Essay

Most of us who have abstinence have come to some kind of terms with the concept of a Higher Power. Each of us may understand that Higher Power differently. What seems to matter is that somehow we have to move the center of our existence from our own ego to somewhere else, real or imagined.

There is a process of recovery, which may take various times for various people. First, we have to detox. Our brains have been stimulated by our food addiction to produce certain chemicals, and we have become addicted to these. For a period of time, these chemicals have to work their way out of our bodies and minds.

Once they are reduced to more normal levels, we have to reclaim our sanity. This may take a little time, too. After all, we have been insane for, in most cases, a number of years. For me, it was something over forty years!

After the return of sanity, we are equipped to see all the bad habits we learned, character defects we acquired, during the period of our compulsive eating. For many of us, we see ourselves in a rather appalling condition! Now, with any bad habit, we have to unlearn the bad one and then learn a good one in its place. Habits that are of long standing take time to unlearn, but I think that if we are diligent in our program, we will unlearn them in much less time that we spent doing them. And then, finally, we have to replace the bad habits with good ones. I suppose how long that takes depends to some extent on how fast a learner we are! I also think I was slower than some, myself. But that doesn't matter – I am hhere.

Now, the thing is, if we are abstinent at all, we know that the God of our understanding has had the power to restore us to sanity, and to begin, at least, removing our compulsion to eat. That compulsion may be the most powerful bad habit we have! So it is not surprising that the Steps tell us that this same HP can also help us remove our character defects.

There are some conditions, of course. The one mentioned in the Step is humility. If we cannot remove our compulsion to eat without our HP, then we may expect that our other character defects, learned over the years of our addiction, will also need God's help to remove. We know that our diseased ego was deeply involved in our addiction. It was also deeply involved in the bad habits we acquired along the way. So if we need to find that center outside our own egos to recovery, it stands to reason that that the same center can also help us with the rest of our bad habits. But we have to get out of our heads, our egos. Thus, humility, which I take as meaning that we act without ego involvement. I want to get rid of this bad habit, I want to acquire this good habit, but I am powerless to do so. However, as the Big Book reminds us, “there is one who has all power -- may you find Him now.” (Whether God is Him is not my point.)

We have searched fearlessly for a list of our defects. Now, we turn once more to the Higher Power who has been able to grant us abstinence one day at a time, and ask for release from the coils of our other bad habits.

Humbly.

We do not control the outcome. We can work our program as fully as we are able, but we cannot control the outcome. That is something that is in the hands of our Higher Power. It is the experience of those in program that this process works, so it isn't exactly a shot in the dark. But God is in control, not us. And we have to be careful, given our histories, to remember that.

And to let go of the need to change our habits as though we could control the outcome! The time has come to dwell on our list of shortcomings, our inventories, with prayerful consideration of the changes we need to make, turning this also over to the care of a loving God as we understand God.

From somewhere there is a Seventh Step prayer. I cite it as an example of one way to proceed.

My Higher Power,
I am now willing that you should have all of me, good & bad.
I pray that you now remove from me every
single defect of character which stands in the way
of my usefulness to you & my fellows.
Grant me strength, as I go out from here to do Your bidding.

Love,
John