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LEADER'S SHARE ~ STEP THREE
Dear God,
Wow, I'm not so sure I like writing essays, as all I can say is what I've
read, and here in the share portion it is me, my life and just how it is
lived on a daily basis over the last twenty-six years. Today is not a
day like any other day, as each one is such a gift, even when bad things
happen, and they do happen. For so many years - I almost said wasted years
but they were used for learning - it has taken a good part of those years
to find out just whoYou were and then who I really am. And I'm
different each day due to the experience I lived through in the past twenty-four hours. So what is written is old and what is done now will be old when read. My God changes me every day and I like it.
It has been so long since I first heard step three at a meeting there is
no recollection as to my understanding. No that is not true: there was no understanding at all. I was numbed by my food addiction and understood only where my next meal would come from and the snack before and after that meal. Nothing but nothing meant anything to me save my next fix. Making a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understood God, was, I thought, some sort of joke. A damn cruel joke at
that! Nothing is that easy and I was right. So many of us do not read
what is written but what we wish were written. The first time in OA
I said okay, okay, I turn myself over to God, my body carried over 537 pounds
of ignorant hate. That was one thing I was good at: Hate.
To the world at large this man was the jovial fat man you hear so much
about, always laughing at himself, and God forgive me, those who suffered
more than I did. There weren't many of those around.
My first OA meeting took place mid-February of 1975 and my first
sponsor, now deceased, streamed across the room at break time saying I
want you. I got pretty excited, as it had been a long time since any female said those words to me, in any form. I was given a food plan with firm instructions on when to call my sponsor and handed a meeting list. Pick four meetings to attend each week as you, I was told, are a terminal case and in need of extra help. No kidding I thought.
Although steps one and two had not penetrated my food-fogged mind, the
weight fell off at 1.5 pounds a day for many days. My meals were three a
day with zero save water. Each day, did I write it down? No. Did I weigh and
measure? No. Did I take step three? A thousand times the words came from
my mouth, however many years passed until I understood just what those
words meant.
I remember now the many messages God sent to me which were
promptly ignored. God does not scream at me - just whispers and speaks
through other people's words and actions. I became a guest speaker in the tri-state area and was damn good at it. Was I a fraud, or an instrument of God, as my words were heard far and wide?
Only recently, in the past four or five years, did I come to understand
why I heard so often in the back of my mind, do step three and get
started on step four. A lot of water passed under my bridge before I
realized step three was making a decision, nothing more. No magic potion
to take, allowing God to take over, not at all. When I knew what must be
done in order to survive there was enough fear in me to move forward.
Over several years I had eaten myself back to over 400 pounds. What a
mess! Another failure. But was I? Much self knowledge had been learned
and many horrible war stories about the dreaded 4th step. What a crock
and I bought into it. Where was there one iota of intelligence in
me, being afraid of something done before and being done by millions of
recovering people?
Now I go to meetings to see what happens to folks who do not go to
meetings. All I'm asked to do in this step is make a decision. That is
all. Nothing else is required except making a decision. So all right says
I, the decision is made but I still want to eat. I've done it, turned my
will and my life over to this God and nothing happens. This is true.
Many of my acquaintances have gone on being food abstinent for many
years, dry drunks, who sooner more than later relapse big time and
howl, God is a phony! Just a phony! And so is the whole crappy program.
When questioned they sheepishly admit that three is as high as they can
count. God never was handed the job of caretaker, only a decision was
made. We compulsive people sure can bullshit ourselves, and the normies
don't care because they don't want to or have to.
Easter time in 1975 and I'm seventy pounds down to about 460+ pounds.
The ex-wife, children and I go to her family for the Easter Holidays. I'm
the last one left downstairs and at 3 a.m. after being praised for the
weight loss and extolling the virtue of OA and myself, I hit the ice box and wipe it out leaving just enough behind to justify leaving the containers behind. The pain
came swift and terrible; so intense my eyes felt as though they would pop
from their sockets. Heat ran from head to toe, as perspiration fell from
me as I fell to the floor. How was I going to live much less regain my
feet? That was indeed the first time I knew in my heart that God was
close at hand. Almost without effort I stood, pain free and was lifted up
two flights of stairs to my room.
The next morning a long distance call to my sponsor revealed my
spiritual experience. That afternoon my face was back in the food.
Though unknown to me, many years later God had given me a taste of
serenity just enough for me to search for more. It was not until I
accepted step three as merely a decision, to be followed in the quickest
possible time with the DREADED 4TH STEP. AAAHH!!!
Be ye not afraid cause if it is in the dictionary some other fool
already did it.
Come with me, hold tightly to my free hand, the other is holding onto God
as we pull up our shorts and go bravely ahead to a new found freedom and
serenity. Surely if we hit a bump here and there we will just hold each
other. Hell people! There are well over 350 of us on WTS alone and more
have joined us from other loops! Let each of us search our reason for
being here and get on with life. Help each other! Grab hold of the next person and pull. Share you with me as I have with you. If you don't share, you ain't there.
AND WHY NOT.....Danny
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