn in a month where I was shopping for home loans. I was able to fix my account before the nightly update on Monday, which is good. Also I still have work, thank goodness.

I just felt cornered. I really wanted an escape. Besides, did I want to explain the ins and outs of program to my old buddy? Tell him that I'm not allowed to eat the best food and drink on earth with him? To celebrate life and each other in the best way we know how? Sushi is a sort of religion for me, by the way. It is probably the single reason I resisted getting a sponsor for so long. And in the end Shushi wasn't the real problem. It's everything else. That is to say it's the cookies, whoopee pies, peanut butter bars, candy bars, milk shakes, brownies, fried chicken, ice cream, double-quarter pounders and on and on and on... that make it so I can't have sushi. At least now. There doesn't seem to be a happy medium for me, of course.

Can I blame program? Can I blame "abstinence"? After all if I eat a jujube at a movie, it's the same as if I eat an entire Chinese food buffet. There are no grey areas there. This is probably why I have had what little success I have had. Give me a tiny bit of wiggle room and I will find a way to fit a pint of Ben and Jerry's in there, trust me. Naturally, I didn't have to eat the rest of the gunk. I didn't even have to go to the bar and lose a king's ransom in unagi and sake-maki rolls. I could have told him I had to get home, or that I had plans. Easy! Never would have been a problem then. No lengthy discussions about my disorder or even a mention of it.

It was my decision. Every bite and drink was a decision I made. Everything I ate after that too. I don't know if I can stop eating right now. I went into this morning with a solid determination to stop, but now... What is really scary is that I could have two, or ten or a thousand of these days ahead of me where I am unable to stop. I may never stop really. There are too many out there like that for me to pretend that it's not a possibility. It WAS me only two years ago when I had no hope at all, just like today.

293

Something was really bothering me. In a sense, I was actually terrified. It was an artifact from my previous life. The one before I met my wonderful wife and I realized that I probably could be happy instead of reveling in misanthropy, beat poetry and cheap cigars my whole life. Back then, I really didn't think much at all about the next day, or even the day I was in. All that really mattered to me was that my comforts were readily at hand, food included. I kept going back to college as a way of 1. looking like I was trying to do something with my life, and 2. keeping my head active and me out of my mom's basement. It was a lifeline really. I had at least that much sense. And when I met my wife at school, I knew I was on the right track.

I ultimately dropped out again(you dumbass!), but we were married in four years and now seven years after that we have a 1 year old son who is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. The trouble is during those years of working/college/working/college/smoking weed/college?/ I had racked up amazing amounts of debt, terribly bad amounts for a guy my age. All of it in default by the year 1999.

My credit was a wreck. Eventually my then fiancee found about it. And we fought for weeks on and off over what to do. I was certain that I could turn the boat around myself, or I said I was. What I really wanted was for her to butt out of my sordid past and let me be a failure so she wouldn't find out how bad it had gotten. But she didn't give up on it, and despite considering it seriously a few times she didn't give up on me. I eventually relented and she made a bunch of calls and got the whole picture straight. After that it was a slow ascent of consolidation loans and payment books and mistakes made. After about four years I started to get offers for credit cards and got one. Made payments on time and the such.

In 2003 we needed a new car and my credit wasn't up to snuff then, so the auto is in her name. I was so distraught over that. Even in the intervening time I've had school loan problems, deferments and a few near defaults, along with other late payments here and there to various other creditors. A few stretches of unemployment that I shudder to remember are in there as well. That's not to mentioning a rent dispute with my wonderful land-overlords that ended up being their fault. So to me the last five years have been a little spotty. When I knew the kid was coming I also knew that an apartment wasn't going to do for too much longer.

I got into program around that time and was busy lying to my sponsors and breaking abstinence when she started to talk about getting a house. The market was on fire at this point so we both knew it would be a long ways off. My wife, bless her heart, had already been saving for a down payment for a few years and about then I started to divert funds into CDs and the like to build our capital. Then the boy arrived, and the housing market started to tank. And boy did it ever. Even here in the crown of the Northeast, prices began to fall at amazing speed. So we started looking at houses. The say, "act as if", I guess I fooled my wife and the agent because I had no clue what my credit was like or whether I could even get a loan. My last credit report was such a horror I couldn't even bear going in on one of those 'free' ones. I was too afraid.

