Introduction:


I'm your WTS Step Study leader this quarter and also a compulsive overeater.

This is a practical Step Study. It is designed to use what I’ve been taught are the directions from the Big Book to recover from compulsive eating, and to maintain that recovery on a one-day-at-a-time basis for the rest of your life.

Don’t forget to go to www.oabigbook.info to download (for free, of course) some forms and documents I’ll be referring to in this Step Study, as well as a book I’ve written, based on a 2005 Step Study I did for WTS, which provides the theoretical background for this 2008 Step Study.

If you’re bothered by anything I write, please don’t be critical until you have read the book I’ve written to see where I’m coming from. In this Step Study I am deliberately getting to the nub and not trying to justify and explain everything I’m saying.

This is an especially long post. Please bear with me. I’ll first comment about the responses from the last two weeks, and then talk about Step Two.


Some comments about the last two weeks’ responses:

I really enjoyed reading throughout last week all the emotional and stupid reasons why we go back to eating foods and indulging in eating behaviors that we know will set off our cravings. Do any of us need more convincing of our inability to keep from going back? I hope someone can compile a complete list of what everyone has sent in!

As people went through their lists of foods, food ingredients, and eating behaviors, I saw a lot of similarities and also a lot of differences. It was proof to me that we all have individual issues, with quite a bit of overlap among some of us, but none at all with some others. In other words, we shouldn’t rely on other peoples’ plans of eating at all in developing our own. We might use them as guides, but not simply adopt them unless they accord with our own personal experiences.

Step One asks us to admit that we are powerless over food-that our lives are unmanageable. That’s a shortcut way of saying that we cannot stop eating certain foods, food ingredients, and/or indulging in certain eating behaviors, without developing uncontrollable cravings; and that we cannot stop ourselves from going back to those foods, food ingredients, or eating behaviors. Certainly we are not powerless over any food at all. I can assure you that radishes, zucchini, and instant coffee (and cows’ brains and goats’ eyes), have no hold over me whatsoever. I can leave them happily and never ever want to go back to them.

So we’re not being asked to admit powerlessness over ALL foods-simply over the foods, food ingredients, and eating behaviors, that constitute OUR problem. (Thanks to one of the list members for raising that issue.)

Some people say they can’t pinpoint any foods because they overeat everything. I understand that perfectly. That may be an example of an eating behavior and not a food issue. Some people may not have any particular food that is their problem (although I’ll bet that certain combinations of ingredients are more significant to them than others) but they may have eating behaviors that push them into eating and eating anything until there’s nothing left.

The only criterion for a plan of eating is that you’re rigorously honest about it-that you’re not holding onto something that you know, deep in your heart, you shouldn’t. If you find later on that you left something on by mistake, then you can eliminate it at that time. Current-but rigorous- honesty is what’s needed!

Now we’re onto Step Two.


First, a summary:

Clearly our problem is not that certain foods, food ingredients, and/or eating behaviors cause uncontrollable cravings in us. All kinds of people have abnormal reactions to substances. Their solution is obvious: they stay away from those substances. If our only problem were that we got those uncontrollable cravings, then the solution to our problem is also obvious: we should abstain from those foods, food ingredients, and/or eating behaviors, which cause those uncontrollable cravings.

But we can’t! That’s our real problem. We have an obsession of the mind that keeps giving us permission to return. This time it’ll be different. This time we deserve it. This time . . . .

So we are powerless over our killer foods, etc. We cannot manage them. In relation to them we are insane. We can’t stop from starting again. We are insane. We need to become sane, but we can’t-on our own, as individuals. Each of us is, on our own, completely powerless.


What Step Two is and what it is not:

If we are powerless as individuals, can we derive hope from those in OA who have clearly recovered, or from those in other 12-step programs who have clearly recovered from their addiction?

That’s the only real question.

If we can feel some hope that people who are just like us, compulsive eaters, have recovered by working the Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous-then maybe, just maybe, we can try it ourselves.

