October 16

Fellowship

“When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we
often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have
chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.
Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude



When I first came into The Recovery Group's online meeting room nearly a year ago, I was bankrupt of mind, body and soul. I felt so unlovable that even I couldn't stand myself! I casually observed at the first few meetings and I was intrigued by the warmth of the fellowship there. After a few meetings I finally opened up and shared, "spilling my guts" about what it was like to reach bottom and to desperately need a hand to lift me up. After they heard my share, they told me they would love me until I could learn to love myself. That really blew me away! They told me they had been where I was and that they had found a means to recover. They assured me this program would work for me, if I really wanted it, and to follow their steps ~ their beloved Twelve Steps.

Shortly after joining, I got an online sponsor with whom I have been walking the path of recovery ever since. I eventually shared with her things I had spent a lifetime desperately longing to be able to tell another person, but had needed to keep shrouded in secrecy. Being heard and understood was the gift of a lifetime. The weight has been falling off, I have experienced a lot of emotional healing, and I am in a much better place spiritually. This fellowship, their steps and meetings, and my Higher Power have brought me a long way in a year's time!

One day at a time...
I will emulate those warm, wonderful people by welcoming newcomers with love and by helping them get started on the road to recovery. I will sponsor with the love and dedication that my sponsor has shown me.


~ Karen A.

October 17

Self-sabotage

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur
when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled.
For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are
likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”
M. Scott Peck


For the last fifteen years I have been an avid and restless student of “self-help.” I read popular books, spent years in therapy, and attended various support groups. Because I didn’t see any improvement in my life, I was consumed with anger, shame, bitterness, and a pervasive sense of injustice. I blamed my Higher Power, my family, my partner, and my life circumstances. Only since joining The Recovery Group have I discovered the source of my toxic stagnation. It was myself. When doing a thorough examination of my life, I was absolutely shocked to find that I had been repeatedly practicing destructive acts of self-sabotage.

I was in love with my suffering. I was addicted to my misery. Sometimes we cling to our illnesses and weaknesses because they are so familiar to us. Though they hurt us, we find them oddly comforting. It's what we're used to. And change is scary. The unknown is scary. I found that my self-sabotage stemmed from shame, anger, low self-esteem, my lust for being a Victim -- and even a Fear of Being Well. I had to reach the profound darkness of depression before I could admit that the damage I did to myself had become unbearable.

Now I make a choice each day to not sabotage myself. It's not easy. Rather than being my enemy, I choose to be my friend and advocate. With the help of this program and my friends in recovery, I have come to like myself and to truly want good things for myself. The changes are gradual and require me to be patient and gracious with myself. Now I can celebrate each baby step and forgive myself when I fall back into old patterns. I now know that when I do make a mistake, I can admit it, learn from it, and press forward with my Recovery.

One day at a time...
I will choose to accept myself as a person of worth. I will resist temptations to sabotage my recovery and I will choose good things for my life.


~ Lisa

October 18

Looking for Love

“The most important thing in life
is to learn how to give out love,
and to let it come in.”

Morrie Schwartz



As a compulsive overeater I was always looking outside of myself for love, yet I was terrified of letting it in. “What if it hurts me once I let it in?” I was just as afraid of giving out love. “What if I lost myself or was taken advantage of?” My life was ruled by fear, and at a very young age I discovered the false security of food. I used food as a source of companionship and as a way to numb out my pain. It became a substitute for love.

As the disease gained control, the more I ate and the more shut down I became. I built huge walls around myself. As the weight came on, I was convinced that this was the reason people didn’t love me the way that I wanted to be loved. I believed that “if only I was thin enough” I would get what I wanted. It never occurred to me that I was already so full of the food that there was no room inside to receive anything else.

When I came into program and began to put down the food, I slowly discovered that this love that I was searching for was within me all along. My Higher Power is love and dwells within and all around me. In recovery I am graced with the freedom to act out of love and therefore be with my Higher Power.

One day at a time...
I will choose to act out of love and to keep my heart open to the love that my Higher Power brings into my life. If I just open my eyes, my ears and my heart, it is everywhere.


~ Jessica M.

October 19

Live and Let Live

“If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house
with the conscious design of doing me good,
I should run for my life.”

Henry David Thoreau


I have gleaned from the OA program that I can let others be themselves and make their own decisions unless an issue involves me as well. What a powerful concept. I have struggled long and hard with the issue of letting others live their lives as they choose without the benefit of my wise, profound advice. I really believed that I had all the answers and that by listening to me, one could get his or her life on the right track and be forever grateful to me for the magnanimous favor I had done them. I really believed this! I was also deeply frustrated when people did not immediately do whatever it was I had “advised” them to do. How could they be so dumb?

More importantly, how did I overlook the fact that my own life was heading downhill at a remarkable clip? Thanks to the OA program, I have slowly learned to keep my mouth shut. My motto for relationships is simple: sweep off my side of the street. It makes being me so much easier and it makes the lives of those around me a bit better too.

One day at a time...
Today I will accept and love those around me without acting on the urge to make their lives “better.” I will live and let live as I continue to realize the freedom the program offers me.