Credit horror stories are a family tradition for me. Mom is living in the house she grew up in (thanks grandpa!) and my Father is still renting a house with his new family. He just got a car loan in his name for the first time in ages in 2003. So I had grown up hearing about these things. I felt even worse because I realized as I got older that lots of these financial hardships grew out of the divorce in the first place. Well, that's another tale.

At any rate the time came to fill out the loan app and send it in. An office pal of my wife's used to work at a small local lender, so on her advice we went with them. During this time I literally quaked whenever the subject came up. My blood turned to ice and all I could do was pray sometimes, asking the Goddess to help me. I confided in my wife that I was a nervous wreck over this, and she tried to console me but I was certain that I was a poison in the lending house. Of course I couldn't sit up an whine about my terrible credit, because I really didn't know how bad it was, more to the point even if I did know the score or had a report I had no idea what it would actually mean to a lending manager since we're both on the application. I hadn't felt so powerless since my academic reviews in college where most of the time I was told to pack my bags.

This morning I have recently learned that we were pre-approved for more money than we could ever use. It is only a pre-approval, but it's a lot further than I thought we'd get with my name and social on the app. Now there is a decent chance my son won't have to grow up in an apartment building, have a place to live in that isn't cluttered all the time, and have a basement of his own to live in when the time comes. It's a great feeling. Staying abstinent throughout the process feels even better. Thanks to my wife and this program I am taking real steps into the next chapter in my life. Coming from the hell I was in once where even imagining anything like this was impossible, I have no more words to describe my gratitude. I thank the goddess for all of you.

296

So really, how much salad can you eat? Day in, day out, same crud. Even cooked veggies, which I have leave to substitute for leafy greens via my excellent sponsor, are seriously boring me now. I get hungry, but I don't want to eat my lunch. I just don't feel like it. Lunch for me used to be playtime, eat a carload of crap and feel sick afterward! Wheee! I was killing myself, and I always hated it after the fact, but at least it was something I could look forward to. The chance to slake my insane lust for cake and grease, or just greasecake when I could find it was the highlight of my day. What I life I had. It was all I really looked forward to. That, sex and video games anyhow.

Life is certainly better now, as is my health, but I am BORED with my food. Just imagine that funny guy who you hung out with just for his nice car and endless bankroll just turned into your middle school science teacher, with lettuce for hair. I grew up thinking that vegetables were a personal enemy of mine, a kind of culinary nemesis. I still don't like them but I am more accepting of them. I can eat them when I need to, even enjoying a salad made to my exactly specifications. I have made nice with spinach, cauliflower and pickles. And I have new vegetable buddy in broccoli to go with my old stand bys peppers and onions. But there has GOT to be another way. I've nearly skipped my mid-day meal on more than a few occasions.

Sometimes I end up eating my breakfast food twice in a day (minus the cereal) just to vary things. I told my sponsor about this once and he said, "It's ok this time, but don't do it again." So I just did it again, and not for the first time either. I was really hungry and I just couldn't eat the salad. I have got to come clean on this I think, at least just to get a little help here because it's driving me nuts.

298

Gotta talk here. Not sure why but I feel like I'm at a very delicate point in this recent bout of abstinence. My obsessive thinking about food feels less intense than it has in the past. The constant murmur of the cookie aisle and yearning has receded a bit and I'm not sure what to think. It has to be good, but why this feeling of impending doom?

I recently realized that I am still as big as a house, and that messed me up for a few days. "Big as a house" as in I still have over 100 pounds to lose. After having suffered enough to lose 80 pounds how can there be so much left to lose? I'm distressed enough with the sudden arrival of my rib cage, I feel as though a hundred pounds down the road I won't even be recognizable. I probably haven't weighed 200 pounds since I was 16. I can barely imagine it.

It just seems like I'm at a major crossroads. I could really buy a mountain of junk right now and throw it all out the window, but I'm probably not going to. Part of me wants to gorge and binge just to prove that I am still in control. After all I've been doing what my sponsor tells me to all this time. When do I get a turn? I guess I'm still having problems seeing the good in all of this even though I'm hit in the head with it every day.

I feel amazing, compliments have been rolling in, sex has been better and better and I've been more rested and alert than I ever was when I was eating. So what is the problem? Can't eat whoopee pies. Can't eat ice cream. Can't eat candy. If the devil walked up to me now and told me I could buy a body impervious to binge eating with my soul, I'd have to think about it. I have to try to remember what it was like when I was in it, how miserable I was, all the poor health I had and other sad side effects I won't get into. None of it comes to mind when I'm standing in front of the bakery racks at the supermarket. I'm still very sick.


