Recovering One Day at a Time: A local member speaks.

Recovering One Day at a Time: A local member speaks.
I have been a member of Overeater’s Anonymous for a long time, and I still so often feel like a newcomer.  I get tongue-tied when I read aloud sometimes and nervous when I want to pitch.  I am not certain the reasons this happens, but I embrace my vulnerability.  I feel like I am just like everyone else when I am awkward.  All my life, I thought somehow I was supposed to know “how to be, how to look, how to behave.”  So I shut off my ability to feel and kind of bulldozed my way through life.  The OA program and the people who work it have taught me that it is the “not knowing” that has helped me begin to recover.  I know it sounds funny, but the more I accept being powerless over food, people, events, and everything else, the more teachable and open I have become.  I often say that I needed a really big Higher Power (whom I usually call God) because I was so angry and resentful that I wanted a God who could “handle” all of my bad feelings.  I could NOT handle how I felt, so I allowed myself to create a gynormous God who could.  Little by little, by making lots of phone calls, by choosing a sponsor who accepted me and led me through my steps and The Twelve Traditions, by attending meetings in whatever city I visited, and by giving Service to my groups and my Intergroup, I arrived at a day when I no longer knew when my last binge/purge event had occurred.  I remember asking myself and God, “I wonder if I could be abstinent?” Since that moment, I have continued to work a program of recovery one day at a time, sometimes one minute at a time.  Today, when I am disturbed (or not) I am grateful to have so many choices other than food to deal with how I feel.  I have Tools of Recovery and names and phone numbers of people who will listen, care, and offer their experience, strength, and hope.  Today I have a life outside myself and a living, loving person within.  And, one day at a time, I will Keep Coming Back.  Thank you to OA and to our members.  We work our programs together, and together we recover, One Day At a Time. - Cathy L.