Step 3

Step 3: Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand him.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."

Proverbs 3:5-6, NIV

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Initially, since my new higher power was the group of people who had gone before me, my Step 3 was making the decision to stay abstinent and to use the tools on a daily basis. I asked God (the Holy Spirit) to help me do what I needed to do each minute.

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Abstinence: My sponsor gave me a food plan to follow each day. It had no sugar or flour and it was weighed and measured. It had specific boundaries, without a lot of options. The motto was "keep it simple" and "easy does it, but do it."

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Sponsor: I called my sponsor at a specific time each day and told her what I was going to eat for the day.

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Literature: I read my literature--one page of the Big Book each day, the daily reading from OA's For Today (The Little White Book) and the daily reading from AA (the Little Black Book)

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Phone: I made three out-reach calls each day

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Meetings: I went to three committed OA meetings a week (one being a step meeting)

I also was committed to getting on my knees each day. At first, it was a quick stop, but now-a-days, I spend 1/2 hour first thing in the morning, and then I have a "date" with God after lunch each day.

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Love and service: In the Big Book, Bill Wilson says, "love and service keeps us dry."

Whenever I started to entertain the thoughts of extra food, I repeated the following lines over and over again...

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"My food is my food; everything else is not my food. It's not an option to overeat no matter what is happening in my circumstances or how I feel."

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Then I'd contemplate how "love and service" would keep me dry (abstinent). I'd make a phone call or do something nice for myself or for someone else. It distracted me from the food thoughts and I stayed abstinent one day at a time.

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Today I do a different version of the tools, but I still do them each day. My abstinence is the most important thing in my life because without it I have no life. (That sounds dramatic, but if I picked-up extra food again, I'd be emotionally unavailable...and I'd be spiritually bankrupt...and physically beat-up).

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Food addiction is a progressive disease. The last time I picked-up one bite. It turned into another binge. I gained l5 pounds in three days! That doesn't seem possible, but it is what it is.

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Grace of God, that was over nineteen years ago....