This video is about milk.

300

Today is my first ever 30th day of back to back abstinence. About two months ago when Sam called me up on Mother's day morning and told me that he'd lost his abstinence after FOUR years, I really just wigged out. He couldn't be my sponsor any longer and I would have to find a new one, but the real damage was the realization that even if you've been straight up and down for that long, you can still fall off. I was seriously confused. Don't we get any respite? Doesn't this crap ever have an ending of some kind? I knew in my mind that people lived with their compulsions for a lifetime, but I didn't really understand it until then.

So I ate and ate and ate. Two weeks of practically nothing but junk and I gained back 20 pounds all the way up to 327. I was despairing hardcore and I didn't know what I was going to do. Luckily I went to my men's meeting and took the 're-commitment' chip from the chipster and got another sponsor. It's a shiny sliverlike coin with the OA emblem on one side and the serenity prayer on the other. If I made it to 30 days I would get another one, so I focused on that. Somehow it helped. My new sponsor is an amazing dude named Jerry and I can only hope that he has better luck than Sam did.

Now I'm down past my previous low and I'm feeling really healthy and energetic. My clothes are falling off of me and I have no money to replace them, but it's only a problem every so often. My wife is dieting too so we can both bitch about food now, which is a nice change. I have to admit that I've been skating through these days, not really working program very well, just calling, praying and weighing my food, but I think it's enough for now. If I did everything that is usually recommended, I'd be working two jobs instead of one. Perhaps it's gets easier as you go.

I just wanted to get all that out and say that I'm still here and still in OA. I'm changing the name of the blog to something more up-beat because I feel like it. Talk to you next time.

319

So since December I've snagged a new food sponsor, and I think he's a keeper. We're calling him Sam. I don't think for a minute I could have lost all the weight I have lost in these months without his help, and I thank the Goddess he's with me.

He's another one of these guys that raised his hand to become a sponsor in response to the "Service" tool. In the 12-steps it is thought of as the fact that in order to help ourselves we have to reach out to others. When we are engaged in honest service, aiding those further down the scale than ourselves we gain perspective on our own disease and therefore gain another tool to use in our own recovery. At it's most grandiose it means passing the light of spiritual questing and healing into the dark personal corners of the world, in the most basic light it is a way for recovering addicts to keep busy. After all I can't eat twenty Ho-Hos RIGHT NOW if I'm leading an OA meeting or on the phone with my sponcee. They will notice.

It seems to me to be a sort of pyramid scheme of healing. The gifts and labors of program kind of flow back and forth between the members, and I think that this friction is what really keeps people involved and spurs folks onto recovery. If you are doing it right both sponsor and sponcee lean on one another.

In my example, Sam is clean and has his food where it belongs, but he has other major problems in his life. He's been out of work for awhile and his unemployment is about to lapse. His chosen profession in the IT sector is really sitting in the doldrums right now. The pallor on the markets digs into profits, which means less income trickling down to the offices, which means less money to new computer and software sales over all. That being the case, the offices are less likely to incorporate new software and new technology solutions overall into their businesses, and that is where it's hurting Sam. So he talks to me about it. I hear about his interviews, what happened with his online applications, who screwed him over and who's headhunting him for jobs he can't afford to take. I can tell he appreciates the opportunity to get things off of his chest, and I am only happy to listen, but what really gets me is what I realized next.

He wants to hear about my issues and problems too. When I start to talk he allows me long pauses and doesn't interrupt, and usually offers some perspective on what I'm going through. Amazing, no? I've spent my life making sure that I don't complain and that I am cool and collected in every situation. I think it helps in a lot of instances, but it is isolating and can give people the wrong idea. With my former sponsors, I hardly ever told them of my hardships unless it was directly related to program, and even then sometimes I held back. Who wants to listen to me grumble and whine about my life after all?

Well, in this sponsor relationship, if you aren't giving up your problems to this guy you start to look kinda snobbish. After all if I'm in program I obviously have problems, right? Why hide them? Why even have a sponsor if I'm not sharing with him? How can he even know how to help me if he doesn't know my problems? It makes a lot of sense to me now, but before I guess I was expecting mind readers to help me with my eating. My knockout wife has been feeling like I have been shutting her out too, so this works on both fronts. Sometimes it's funny how program carries into other aspects of life.

