Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part FivePart Five
By: Jean Johnson for Reflux1
“For me, Overeaters Anonymous (OA) has been up, down, and around the pike,” said Jill Schmidt. “I’ll be candid right here that the organization’s little banal truisms and almost biblical pronouncements and orthodoxies turned me off immediately – and still do to a large degree. I hated going to meetings and hearing what I considered stupid slogans that insulted my intelligence. The whole bit, you know?
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Help your psychological healing
Saying sorry can be complicated. A constructive reconciliation has some key elements and keeping them in mind will help the process.
Principle One: Reconciliation – is built upon the foundation of committed relationships.
Principle Two: Intention – is the purposeful, positive, and planned activity that facilitates reconciliation (such as making a list of wrong-doings).
Principle Three: Sincerity – is the willingness to be vulnerable, including self-disclosure of feelings, attitudes, difference and perceptions, with the goal of resolution and building trust.
Principle Four: Sensitivity – is the intentional acquisition of knowledge in order to relate empathetically to any diverse situation, person, place or organization.
Principle Five: Sacrifice – is the willingness to relinquish an established status or position in order to facilitate diverse relationships.
Principle Six: Empowerment – is the use of repentance and forgiveness to create complete freedom in relationships.
Principle Seven: Interdependence
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“And I haven’t really changed on that score. Believe me if there had been any other way except OA I would have gone that route. But I had run out of options. I was at a dead end. Plus that, at the meetings I heard people talking about the same secret struggles I’d experienced all my life. I knew I was in the place I needed to be, even if much of it offended the librarian in me.” Okay, there’s the critique on OA, but for those that don’t speak 12-step, we asked Schmidt to explain just how OA helped her get free of her addiction.
“For as cornpone as OA can be, it’s also subtle as all get out and has a wisdom about it that continues to knock my socks off,” Schmidt said. “As my sponsor says, ‘OA is so smart.’
“For starters, you have to admit that you have a problem with your substance and that you are using food to deal with aspects of life that you fear. That’s a pretty tall order and no one does it right away, I don’t think. But going to meetings as many as three times a week like they suggest gradually gets this message to start sinking in – even if you’re like me and don’t make it to that many [meetings] more often than not. Still, the message starts to get your attention. For example, back in the old days, I didn’t even realize I was drugging. I just thought I liked the taste of sweets.
“One way that I started coming to terms with the idea that I really do have an addictive disease was by working what they call the fourth step. That’s where you go back through your life and list all the rotten things you’ve done. Things that you are ashamed of. Stuff you’ve stolen – and we’re even talking time you’ve frittered away while on the job – any sort of contractual deal where you didn’t give your fair share. Also you look for resentments. People, places, things that make you so mad you could spit,” Schmidt says and chuckles. “I had a rather long list of those. Actually I had a lengthy list period. Some 22 pages if I remember correctly.”
Once a 12-step person gets their list made, then they read it out loud to another human being. “You can read it to your OA sponsor (a person who chose to help you work through the steps) or anyone else you really trust. I did mine to my sponsor since people that are in OA are so used to telling and hearing things about each other you would never talk about with anyone else that it seemed the safest bet. Because believe me, I had some things on my list I’d never confided to another living soul! It was tough, but she just listened while I read. We didn’t discuss things since that’s not what the step is about.”
Schmidt says that after she read off her list to her sponsor they made a little pyre in the park where they were and burned the papers. “I had a copy saved on the computer because you need it for your eighth step when you start making your amends, but it was cathartic to at least have the ceremony of seeing all those worries and embarrassments float away. When the papers burned down they turned into these charred leaves and there was enough evening breeze to lift some of them off into the air. What a metaphor, eh?”
Yes, we agree, a poignant, dark ceremony. But what of these amends?
“Oh yes, the amends are the real biggies. That’s where you go down your list and figure out you who’ve wronged and what you owe them and how you’re going to set the score right – how you’re going to make your amends,” Schmidt said. “It’s a pretty big deal, and I confess I’m not quite there yet because I’ve been procrastinating. It seemed that right at the top of my list was amends to a former employer that I just cannot see myself having the courage to make. Finally my sponsor suggested ranking my amends on a scale of three. So what I’m working on now is putting a one by those I think I could easily do right now, a two by the ones that I might consider doing at some point, and a three by the ones that I don’t think I can ever deal with.”
Schmidt says that the ratings have taken much of the pressure off, and that she’s even starting making some of her amends. “Yes, I got pretty excited on some and wanted to get started. My sponsor coached me and I reread the program step-up material before I did them. The idea is that you are not looking for forgiveness, nor are you there to tell the other person how they made you feel or what they did to you. Instead, your job is what OA calls ‘cleaning up your side of the street.’
“Basically the idea is that addicts have more than the average dose of self-centeredness and also tend to be immature, given that their emotional development apparently stops when they start using their drug – which means I’m basically a toddler!
“Consequently people with addictive diseases – and OA does call it a disease – go around thinking the world owes them quite a bit, and when they don’t get what they want they tend to throw some rather outrageous tantrums. So it’s going back and looking at this vicious cycle and seeing where one’s part in it was. It’s pretty painful, especially at first, but coming out of all those years of denial is very liberating as well.
“I credit my 12-step work most of all for my present freedom from the obsession. In my view, I could eat all the potato snacks and protein and veggie meals in the world, but if I was still running and ducking and hiding from my old baggage and present feelings, I’d never be able to convince Ed [a personification for Schmidt’s Eating disorder] to not bring out the extra goodies.
“That’s because even though it was my weight that brought me to OA, what I discovered is that is was my insanity around food that most disturbed me. The weight was just the symptom of a mind that truly was out to lunch in a very tortured way.”
Schmidt says that’s about all there is to her story except that as she goes back and cleans up what OAers call “the wreckage of the past,” she also thinks about how she conducts herself in the present. “Once you start realizing how you’ve been acting, you want to change your current ways. Road rage was one of the first areas that clicked for me. All that OA influence made me realize how awful I was behind the wheel – how rude I was to others and how much I wanted the roadways all to myself.
“And that was just the beginning, not to say that all has been easy or that I don’t take many steps backward. But I have changed a number of my behaviors. The best way I can describe the experience is like having all my life stood outside a living room window of the gorgeous home with lovely lighting and the people mingling. Now I’m getting to go in.
“I do credit OA for this miracle. The food compulsion is truly lessening its grip on my psyche, and I do think that as long as I continue to stay vigilant, keep up with the program, and help newcomers even as I am getting helped, that I’ll be able to develop this marvelous treasure – that I’ll be able to live free from the bondage to food.”
Schmidt laughs with some self-deprecation. “I guess I sound a bit over-zealous like a new convert or an ex-smoker or something.” She sighs. “But when you’ve lived decades in the scorching desert as I did in my addiction so to speak, coming into a more normal, reasonable approach to life really does seem like night and day. It really does get your attention, and I am so very, very grateful.”
