FOOD FOR THOUGHT- OA/AUGUST 2014
 

Prompting is a polite word. How about getting our attention? Letting what goes around comes around and bites you in the a$$ until you learn.

The Inner Voice is there, I discounted it for years. I didn't know it was Good Orderly Direction. I was sure it was the devil, or the fearful God who was going to strike me dead for all the things I did that were called sin.

I knew that Jesus loved me, was told that as soon as I could hear and speak. I just didn't think that God believed in me, and according to the old tapes from the church and family, I was doomed to a living hell. Life became hell, I reached out and found a loving and forgiving God.

I did good until I went into the pharmacy downstairs and bought a Magnum Infinity Chocolate Ice Cream bar.

I bought fruit and vegetables and good things to eat. Just had to have that treat that I feel I deserve. Thankfully, the thoughts didn't go into 'more' and I was able to stop eating after I ate it. That is the problem, one is too many, a thousand is never enough, if you let your disease take you, instead of you taking your disease and turning it over to your Higher Power. So glad this is a one day at a time program and I get to practice, practice, practice.

They say the longest journey we will take in recovery is from our head to our heart. Many of us don't see themselves that way, they don't realize that they have erected barriers and put in blocks, and they are talking off the top of their head. They are still looking outside of themselves instead of going within. That is where the heart is.

God's Time, what a beautiful thing. How many times did we give up and lost our patience and tried to make things happen or give God a little hint or push in the way you would have Him go.

Like the last line. To me, when I live one day at a time, the whole day is His. Even when I fall asleep on the job, make a decision that leads me away, He brings me back. I have been given a second chance at life, why should I pick up things that will kill me. Sometimes I slip and sometimes I don't always realize where something will take me, but the biggest error is going away from God. No matter what the substance, it all leads to the same soul sickness.

Phobias are a part of my disease and when I am acting out in them, I have disconnected from my God and allowed fear to erode my faith.

My faith doesn't blot out fear, it replaces it. My faith heals it and allows me to have a change and allows me to not continue acting out in my dis-ease.

Phobias and paranoia are big issues with addicts. I can't, God can.

I was told that I had to make sure I planted the seeds in fertile soil. Once they were planted, I could nurture them, but it wasn't up to me, it was their journey, their God, and I had to let, and pray that they will grow into a vessel and channel to carry on the message of recovery to others and in turn, pay it forward by sewing their own seeds.

Always a good suggestion to follow, my sponsor said, "A simple program for people who like to complicate things."

Didn't do a good job today. I bought brownies and before I knew it they were all gone. There are 8 in a pkg. and round like a cupcake, the only thing is it takes two brownies to make a whole cupcake. I had two cupcakes, and when they kept calling me, an hour late I had another one and emptied the bag.

It is bad enough that they are chocolate brownies, but I added chocolate icing. I didn't stop to think of them as stuffing, fear, and comfort. I don't like Friday and ever week it is a confrontation between my son and myself.

I did meditation earlier in the day, again when I posted, but in between I had already bought the brownies. :( I have to forgive myself and ask my God for forgiveness. I thought they were better than taking pills, but it just goes to show you, the substance comes in many forms and they all lead to wanting more. Just for today,I choose not to buy any more brownies.

I knew it was wrong but I turned a blind eye and blocked the light.

So important to my recovery. I went to meetings for about 10 days and just about every meeting I went to was Step 10. I went to a Big Book study out of town, thinking to escape Step 10, they were reading Step 10 from the Big Book. I went to Al-Anon and it was Step 10. Went to a 12 & 12 group I seldom go to, and they were discussing Step 10, I finally got the message when I went to NA and realized that I was doing the Step in the evening, and it was a recovery tool, to be used all day long.

So far, so good, no more brownies. Today it was do I get a sub or a pizza. I ended up with a medium mushroom and pepperoni pizza, which I ate half of.

Not the healthiest of choices, but my feet wouldn't take me to the mall Even if I can't eat big meals, I try to graze, a muffin, some fruit, a sandwich, etc. It seems like it is only with brownies that I just can't seem to have just one. God and I are still working on it.

Never thought of my thoughts as sloppy. If I think about it, if I don't stop to Hesitate and Meditate before I speak, they could certainly come out that way.