320

I've had 21 days of back to back abstinence to this point, and I've lost 57 pounds. I was at my men's meeting recently and they were talking about the tools. One of course is writing, and this I had not been doing. I did start my fourth with my step sponsor but I haven't seen him in awhile and that project has totally stalled out. I intend to start up again but I don't have the time to get out and go to my sponsor's meeting at the moment (more on that in later posts).

At any rate I realized that this blog more than covers the "writing to get out our troubles" aspect of the tool. I also intend for this to be of help to others at some point who have started down the path to recovery, and I am remaining silent during one of the most difficult parts of the process. The beginning. It's been a crushing series of realizations and periods of emotional turmoil, so writing hasn't aways been the first thing in my mind. And fuck if I am not lusting after the food. So bad. Yesterday was the worst in this current stretch of abstinence. It was the first time I've ever felt so low and I didn't eat. Every drive-thru and supermarket was a naked siren.

I don't even know how it gets so bad. It's just food! I am amazed at my ability to crave the stuff. It can't be rational or normal. More than anything this shows me the depths of my spiritual disease. That thing that drives me to eat is me, and what I am is damaged in some serious way. I really don't have any idea who's fault it is, I am just trying to live with it without killing myself in the process. That's really how OA is supposed to work. Allowing sick people to understand how they are sick, and helping them to live outside the bounds of their addiction. In the end you are really trading one thing for the other, but with OA you are more healthy and sane at least.

I'm not sure what I am talking about here in this post, sorta rambling I suppose. I guess I am here to say that this isn't easy, but if you are like me, you need this. That's just how it is. It's surrender and denial, or arrogance and death.

348

So it's been 11 pounds since we talked last. Looking at this blog really brings things into perspective for me, it's quite a gift even if I am the only one to read it. So thank you Google, for creating blogger and maintain my tripe for eternity on the internet, and also thank you to the Goddess of Earth for giving me the serenity to even attempt this. That is, my recovery.

Now I'm really starting to sound like those old bitties at the meetings I go to. I've not had anything near to perfect abstinence; and piece of bread here, a handful of nuts there, but I have not binged on cookies or ice cream or candy once in about five weeks. And let me remind you, that binging is something I desperately want to do. I want to buy a bag of cookies and just eat till I can't anymore. I want to go to a McDonalds and order everything on the menu. I want to feel sickeningly full. I want to despair and give up this program, my car littered with candy wrappers, the peanut/chocolate grease still laying thick on my tongue and then proceed to plan my next gluttony fest. Seriously, I really do. Yet somehow, I'm not.

Nothing could have stopped me from going out and doing exactly that before, I can see it happening now, actually in just 15 or 20 minutes from now. Walking into the store, finding my junk, going to the register... Compulsive Overeating is so totally a sickness. I have daydreams about freaking Ring Dings and Ho Hos. I actually regret this program in a lot of ways. I want to eat! And now I can't, but I really wish I could. More than anything, almost. What insanity!

I know that all my body needs is what I am giving it. That's all. I stay fed and continue living day after day, so I know it's true. What I really want however is VERY different.

Is this abstinence? Can it be called 'recovery' when I crave these things so much? I am told that these feelings will pass in time, but I have no idea how. THAT would be the miracle. THAT would affirm my Higher Power. Not wanting to gorge on cakes and desserts for every moment that I am awake, I'd like that. Loving my salad, or lusting for my bran cereal the way I do for Chubby Hubby would be good too.

359- Here comes the crazy

Weighed myself again. Wasn't supposed to. Lost two pounds. Was not enough. I sat there and freaked out, wondering if i'd plateaued or was eating too much or whatever. I was about to start cutting more food out of my plan without consulting Bill. Two pounds in three days is pretty damn good as far as I know but in that ten or fifteen minute span, I was really desperate to lose more weight. Somehow this is a feeling I have never had before.

I want to lose weight for health and image reasons (becoming a sexy stud among them), but I never considered doing anything drastic about it. OA is full of bulimics, compulsive exercisers, anorexics and others. I never did any of those things. I never felt so desperate as these people seem to have been. Also, I really liked eating sometimes. I had gotten to the point where scarfing a bag or Oreos in the supermarket parking lot was a pleasant experience. Sometimes.

