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chickiewoods
This is my story: Worshipping The Big Donut In The Sky I was desperate. It had been fifteen long years since I had set foot in an OA meeting. I had regained all the weight I had lost and then some. I was now more than two hundred pounds overweight. I could hardly stand long enough to do my work as a hairdresser. I hid in shame in another 12-Step program and thankfully, have stayed sober for 19 years. I learned that if we have serious problems and it seems that there is no way out; work with other fellow sufferers. I drove up and down the main street near where I live always thinking that if I ever got back to OA I would like to start a meeting near my home, to lessen the excuses for not showing up. I called the nearest Intergroup, but felt put off when someone said that there wasn't much interest in starting a Friday meeting and the person said that it couldn't be done. My Higher Power knows that I am of a rebellious nature (aren’t we all?), especially when told I can't do something. The person who seemed not to be helpful actually made me more determined. Although fearful, I contacted the Overeaters Anonymous World Services Office in New Mexico, and they sent me out a New Group Starter Kit. I then noticed that there was a community center located in front of the local library. Tracking down the right contact for the building was difficult and the process tedious. I had to apply in writing, sign a contract as the responsible party, and then go down in person to meet the director of parks and recreation. So, dragging my poor tired body down there, I finally had the key in my hot little hand! So, now, there I sat in a large room all by myself, but at last, we now had a Friday meeting! It was just before my natal birthday in July of 1998. I got the meeting listed with the local Intergroup and put a small notice in the local newspaper. I found our first textbook in the local thrift store. The second meeting, I brought my dog. The third meeting, someone else showed up! So we had a meeting. The meeting grew, and I still did not have a single day of abstinence. I started attending other meetings nearby and farther away into other areas. I began to make many friends and we would go to meetings together. Several of us began to car-pool and caravan our way to meetings. I was attending four OA meetings a week Still, I would eat. I ate before meetings. I ate after meetings. The only time I didn't eat was during the meeting. I found a drive-through donut shop that had a huge landmark plaster donut for a sign. I began to worship the "Big Donut in the Sky." This donut shop is located in a dangerous high-crime area, yet I'd travel there to get my fix. I shared the same corner with the drug dealers. Me, with my bag of donuts. I would play the same song on my car's tape player, over and over. Bob Seger's song; "Come to Pa Pa." Truly, the theme song for my addiction. I bought a baseball cap with the store logo, and began to wear it when I went on a donut run. I guess it was an attempt at a disguise. I have since found out that there is a live camera at this establishment, which shoots live pictures of everyone in the donut line and broadcasts it at their web site! The horror! During this time, out of desperation and that it no longer seemed sensible to wait until I got abstinent to begin the steps; I began to work the first two steps, answering the questions out of the OA Twelve-Step Workbook. I finished writing out the answers to all of Step Two, but we could not find the time for my "Listener" (the word sponsor still intimidated me) to listen to it. I would find out later that God had a plan of His own. It finally came to a crashing end one night as I prepared for bed. I had 'kept coming back' for a year and a half, and never got a single day of abstinence. I was a complete failure. I now knew without a doubt that if I kept going the way I was going that I would die the death of a compulsive overeater. I suddenly knew without a doubt, that I could not stop. Not tomorrow, not on Monday, not ever. Terrified, I got into bed and prayed to God. "God, please help me. I cannot stop eating! Help me to do Your Will." I cried myself to sleep. During the night I had the following dream: I was doing a favor for an elderly woman. I had just washed and brushed her dogs (not a task I would normally volunteer to do!) and was returning them to her. She wanted to talk. She asked me what I really loved. I looked out the sliding glass doors to a view of the ocean. "I really love the way the sky meets the ocean in the horizon," I said. Then she said, "Tell me about God." I was quiet as I began inwardly to talk to God, "Now listen God, I’m sticking my neck way out here! Help me be an example of what You can do. Please help me." "I will show you what God can do. "I said. I looked at the ocean and the waves began to roll and foam white as snow. The sky began to swirl with white rolling clouds. I could see some figures in the distance, standing in the waves that now seemed to form a shelter for the figures. Now I could see that they were angels and someone else, (whom