Not too big on organizing and discipline, as I believe in prayer and praying and asking my God for the words I need to say and the clarity and the knowing I need each day. My life is very much going with the flow. I am aware though that the second half of Step One, says my life is unmanageable. My life is unmanageable when managed by me. Control is an illusion. They say we can plan, but don't plan the outcome. That is good when not taken to the extreme because we want to control, people, places and things.

When I try to control my eating, I still think more. I believe that comes under God's Good Orderly Direction.

Not sure I should respond, went to sleep in my chair, with a bad head ache and woke up stiff and sore with a worse one. It might have helped if I had gone to bed.

When I first saw this reading, I thought 'bacon' and then it grew into "bring home the bacon." It is ironic because I have trouble smelling bacon cooking.

As the reading says, "The beacon of light is there." It is up to me to acknowledge it instead of putting on the mask and shutting it out. Some people seem to find the darkness comforting because that is what they are use to and are afraid of what the light will reveal. It isn't about playing Blind Man's Bluff, it is about bring things to the light so they can heal.

Like the "No, thank you." It speaks volumes as long as I continue to say it. I can only continue to do so, with the courage and strength that comes from my God.

We go through a grieving process when we lose the foods that we can no longer eat. Self-justification and rationalize are a danger. For example, me saying I can have it is made of chocolate. It is the amount of chocolate and the type of chocolate that I tend to stretch the truth on.

I also needed to be prepared for my disease slipping in, I don't have to physically pick something up, but I can be obsessive and compulsive about certain foods and think my way into eating.

I can allow my emotions to build without dealing with them and applying my program. Just because I have a feeling, doesn't mean I have to act on it. Old behaviours, I don't like this feeling, I don't want to go there, and we reach out for something, anything to stuff it and make it all go away.

Seems to me I was justifying about justifying a few days ago.

We don't have to give a reason for being, and I thought I did. I thought I had to justify my existence, those old tapes were hard to erase. How can you make a new tape when you don't have a clue, you can't know what you have never been taught.

Saying what we think someone else wants us to say, leaves us with no identiy and we live our life through others and lose ourselves.

They use to tell us many years ago to put a tiger in the tank.

Sometimes that is good, because it can motivate us to get our rears in gear and get on with life.

Over the years, we forget he is there, and that our insides are often in an uproar, and all the chaos, fears, and bug-a-boos, we think are there, creates a lot of issues we need to deal with. We fear to look, maybe because we know there is a tiger in there and we are fearful, forgetting that he is a friendly tiger.

With our God, we should not fear. Fear is lack of faith and not putting our trust in our God to see us through it.

I believe it says in the Big Book of AA, if you have fear, go back to Step 3.

It doesn't matter what substance got us into this situation, God is willing and able to help us with ALL things. We are asked to put our life into His Care. Not just a portion of it, not just the things we can't control, because control is an illusion. As I have posted many times, because I was told many times, "Control is an Illusion, I don't have the power." When I surrender to God's Will, we are empowered to do what we need to do in today, to stay clean and sober.

Each day is a new beginning. A day can start any time.

It is so important to take ourselves off the flogging tree. No one beat me up more than I beat up myself, and in my case, that took some doing. It isn't just about physical and cutting, but mental and emotional abuse.

I not only had to learn to love myself, I had to learn to like me too.

How can I expect others to respect me, if I don't respect myself.

Respect is something that is earned. I needed to earn it back because I didn't have very many principles left. Every time I picked up, no matter what the substance was, I lost a piece of me. It didn't matter what kind of food it was, whether it was pill to calm me because I was too fat or thin, or a little vino to wash it all down with. It was all about escape and coping with life., which I couldn't do without using people, places, and things.

I had a big void inside that needed filled with spiritual things.

As the slogan says, "This too shall pass." That means the good and not so good, so enjoy the moment when it is here, it may not pass again. If it does come back, it may be in a different format or another reality, and things just don't seem the same.

As it says, "We don't always find it easy to accept, but we don't have to like it, we just need to accept, it is the key to willingness and moving on with our life.

So many times I hear people say, "I have control of myself." That does not carry a very good message. I have no control, I am powerless, without the empowerment of my God.

Control is an illusion, It is all in our head.

The key word is "You." this is a 'we' program, I can't, God can, and each day I have a choice.