People have always told me that I'm comfortable in my skin, in my voluminous skin. I felt that way as well in an image sense except when in front of a mirror. I was always surprised at my girth. I still am. I'd always think, "Who's the fat guy?"

What drove me to OA was the physical labor of just getting around and the fear of illness. When I got my first taste of abstinence, I realized I was crazy too, but now it feels like I have a different crazy coming on. The 'after school special' kind of crazy where I HAVE to be the prom queen or something. That I must get thinner even faster. Is this good? A step forward for me, joining the body-zeitgeist of society? Gawd I dunno.

I know that I'm getting a little desperate to see results. This weighing I'm not supposed to be doing is evidence to that. It feels like if I'm cutting off this limb of mine, the eating limb that I could always count on, the friend that was never busy, that I should be getting the kickback of being thin. NOW. 18 pounds lost apparently does not turn you into the at-stud uber-male. Well that implies getting loads of sex too, perhaps I should warn my wife about this so she can clear her calendar. Heh. But that a ways off.

The point is if I'm not happy now, when will I be happy with my body? Was I ever really happy with it at all? I can't binge anymore. I just cant. And going forward I must measure my food and stay on plan. When am I going to be happy about it? That's what I want to know.

361

Wasn't supposed to get on the scale until January 1st, but I did anyway. I know the reasons why Bill wants it that way but, I was weak. As a matter of fact I've been lying to him about a few things. Nothing major, but when you call in your food every night and you were too full to eat a salad along with you pile of cooked veggies, 6ozs of meat and a baked potato, how do you tell a guy, "Hey I know I was an eating champ yesterday but now I just can't finish what's on my food plan!".

When I lie usually it's usually about things I didn't eat as opposed to things that I did, though once I ate a quarter of pita that came with a lunch salad. Flour is a no no now. I don't seem to be getting the same kind of crazy hunger all the time this time, my first bout of abstinence was much rougher at this point but that's not a big deal.

I read in the big book and have heard it again and again in meetings that this is a program that requires absolute honesty, both with ones self and with the outside world. It's the outside part that I can't hack it seems. Lying was always the way I knew I could evade all responsibility, that no matter what I could soften things for myself with a few well placed words. Growing up there were very few people that this would not work on, so it became a major habit for me. It was also the way I could hoodwink people I didn't like to feel better about myself. I would lie just to pull one over on you, just for kicks. As my relationship with my wife deepened, it became obvious to me finally that I couldn't go on like that. So the lying stopped, mostly.

What began then was a regime of subtle omission and misdirection. Rather than conjure up huge events and story lines for myself to have lived it was smaller things I played with, especially when reality reflected poorly on me. It worked for a long long time, but I was caught in stupid, senseless lies a few times and now I am TRYING to knock it off. It's been better, but when I'm not thinking... out comes a lie.

It's hard for me in a way I think because there are things that I have told and retold as amazing exploits from my past (usually funny things), that my wife and friends still think are true. People that I never met firmly placed in her history of me. It isn't as grand as the tales I'd dream up when I was younger, but it more like "Remember that time when..." and "Where is so and so now? They sound really cool. We should look them up!" It's a kind of stupid shame that I'm not sure I'm ever going to be able to get out from under. You my humble reader, are the first person I've ever mentioned this to. Don't tell anyone, alright?

At any rate, leaving out financial details or the fact that I surf for porn when she's not around seems somehow smaller in comparison to the fake events I created. In those particular instances there are bunch of other issues tied in, but my point is that being honest with her and everyone else seems really hard for me. So Bill has been lied to, and I'm guessing my program has suffered for it.

That was one of the major issues that I had with Josh, the lying to him started there just like it did here. In the end I was in total denial of my fucked-up program, in a state where I could eat whatever I wanted as long as I didn't TELL him about it. Go figure! No wonder I stopped calling him. I felt so terrible about it I gained back 30 pounds in less than a month. It wasn't his fault clearly, but perhaps I wasn't ready. Am I ready now? I can't know. I hope so.

Things have been much better for me health wise, and I'm gaining belt notches and stuff like that. It's all very heartening.

370

Get used to seeing that on my posts as my new sponsor only wants me weighing myself once every month. I knew that jumping on the scale everyday during my first bout of abstinence was not a good idea, but at the time it was the only thing I was getting out of program. Now that I am in step study the focus is on having a spiritual connection with my higher power. This connection is what is going to sustain me now, so the book and Bill say.