~ Pete

October 20

Limitations

“You cannot help men permanently
by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”

Abraham Lincoln


I love the idea of helping people. Seeing the other person shine after my input gives me a great feeling. The flipside of this peak experience is the sadness and bleakness I feel when the person I am helping does not succeed. When it is all about me, I have to accept responsibility for everything: the good and the bad.

Thank You, God, that it is not really me who is the source of all help, it is You. I can point the way and make suggestions, but I cannot make someone change for the better. What causes people to change is something for which no person can take credit. It is simply divine!

The real question is whether or not the person I want to help will turn to his or her Higher Power and use the help that is offered. I cannot actually take these steps for others. I can pretend to do that, and perhaps offer some temporary relief, but lasting recovery will come only to those who make a quality decision to take the necessary steps on their own.

One day at a time...
I will realize the limitations of my help. I will not try to do for others what only they can and should do for themselves.


~ Q

October 21

Ready

“If we wait for the moment when everything,
absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.”

Ivan Turgenev


This was one of my biggest obstacles in recovery: I wanted everything to be perfect. This type of thinking kept me stuck for many years in the disease. Instead of my program being One Day At A Time, it was always "one day later and I will do your will God."

Now I know that today is all I have. I have no guarantees for tomorrow. So I let go and let God, and do the best I can. I have discovered that I do not have to work a perfect program. Not everything has to be just “right.”

One day at a time...
One day at a time I do the footwork that is required of me and leave the results to God.


~ Terri

October 22

Scars

“Dwelling on the negative
simply contributes to its power.”
Shirley MacLaine


I’ve lived most of my life filled with bitterness towards people, God and myself. My mind, soul, and body were consumed by hatred, self-pity, pain, hopelessness, and a complete sense of powerlessness. I focused my energy on reviewing my scars. I counted them, checked them, nurtured them, and flaunted them. They were proof of all the wrongs I’d endured. They were my source of energy. They were my identity. They were my badge of sorrow.

As I work my recovery, I am beginning to see everything from a new perspective. Gradually my head is lifted and my eyes are turned away from my once-beloved scars. The more I allow myself to accept that my powerlessness is not a prison of doom, the more I discover that it is my doorway to faith, surrender, and serenity.

My scars are still here. There is no magic potion to remove them. What is magical, however, is that I see them so differently. I find that I have a choice to make every day: I can cherish my scars as proof of the pain I have suffered, or I can be thankful for them as evidence of things I have survived. Scar tissue forms and creates a stronger, thicker skin in its place. I can either pick at it and make it bleed, or I can welcome the lessons and endurance it has built into my life.

One day at a time...
I will choose to see my scars as proof of the difficulties I have survived. I will choose to appreciate them as evidence that God has brought me through suffering and has used all things to strengthen my faith in Him, my hope for tomorrow, and my serenity for today.


~ Lisa

Scars have a tale to tell and often go deep. We often forget that just though the surface may appear to be healing, the wound is still raw underneath and we need to give it time and still needs extra balm for healing. mj

October 23

Pain

“People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous ...
Pain is meant to wake us up ...
You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”

Jim Morrison


I am what some might call a “pain expert.” Inside, outside, stuffed, unavoidable ~ there are so many kinds of pain. I used to think that if I were really strong, I would never let pain effect me, regardless of its source. And there were plenty of sources. I walked around with this smile on my face and this wall built around me, trying to ward off the pain.

Then one day I cracked. I lost someone very close to me. When I actually accepted that, I just broke down. There was so much pain I had been avoiding for years. At that moment I was confronted by all of it!

That was when I started to realize that I couldn’t go through life avoiding pain. It was still there and it would come back. And it would be worse. Joining this program and reading the Big Book helped me to recognize my pain and feel it. I’m now able to not fear it, but to see it for what it is: a piece of me. I grow from what I feel, including pain. Without it I wouldn’t be me.

One day at a time...
I will feel my pain and I will do what is necessary to accept it. Together we are bound by pain. Together we can see our strength.


~ Miranda G.

October 24

FEAR

“Fear is not created by the world around us,
but in the mind, by what we think is going to happen.”

Elizabeth Gawain





There are different kinds of fear. Certain fears are good, because they help preserve our lives. Babies, for example, have a fear of falling. It just seems to be a natural instinct. Any fear that protects us from harming ourselves is a good fear.

However, when fear becomes an obsession, it is getting out of hand. Why do we go looking for trouble? There is a saying, “Don’t let clouds of fear of the morrow hide today’s sunshine.” We can get so anxious about what’s going to happen in the future that we don’t enjoy living today.

Life is a precious gift to be lived one day at a time, and is to be shared with others.

One Day at a Time . . .
This is how I will live my life: One day at a time, one moment at a time, sharing my precious gift with another through Twelve Step giving.


Lizzie

October 24

Courage

“If you're going through hell, keep going.”
Winston Churchill


Recovery work takes great courage. Everyone who tells you differently has not explored themselves in great depth.

