Still Here, Abstinent and Grateful

Hi, I'm Charlie, compulsive overeater.

::Hi, Charlie!::

Grateful this morning for 88 days of abstinence. Grateful for the willingness to work my program, one day at a time. Grateful for my many friends in recovery, in my face-to-face meetings, my phone meeting community and my Twitter/blog community. Grateful for my family; my strong, loving, faithful wife; my crazy herd of awesome kids; and my loving God. You all are my lifeline.

I've been awfully quiet here and on Twitter lately, but that's just because my "real life" is very, very full right now. I'm sure a huge post is just below the surface, waiting to be written when the time is right. Until then, I'm just going to keep putting one foot in front of the other. One day at a time, in the strength of my Higher Power, I can do this.

I'm excited to attend the Friday night phone meeting tonight. Hope some of you can join me! And then tomorrow afternoon I am meeting my sponsor to do the "stepping up" ceremony. It's essentially the end of Step 3, and there are candles and everything! I'll let you know how it goes. After I've "stepped up" privately, then I'll do it on a phone meeting at some point and then I'll be a Sponsor... Whether and when I sponsor anyone else will be something my sponsor and I decide together.

Remember today: You are loved. You are more precious than you can imagine. You are worth it.

Late-Night Twitter Musings on the Love of God

Hi... My name is Charlie, and I'm a compulsive overeater.

::Hi, Charlie!::

I posted this long, rambling reflection on God's love last night on Twitter, 140 characters at a time.

Feeling connected to God tonight. #Grateful for a God who really truly loves us. I used to have a friend who doubted God's love for her.

She had come out of a life of real degradation, including drug addiction and prostitution.

But she had found a relationship with God through Jesus... and we served in ministry together.

She still struggled, though, with crippling self-hatred and self-sabotaging behaviors.

I would try to assure her that she was loved by God, & she would reply, in those times, w/ "So what's the big deal? If God loves everyone...

Then why is it special that God loves me?

I had a revelation one day that helped her - and ME - to understand a little better.

If God is a loving parent... then my love for my children is NOTHING compared to God's love for me.

And even though I love all of my kids the same AMOUNT...

I *don't* love them in the same way at all...

In fact, my love for my firstborn son is radically different from my love for my middle son. Which is different from my love for my daughter

and her twin brother. Equal love in many ways, but VERY different and unique love.

And... this was important to me anyway... the "kind" of love I have for my kids... it's based on who THEY are... as unique individuals.

I simply cannot love child 1 in the same "generic" way I love child 2... Impossible.

So each child get this radically unique love that is based in the relationship that he or she and I share...

NO ONE ELSE will ever share that love but that child and me. It's unique, special.

And I think that's how our God loves us.

With a radically unique love that only we as individuals can share with God...based on who we are and who God is.

It's truly a one-of-a-kind love in the history of the Universe because that's how unique we are.

The other piece of this lies in the unchanging nature of God... The love, although it is uniquely focused on each of us as individuals,

is not based on us... how "good" or "bad" we are...

Rather, it is based in who GOD is and the reality that God has chosen US and called us beloved... God's very own sons and daughters.

I try to communicate that love to my own children.

My love for my daughter, for instance, is not BECAUSE of her beauty...

Although she certainly is a little beauty...

No, I love her for one simple reason: She's MINE.

That will never change.

Appearance, talent, intellect, personality, circumstances of life...

Those are love-able things...

But they can change.

The reality that my children are MY CHILDREN. That doesn't change.

It lets my kids be secure in the fact that I will never, ever stop loving them.

(Wonder where all that came from tonight?)

Good night, Twitterverse. Rest in the arms of your Higher Power. U R loved with an everlasting love. Surrender to that loving Power tonight.

Living the Message = Carrying the Message

My name is Charlie, and I'm a compulsive overeater.

::Hi, Charlie!::

Today I want to talk about what the 12th Step talks about: "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to [compulsive overeaters], and to practice these principles in all our affairs." I've been thinking about this a lot since Friday night. I was at a concert, and I saw a very obese woman. She was one of the largest people I've ever seen out in public, and it looked like everything she did was difficult. I felt just awful for her, and I wondered what my obligation was/is to help people who are still suffering from the ravages of this disease.

It was still on my mind the next day, so I talked to a friend in OA with 3+ years of abstinence and amazing physical recovery. She had some great things to say, and I started to feel some peace.

Then, amazingly, this was my reading and question on Sunday:

Read Chapter 11 (BB). Discuss and reflect upon the vision God has for you. Discuss at length what this concept means to you: "The answers will come if our own house is in order."

My writing:

I love this chapter, because so much of it is about carrying the message to other people. I have been thinking about the incredible epidemic of compulsive eating all around me. I know I can’t diagnose other people’s illness, but I also know that our disease is under-diagnosed. I have been a compulsive overeater for years and didn’t know it until 2006. I’ve been thinking about this since Friday night. I was at a concert, and I saw a very obese woman in the back row. My heart just broke for her, because I could tell how difficult it was for her to even be there. At least physically. I was happy that she could still get out and about, but I wondered how to carry the message of Overeaters Anonymous to her! In A Vision for You, we read about Bill W. and Doctor Bob and how they carried the message to other desperate alcoholics. There are, of course, corresponding principles. That’s why I’m reading the Big Book! But I don’t know how to reach out to that woman… You can’t just walk up to someone and say, “You look like you could use Overeaters Anonymous,” unless you want to hurt and embarrass someone!

I talked about this with a wise Program friend yesterday, and her thoughts made sense to me. We carry the message by living it. By working the best Program that we can. By surrendering to God, by growing in our conscious contact with God, by releasing excess weight to God (in God’s time), by making calls and going to meetings and doing service… And being ready to share the message when people are ready to hear it, and when we are asked. If we are living the Program, our lives will show it. We will have what people want and when they ask us how we got it, we’ll be ready to tell them.

When the book says, “the answers will come if our own house is in order,” it is in the context of asking God every day what we can do for the person who still suffers. And the answer is just what I’ve been writing about: living a good Program, surrendering to God on a daily basis, working the steps, staying abstinent. Living the message leads to carrying the message.

The amazing coincidence (although I don’t believe it’s coincidence) is that even as I type this, I am getting direct messages on Twitter from a person who discovered my anonymous OA blog…  pouring out her heart about... At this very moment… I am living out the message. And now I have this beautiful opportunity to carry the message, to point someone toward the solution. I am so grateful. Here I go!

 

I ended up talking with that person on the phone and carrying the message that afternoon. Then I was able to do an interview with AllTreatment.com. Then I talked with an old program friend the next evening and hooked her up with a sponsor.

I'm so grateful for a weekend of encountering God, living the message and carrying the message.