Now we had arrived at Step Three in the process. In regards to that I am a man who has had congress with the divine and the not-so-normal by my own estimation, and as a result I have no delusion that divinity is not real or that there is no guiding force in the cosmos, so why is Three such a hard sell? I just can't see this power as a part of myself. In it's presence I was so confounded by it's size and scope, it was an impossibility ingrained in every little thing that exists. You hear this a lot if you study these sorts of things, it was for a moment as plain as my hand or a tree but the feeling of this presence was temporary.

I can remember the feeling but do not have a way to put that knowledge to use. Also, and I think this is the crux of the issue, I felt this power was separate from myself. Somehow I was inert in this world of the 'divine body' that I had sensed. Was it simply because I was an observer? Or was I too distracted to notice my own role in that fantastic place? Even now I know that that power is in the keys I am typing on and in the air I'm breathing, I simply cannot sense it. Now I'm not telling you that I am a prophet or that this experience was even planned in any way shape or form, but it certainly did happen.

Now how in the heck is that supposed to help me stop eating? A fair question I think. In that moment I sensed the being that encompasses us all, not a god but a goddess. An Earth Mother to be exact. She did not create us in her image, nor did she send floods and trials upon a gang of well informed unfortunates in ancient times, she simply is. That being said and understanding that all of her creations are equal in importance, why is my eating problem going to stir a being with nary even a concept of a Ho Ho? This is my problem.

I find myself reading "We Agnostics" and finding much that I relate to. The judeo-christian Yahweh is omnipotent and all powerful by report, so imagining such a being using an influence of a sort to keep boston cream pie from my mouth makes sense. After all if he is "all-powerful" he's got power to spare. Why not help a soul who is suffering if he prays? I certainly would. Unfortunately I am cursed with divine knowledge as opposed to religious knowledge and the situation in the big book does not add up for me.

I'm not saying that I don't believe that millions of christians also feel this disconnection from their God, I'm just sitting a different part of the same space. For me the divine is a fact and the conflict is my role within it, for the typical christian my guess is that the existence of the divine itself is the issue and the resulting conflict therefore being religious teaching versus reality, or at least the perception of reality. In the end who knows? I've been wrong enough times to know I will probably be wrong again.

I can say with an amount of certainty that I think OA is working for me right now. Bill is pretty much exactly what I need in a sponsor and the step process is going to be good for me. It's funny, even as I am writing this I am having terrible food thoughts... :P It's nice to feel that I won't be giving into them today at least.

back to the void

My weight is a mystery at the moment, but I am re-committing to the process. I can't tell you how crazy it feels to be posting here again, but I am because I did actually get to a meeting last night, my Sunday meeting. Also I have a new sponsor, we're calling him Bill. It's a Big Book Step Study meeting and for those who know about such things good, if not read this http://www.bbstepstudy.org/hyannis/how.php I haven't read it all but it seems to have the right idea. In the most rudimentary sense OA is directly derived from AA so study of it's seminal text "Alcoholics Anonymous" would clearly seem like a good idea. So far I can see that it does help people in a real way.

Right now Bill is my Step Study sponsor, and I don't currently have a food sponsor. Somehow I hope that he can do both, but we really haven't talked about the process in detail yet. I have a reading assignment to do, read pages 1-63 of the Big Book in the greatest possible detail. After that I call him and we go from there.

A quick synopsis of the last month or so is that I am gaining a lot of weight, freaking out about being a new dad, and generally making things harder for everyone around me. My son is pretty awesome, but I am still adjusting to him being there and needing my attention so much of the time. I thought that being married was a major project! I am happy of course but I'm happy/scared/enraged/nervous/tired. Really tired. There is so much emotion and so little time. I doubt I'm the first person to be thinking/writing in these terms but the change is so dramatic.

The simple fact is that the more active he is the less time there is for whatever I was doing before. My hobbies and books and projects are all basically kaput for the time being, and it's really bugging me. So what I am I doing? I eat over it. Well as of right now I have been abstinent for 7 hours, I know that being a better father starts with my own sanity. I have a serious fear that I may never know the peace of abstinence and I think that that fear is all I really have pushing me on at the moment, but it's enough for now.