A support group was so important, especially getting together with my sponsor.

I lost my first little black book, and I phoned my sponsor, full of fear, I thought I would relapse without it. I was fortunate, my room mate had put a lot of my number on speed dial on the phone. My God does work in my life and He puts wonderful people in my path.

I was told that anything that I put before my God and comes between us and is a priority in my life, becomes my false god.

Found this to be especially true when it came to my computer and eating disorder.

Sorry I didn't copy this from my other site or I put it in the wrong place somewhere. Looks like I had a senior moment.

A good one! So much of addiction is due to emotions and allowing them to direct us and my thinking always took me into more.

I never thought that I had an eating problem. I remember saying, "I am eating because I am upset, if that a$$hole didn't do...."

Never under stood how that more feeling was associated with me eating, whether I didn't because I was fat or because I was fat and who cares and ate what I wanted, 80% not healthy, especially when I add the butter. Everything is better with butter on it, has been my slogan for years. The same as a little bit of sugar will make things go down real smooth and make everything taste better, whether it was food or just life in general.

What a soul eating defect of character defect. So much of my life was looking at what others had, and as they say, "The grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

Had a lot of healing in this area. For one, it was okay to be me. Secondly, when I quit smoking, drinking, and partying I had money to spend on healthy things. When I started buying foods that were good for me and cooking them in a healthy way, cut back on my portions, and learned to exercise by pushing myself away from the table.

My doing the right do thing for me, I lost weight, about 30 lbs worth.

It seemed like I always wanted what I didn't have. I would get a thought about a certain dress or an article of clothing or house wares. Before you know it, I had bought it, only to learn it wasn't worth all the obsession and compulsive spending and always wanting that 'more' when in fact, I should have taken my feelings to my Lord.

Had to look at my lack of energy and chronic fatigue as a natural things or just a laziness thing. My father use to tell me I was born lazy. When I look at past work, I often did the work of 2 or 3 people. Perhaps my thought of laziness was mental and emotional fatigue, even back then.

I know I am quite capable of being lazy. There is a difference between getting showered and dressed and unable to get out my door.

Sometimes I don't want and I don't, just because. In the past, I had to have a list of self-justifications and reasons for being as to why I didn't want to do. Today I don't have to justify my reason for being. If I don't feel like cooking or eating, it just is. Some days just making a sandwich seems like too much. If I cook, I often can't eat.

Not sure if it is part of my eating disorder or Fibromyalgia, it doesn't matter, it just is and I need to be accepting in the moment in order to change or to just be and allow my God to heal in the moment.

Many times if others cook it and put it in front of me, I still can't eat, although I make a valiant effort. It could be mental blocks too, it doesn't matter what label is put on me, it is about what I do with it. Most times it is just take it to my God and we will work on it together.

When it comes to exercise, I know it is not good to be a couch potato. Once I get down there, I don't want to get up.

Sometimes it is just going downstairs or a walk to the mall with my walker. Other days it is just getting up and doing my daily routine, but I have been given exercises to help my circulation by a physio therapist. Sometimes I forget to do them until I am hurting, but my memory does that to me. I often forget to eat too and don't eat until 8-9 p.m. and that is not good for my diabetes. There is so much in a day, that I am grateful that life is about one day at a time.

This is why I say that I used and abused people, places, and things for years. In today, my God utilizes people, places, and things to show me a new way of living.

So grateful for the people my God has put in my path, even those who have taught me what not to do in order to recover.

Have a creative program sure make life more interesting and enriching. Even creative ways to look and prepare food, will help us what to eat healthy.

I used smaller plates, easier than putting less food on a big plate.

Had to accept today, I was sick. I bought some instant cup of chicken soup. Upset stomach, chest pains and cramping made it easy to see, I was sick and had to give myself some TLC.

As I have found many times in recovery, I have had to pray for the willingness to be willing.

Sorry, when I posted this yesterday, didn't notice that it hadn't changed and ended up with a duplicate.

The program doesn't work without that self-honesty. It is need to work the Steps, but it also needed for total abstinence from all drugs.

It took a lot of accepting on my part. All my life it was rules and regulations, and I felt they were meant to be broken, and if you didn't break them, you bent them to fit the occasion.

I was one of those people that tried to put things together without reading the instructions first. :(