I have come to believe is the patron saint of my abstinence!) I was stunned and could hardly believe what I was seeing. I don't know how, because I never looked down, but I began to go out towards the vision I was looking out at and I met with the Glory out there. Just before the first step, I remember thinking, "Here I go God, I hope I'm ready!" Soon, I began to hear singing. For me I heard the song that means everything to me now, "Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound! That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now, I'm found. Was blind, yet now I see!" I began to hear others joining in with the song, singing it over and over. I came back to the shore to be with the people that had come, attracted by all the singing. One by one, each person began to tell the pain of their lives. The real core pain. As each person spoke of what their pain was, all of us would feel it with them, then begin to sing again, and the pain would be healed. It happened over and over. More and more people came and joined in with the tellingand the singing. Then there came a young girl who looked a lot like me. She began to tell of her pain. I reached out my hand to her. She was holding something wrapped up in a white napkin. As our hands touched, she said, "My pain is; that my father, who I thought loved me, left and never came back!" The agony struck me like a bolt of lightening. At once I knew this was my pain and she was me!" My own voice crying out, with the shock of that old pain, woke me up. I opened my eyes and hesitated for a few seconds. It was 4:30 am, September 25, 1999. The thought came to me that I better get out of my bed of sickness, loneliness, sadness and death! I jumped up out of that bed like it was on fire! With my newfound freedom, I jumped into the shower, singing Amazing Grace, my new theme song. I knew the war I'd had with food was over. At last, I finally knew that my eating disorder began at age ten, the day my father left us. It is one thing to intellectually know something, and quiet another to experience the real source of it. I now began to remember what the young girl in the dream was holding. It was a set of silver ware in a white napkin. The symbol of my addiction. I have learned since that the addiction wants one thing from all of us. It wants us to feed it until we aredead!God’s Grace can enter into us and expel the deadly compulsion. That is my belief. When I was finally at my most willing, only then was I entirely ready for the obsession to be removed. And it was. I got dressed and woke my husband up. He looked at me and said, "What the #@%*!! Time is it?" I said," Arise, honey, this is the day the Lord has made! "( or something like that.) "I have to see something." I said. He got up and went with me down to the beach. Sure enough there it was, in the horizon it does look like the ocean meets the sky. We went to breakfast at a coffee shop there in Hermosa Beach. I ate my first abstinent meal. The obsession to overeat had been completely removed from me. I called another member from OA and he met me for an abstinent lunch. That night, I had an abstinent dinner. I now had one whole day of abstinence. A miracle! I hardly knew how to act with a whole brand new clean day, free of the obsession to overeat for the first time in my life! Three days later, still abstinent, it occurred to me that our area needed a phone service. I established the much-needed answering service. Several more days later, I went down to the local cable company and got a public service announcement on the local community access channels. A couple more months later, a few sympathetic OA, and I started a new Intergroup, serving the beach areas and beyond. We recently helped someone calling from New Jersey, to find a meeting in her area! We had begun to sponsor people in remote areas of Kentucky and Texas through the mail. . We connect with people through e-mail and e-mail directories to them when needed. We fax meeting directories to anyone who wants one that way. We have the best bunch of people I have ever met doing service at all levels, volunteering their time to help our fellow suffers. They have saved my life. At a recent Intergroup meeting we prayed together for an office. Three days later, we had our office. That is now where I sit writing about these wonderful experiences to you. I have completed my 5th Step and I am beginning Step 8; I have 385 days of freedom from food obsession. I have lost 100 lbs. I am free at last! I continue to do service as a way of showing my gratitude, and as insurance of continued progress in the Program. Service has brought an end to my agony of isolation. After being blessed with abstinence I cannot think of a better way to spend my time than to travel this road to Happy Destiny, with you. Post Script: It is now 2007. I had plenty of ups and downs since I wrote this story. By the grace of God I am again abstinent and back in the fold of my recovering friends and STILL gratefully trudging this road... Chickie Woods Hermosa Beach, California
Latest page update: Aug 21 2007, 5:06 PM EDT
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