When I was younger and I had screwed up my college education beyond repair I entered a depression that lasted nearly a year. When I somehow realized a way out of it and a future for myself it felt like I was travelling away from the void. It was palpable to me then that feeling of movement. Yet no matter how far I felt I had gone it was still there waiting patiently. Now I can only feel like I'm heading back there, but I have more tools at my disposal now. I just can't hide from it any longer.

377

Effing terrible. Talk to you again when I actually get to a meeting.

372?

Well I guess if I tell you, "I haven't been to a meeting yet since we last talked", you can probably guess how I've been. I've got to be a moron, expecting to work program and not attend any meetings. My life is so much more hectic now, getting an hour here or there is a lot harder than it was before, but I seriously shouln't have anything to say here until I go to a meeting. Will that stop me? Not sure but I am going to try to switch some things around to get to my old Wednesday night meeting. Josh is sure to be there but I gotta get on with this.

meal plan?

How about this for a half-assed do-it-myself meal plan?

3 meals
no drive-thrus
no extra with meals
no snacking in-between
no sweets
no fried stuff, chips or dips
no binging

Seems pretty complete without measuring or whatever. I could probably get around the restrictions though. 'No extra' is pretty subjective. I guess the extra is the whole problem. I could probably fit and entire life of overeating in that subjective wiggle room. That's why I guess a lot of people call and give their food list in the morning. "Hello again, today I'm eating this and this and 8 oz of this and blah blah blah..." It's not so bad at the start but after the 50th call, it really feels forced. I think even the best food sponsor is going to run out of novel encouragements by then. I don't want to impose after all. Can't I just send an email? I seriously just want to eat and not worry about ounces and stuff.

My tombstone, "1974-2008 Didn't want to measure his food."

Can you imagine I haven't been to a meeting in two weeks? I bet you can. This blog is a kind of clearing house for my mind. I'm hoping that I can look at the words here and understand a little about how messed up I am. After that, I am hoping this new found understanding will lead to new will to continue the struggle beyond idle thinking. This is all an experiment. It can't be all bad seeing as my step study meeting is all about writing stuff down and reading it and obsessing about who you hate and why you shouldn't hate and why you're scared and stuff. I can do that here. I can eat a classic triple in two minutes too.

372

Another day in the life of a fat man. Oh my. I am again a little smaller with little to no reason for it. I suppose when you're this big you might just sweat out a pound every so often. When I was rocking my program, I lost about a pound to a half pound a day which I think just goes to show just how much a body can be composed of butter and water. Of course back then I was weighing myself everyday, and that's not how you're supposed to do it but I was so freaked out/miserable at my future days lacking my favorite foodstuffs it was a serious motivator.

When you get right down to it, being abstinent is giving into the truth that you're sick. Or more to the point that you're sick and you can't eat ice cream. When I was a kid, ice cream was one of the best reasons to be sick for crying out loud. So in the shadow of program there is no ice cream, ever. I'm still having serious issues with that I guess.

not sure

I'm starting up a 3-meals plan for myself today, essentially just trying to stick to 3 meals, no snacks and such. I had two cups of coffee for breakfast... not the best start, but I have to start. It's going to get harder and harder to get healthy again the longer I wait. I got a trip to the county fair (which I frikkin love) to go to with my wife and son this weekend, so I am going to start walking a bit to get my stamina back up. Oh glory glory. This time will be different I tell you. I'm gonna be so healthy. Oh yeah. Not futile this time. Not totally fraudulent I swear. It's only the 400th time I've tried this.

Gawd, I really need a meeting.

Josh

I go to a Wednesday night meeting, but I'm not going tonight due to a prior engagement. As a matter of fact I've only been to that one once in about three months. It's a mostly a tiny little group of older women, we make about 5 or 6 if we're lucky on the average night. It's a qualifier set up and most of the time it's a good meeting. The problem is that my former sponsor is at this meeting as well. I'm calling him Josh. Josh has been in program about six months and had probably lost about 200pds by now. It's seriously amazing to see his before and after pictures.

One night awhile back he could see that I was miserable and he asked me, "Do you want me to sponsor you?" I answered in the positive and was abstinent with his help for about three months. When my son was born, I didn't have a lot of time to make my meals in advance or to even call him on time every morning. Lack of sleep and overall anxiety have had me off the wagon ever since, or at least that's how it feels. Did I hop off because of the stress or am I coasting here because I have an excuse?