It takes great courage for many of us to get up each morning to face a day of physical challenge. Others feel the pull of emotions, job, or family issues.

If but for today, reach inside and give yourself a big hug for being willing to hang on one minute longer. That minute will turn into moments, and before you know it, you will have lived out the Program message, “One day at a time."

One day at a time...
I will honor and celebrate the courage shown in working this program.


~ January K.

October 26

Paths

“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
Robert Frost


As a compulsive overeater, I longed to find a solution to my problems. Like so many of us, I tried all the heavily traveled roads ~ the endless means to lose weight and to alleviate my indulgent eating behaviors. But at the end -- and there was always an end -- of every new "method of weight loss" I returned to walking my old path of destructive compulsive overeating. I always went back to the old eating behaviors as well as the consequences of those behaviors. I had heard of OA but did not know anyone who belonged to its groups. It seemed like the whole world was on the latest fad diet -- diets that I could never continue for more than a few days or weeks.

Since joining The Recovery Group, I now walk a new path and have abandoned the old roads and the diet of the week. I have been on this road nearly a year now, and it is a wonderfully pleasant trek. I indeed believe "I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence." I have found an incredible amount of recovery spiritually, emotionally and physically. I am traveling on “the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference!”

One day at a time...
I will enjoy this road less taken...a path of acceptance and surrender. It is a path of spiritual, emotional and physical recovery!


~ Karen A.

October 27

Living in the Present

“As long as you are seeking to find happiness somewhere,
you are overlooking where true happiness is.”
Gangaji


Happiness is always somewhere else, isn’t it? It is all too human to put off our happiness until a more appropriate or perfect time. Ideally, we know that happiness is not a matter of timing; it is a state of mind caused by even the smallest actions that we take (or fail to take) each day. However, I often used to remark to others that, “One day I will be happy when I get thin.” I got much thinner, but never thin enough, it seems. “One day I will take a night course.” I was so busy working, “on-call”, and doing things for others that I never managed to find the time.

“One day I will start this new food Plan,” I’d promised myself. It had worked for others. I truly wanted to give myself a chance to see if it could work for me too, yet I approached it haphazardly, at first. On paper, any food plan is just a diet, unless, you have a Sponsor, use the Tools, and work the Steps! I’d been told this over and over, and later--lived the actual experience of doing it my way. As long as I told myself, “One day I will find the time for me,” it didn’t come about!

One day at a time...
I now realize that as long as I keep looking to the future in order to allot myself wonderful challenges and small joys, I am choosing to postpone my happiness until my life is perfect, which is never in the realm of reality. I believe that this is why those who have gone before us in recovery suggest that we live life on life’s terms to the best of our ability just “One day at a time.”


~ January K.

October 28

Home

“My home is not a place, it is people.”
Lois McMaster Bujold


I’ve spent most of my adult life feeling very alone in the world. My disease of compulsive overeating separated me from others due to my isolation, embarrassment and shame. I was always the outsider looking in at others.

It wasn't until I walked into a twelve step meeting that I found a home for myself. Here these people knew me, heck they WERE me. Whatever I thought, whatever I felt, and whatever I had done in my life, so had others in OA. I am accepted in my totality. OA is the only place where I feel truly safe and at home. I am not alone anymore. The entire twelve step fellowship is on my side ~ and what a great feeling that is!

One day at a time...
I will make OA my home.


~ Cindi L.

October 29

Trial and Error

“Anything worth doing at all is worth doing poorly.”
Joachim de Posada


Imagine my shock the first time I heard this statement, which happened to be in a Twelve Step (OA) meeting. I had been reared in an environment in which anything worth doing at all was worth doing well. In fact, in my world this concept was practiced as if it had religious authority. It was perfectionism given flesh and bones.

Perhaps the idea that “anything worth doing at all is worth doing well” worked for some folks. For me, it was paralyzing. There were many things that I needed to do that I simply could not do well. These included things like trimming the hedge, praying, and making good investment choices. So how did my sick, obsessive-compulsive self respond? Predictably, of course: I just didn't do those things I felt I couldn’t do well. I was rarely willing to take the chance of acting and being wrong, so I did not act at all. Soon I was living a very restricted life -- a life hemmed in by the fear of messing up. I needed to be perfect or just not be at all.

Then I found the program. There I learned that I am human and that making mistakes is part of being human. I even learned that making mistakes is a good thing, because in doing so I have acted. This is a program of action. I learn by acting and by making mistakes. How liberating! How freeing. I can't tell you how much my constricted, warped life began to open up. I acted and did things poorly, and people responded warmly and in a helpful manner. I took their advice and I joined the human race. I now consider this simple concept -- act, even if it means doing a thing poorly -- as one of the greatest gifts of the program. My life is really my life now. Perfectionism occasionally rears its ugly head, but when it does, I simply remember where I came from and then I go ahead and make a mistake and set myself free again.

One day at a time...
Today I will do what I need to do, and I will do it as well as I can. When I make a mistake I will not conclude that I am a mistake. I will accept that I am human and I will ask for help. Perfection has never been a goal of this program and it is not a goal for my life.


~ Pete M.