That’s it. It’s that simple. If Step One has convinced us that as individuals we are powerless, can we hold out some hope for ourselves that working the Twelve Steps will give us power?

It’s ONLY hope. That hope is the promise of the Twelve Steps-that once we reach Step Nine, we WILL gain access to a power greater than ourselves that will relieve our sanity. (Steps Ten, Eleven, and Twelve, keep us connected to that power greater than ourselves, and therefore keep us sane.)

Step Two describes what has happened to those of us who have worked the Twelve Steps. It’s a promise that IF we work the Twelve Steps we will gain access to that power. It’s not a step that GIVES us a higher power, nor that REQUIRES us to have or to adopt a higher power.


Gaining the hope that leads us to freedom (doing the Twelve Steps):

Do you want to be sane? Do you want to be able to look at ice cream, at cake, at french fries, at buttered popcorn, at donuts, at candies, at chocolate-at whatever turns your crank-and NOT BE TEMPTED? Would that be a miracle to you?

Look around you in cyberspace. Look around you at the meetings of Overeaters Anonymous. Look around you at the meetings in print, our Lifeline. Look around you at members of Alcoholics Anonymous, Alanon, Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous. (I’m told there’s even Actors Anonymous-for people who are really cabdrivers and waiters. Wait, that’s a joke! You’re a great audience! But moving on, folks . . .)

All around you are signs of that miracle that you want for yourself. All around you is recovery-people who have RECOVERED from their addiction. People who have RECOVERED from a seemingly hopeless condition of mind and body. People who have RECOVERED from an obsession of the mind that used to continue to send them back to ingesting something or doing something that caused them (would continue to cause them) uncontrollable cravings. People who can be surrounded by those things they used to be addicted, and NOT BE TEMPTED ONE BIT!

All around you are people who were once insane but have now become sane. They look at the things that used to tempt them, that they used to give themselves permission to go back to, and they say, "Why would I want to do that again? That is poison to me. Once I start I can’t stop. Why in the world would I want to start again?"

Isn’t that the miracle you want?

If you ask those people how they did it, they will tell you-universally tell you-that they didn’t do it themselves, that they COULDN’T do it themselves-that individually they were powerless over those things they had been addicted to.

If you ask them how they did it, they will tell you-universally tell you-that they followed a simple set of instructions. They got hope from people who had recovered, and they did what those people told them created that recovery.

They did the Twelve Steps. They found a power greater than themselves which restored them to sanity.

If you want what they have, come on and join us on the road to happy destiny. Just do the Twelve Steps! We guarantee results! (Should our motto be, "Satisfaction guaranteed or your fat refunded"?)


But, but, but . . .

Three possible buts:

• I don’t believe in God and don’t think I ever will.
  
• I believe in God and that hasn’t helped me.
  
• The God I believe in isn’t the kind of God who will help me.

1. Anything that seems to work is worth trying. The Twelve Steps seem to work for a lot of people. Why shouldn’t you try them?
   
   
2. The only progress that’s been made in this world has come from people trying something out of the ordinary-something that’s not been tried before. So maybe you should try something different instead of diets or exercise regimes that haven’t worked in the past.
   
   
3. You say you don’t believe in anything? On the contrary, you believe in a lot of things that you can’t prove. You love people, you have deep values like truth and honesty. So you do believe deeply in things that you can’t prove. All this program does is put you in touch with what you believe in. So maybe that’s a good thing.
   
   What do you believe in, you agnostic or atheist? What would you (theoretically) be willing to die for? What is more important than you are? It could be something as simple as love-love for particular people, love for country, love for all people. It could be some ideas like honesty and justice and beauty. It could be particular principles.
   
   Those principles or values are your higher power; or should be, at any rate. You don’t have to capitalize the words. You don’t have to call them God (although you could use the acronym of Good Orderly Direction).