I'm not blaming him but Josh was freshly divorced at the time we hooked up and I was just starting a family. He wanted me at three meetings a week, and couldn't understand why I didn't want to go too far from my bed-resting pregnant wife. She didn't even want me to go to more than one meeting. I don't blame her. It was scary for her for the months leading up the birth, the doctor's were really worried about her and the baby's health. My son is fine now, and my wife is far more relaxed about needing at her side all the time. So what am I doing? Just gaining back all the weight I'd lost (30 pounds). I know I need a sponsor but I'm not going back to Josh.

I'm not too sure why he decided to sponsor four people including me only three months into his own recovery, but it probably wasn't the right decision. Josh was good to me, but he really didn't know how to help me with what I was going through. Add to this that he was constantly questioning my dedication to the process, seeing as I would only go to two meetings a week. Did I want to go to more? Yeah of course I did. I just hated being judged for things I couldn't control. Also, really hated be judged by Mr. I Lost a Brillion Pounds and Mr. My Program Can Kick Your Program's Ass. He never really said any of that. I usually just heard that stuff in my head but I think you get my point.

The guy is great and I wish him the best, but he's not for me. I gots to move on. Also, he's really not responsible for my binging, I want to make that clear, he just doesn't have the tools to do what he has to in a Sponsorship situation. I've been binging and eating four or five meals a day long before I met Josh. He just wanted to help me. It's not a crime.

377

So here's part of my life. I got seven hours of sleep last night and I feel like roadkill. This is probably because I got up and dropped off my son with his nana, and proceeded to the donut shop where I ate three dontus and a coffee roll for breakfast. As a result I just feel sick and sleepy all day. Lunch comes and I'm not hungry(sick feeling). What do I do? Order and eat a chicken parmesean plate with a side of garlic bread. Good. Awesome. What an asshole I must be.

What I have been doing

The title of this blog sums up the majority of my life here in the northeast. It is not wholly accurate, and it's a little dramatic, but it is true. I am a compulsive overeater and hate myself with a serious passion. I have been eating myself into morbid obesity with the subconscious intent of removing myself from the world, in essence, seeking death. You might say, 'hey, buy a gun!' or 'jump off a cliff', but me and people like me are also cowards. Lacking any sort of strong intention or tenacity, I have unconsciously decided that if I eat enough people will eventually leave me alone for good. Alone to do whatever I want without restriction. No responsibilities, no one to look down on me, no one to care for, no one at all. This of course I figured out finally would actually be death. Some utopia where I am the only one can't exist. Even if I could do such a thing I would die from boredom, or just from death. It is the same. Eating myself into congestive heart failure is the method I have chosen, and thus far thankfully it has proven highly inefficient.

I have a wonderful wife, and much to look forward to because of her and whatever small things I have been able to do for myself. This intervention is the only reason I am most likely not in either very sick or dead today, but even with these things at 377 pounds and climbing I am sure to get sick soon. It can't go on like this much longer. I have a child who needs a father who isn't going to embarrass him by riding around on a 'road weasel' or whatever. He is very small now, but I still have problems handling him and not getting winded. So, what to do?

I am in Overeaters Anonymous and it's great there, people are super and there's many involved who have found a way out of the mess I am in now. Wonderful, but I am still not abstinent from eating entire cakes or multiple bags of candy at a sitting. I had a little success (about three months), but have since gone back to my old habits with a vengeance. It's a stupid, ugly thing, but I can't stop myself and that is the definition of a compulsion.

I have scads of other problems as I am a human being like you, but I have as this point been unable to connect to anyone in a way I can consider totally honest. So here's where the blog comes in. I will try to document my life as I attempt to get abstinent again, blab about just about anything really so long as it's part of my internal dialogue. Hopefully what I share with you will help me suss out this crap, and if you get something from it, all the better.

In the 12-step tradition of anonymity I am using a moniker, and will use a moniker for anyone I talk about, but for reference I want to let you know that I am in my early thirties, married with one child, and I work for a software company. All of this being true you can imagine that I am also a bit of a geek, as in; Star Wars, video games and D&D, but I won't talk about that stuff too often if you're lucky. Those are my particulars, basically. Well, that and that I can't keep my hands of Ho hos but I think we went over that already.

One more thing, Region Six is the administrative designation for my area of the country in the OA world service. I've lived here all my life.