2023 Step 12

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Okay, the first question is, can you hear me? [00:00:07] Speaker B: Yes, sir. [00:00:09] Speaker A: All right. Well, that's a good start. Yes. All right. My name is Don, Compulsive eater, food addict. I'm going to be your only speaker this morning, so bear with me. Start with the Serenity Prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Okay, the topic of this workshop is step 12. Some of you may have been through all the steps in here, so that makes a good weekend. Let's see, it says I have up to 20 minutes. I'll probably go a little bit longer than that maybe, since there's only one of me. And then we'll have lots of time for sharing. Three minutes, shares. After that, the session is being recorded. So if you have a problem with anonymity and you come to share, if you want, use a false name, but just remember that it is being recorded. Okay, so I'll get started. By this time in the weekend. Everyone's very experienced at the workshops and all the sharing. Okay, so as I said, my name is Don. I'm a compulsive eater and food addict. I'm from Connecticut, up in the Hartford area. I see a few familiar faces here from Westchester, where we lived for many years. But we lived a lot of different places, right? So a lot of different intergroups around the country in two different regions. So we used to move every five years no matter what, because it was job transfer type of things. So that's why we keep moving around. But we are retired now, so we may be in the place where we are for quite a while. So anyway, that's a long story on Connecticut. I came to OA 41 years ago. I've never left, so that makes me an old timer, right? It's easy to become an old timer. You just keep going to meetings and don't die. It's pretty simple. This past June was 39 years of abstinence for me, maintaining sometimes I say a little under 200. The actual number is round around 190. Weight loss for about 35 years. OA saved my life and showed me how to have a new life. These 41 years have been full of life stuff, right? All the usual stuff. Divorce, death, disease, disappointment, a lot of Ds, right? And now I'm 82, about to be 83, and another D, and it's called disability. I started to say freaking disability, but we'll just say disability and chronic pain. I have a problem that's unfixable. Basically, it's a failed back surgery. Some parts of my back work and other parts don't. So this is a forever deal, and it will gradually worsen as I get older. So the doctors have prepared me for that. But. But what has prepared me for all of that, of course, is program. You know, in the beginning, when it became evident of what was going on, I was full of, we'll call it grief, right, at loss of. Because it was a very active person out there doing all kinds of stuff, you know, kayaking, mountain climbing, blah, blah, blah. And now I can't do any of that stuff. So it was grief, as well as lots of retreats that I did and travel. Now I can't do any of that stuff. So there's the grief about that, and then there was the anger. Anger about why the hell did they do this to me, right? As in the surgeons who worked eight hours on my back, they fixed part of it, but screwed up other parts of it. And the last is fear. You could call it fear, you could call it anxiety, and that's of becoming a burden to my spouse. My mother was a burden to me. I know what that feels like. I don't like it, but it'll be what it will be, and I'll just do the best I can. So I asked God all the time to help me with the grief and help me with the anger and help me with the fear of the future. I'm pretty much through that phase. I call it phase three was when I was really angry and all this stuff was going on. And every day, every day I was doing this. Now I give it. I put the three things in my God box. And that usually lasts for five or six days and then pops up again, and I do it again. So now it's just a regular part of my morning prayers. Good morning, God, thank you for the gift of another day, et cetera. And I put in there and please keep away the grief, the anxiety, and the anger. And I asked for other things as you. As you'll hear a little bit here. So life is more challenging today than it was 41 years ago when I came in. I have to work my program harder today, believe it or not, than I did all those years ago when I was. When I came in and I didn't get absent immediately, but I started losing weight immediately. I argued and argued and argued and argued about this addiction crap. You know, how could anybody be addicted to food, et cetera, et cetera. An old first sponsor of Mine used to say, don, you know, your problem is you're educated beyond your intelligence. And I thought it was a compliment. It was not a compliment, right? And he'd say another line of his was, did you come here to argue or did you come here to get wealthy? And I always thought that was a trick question. Always made me angry. But I didn't have a good answer. Okay, all right, what do you want me to do? And he would say, okay, do this. It's like the fear. I was dominated by fear when I came 41 years old. Still dominated by fear on the inside. On the outside, I was high performer in the corporate world, you know, relative success. But on the inside, I was fearful, fearful, fearful. Not good enough. Less than all that stuff. And I was afraid to take actions that I needed to take to change my life. And he said, don, I'm going to quote Don, I don't give a shit if you're afraid, do it anyway. Oh, okay. So I learned to handle fear by doing it anyway. And then later on I heard that phrase, courage is not the absence of fear, it's doing at it anyway. And that's my best way to handle fear today. But I have this thing called higher power now in my life that I didn't. So I came to the program grossly obese and an atheist. I'll talk more about that obviously, in this step in a minute. And just suicidal. Actually. 30 days before I came into the program, accidentally, by the way, I climbed on a bridge over the Hudson river In New York, 3:00 in the morning, and had written the notes, had left my wallet and stuff in the car, which on the side of the bridge. Not on the bridge, but on the side of the bridge. Walked onto the bridge, obviously, I did not jump. The deal is, though, I don't remember climbing down from the ledge where I had. Where I was. I do not remember climbing down and walking off of the bridge. The first thing I remember after this incident is opening the car door and the light came on and I saw my wallet on the seat. That's all I remember. Now there are people that say, oh, it's a great God story. And I say, I don't know about God. And they say, yes, you do, Don. That's a God story. God wasn't quite ready for you to do this. Thirty days later, I accidentally. Or I went to a fat farm. I called it a fat farm in those days. It's basically, you would call it a rehab today. Had no idea of what it was about other than losing weight. It was kind of an escape for me and I just wanted to get away from everything. And my employer was very sensitive about this, Knew I had a problem not only with the obesity, but also with depression and a lot of other stuff. So they approved a medical leave for me and actually paid for the rehab. And it was a bunch of money. Not like today, but it was a bunch of money then, and they paid for it. So I went to that rehab intending to spend 30 days and do what I can about losing weight. Turned out the leader of the rehab was a doctor who happened to be a drug addict and a food addiction and an alcoholic. He had been kicked out of the university where he was a teacher because of his Demerol problem. And he started this rehab. So the first day I got there, I was told, okay, tonight, go over to room 101. This was in a hotel, by the way. Go over to room 101. There's a meeting there tonight. Show up. This is before I knew anything about nothing. I came in on Sunday, they just said, go to this meeting tonight. So I went to the meeting. It was 10 women, and me had absolutely no idea what in the hell they were talking about. Just listened. After the meeting, I went up to the oldest woman in the room. Now, old is a relative term, right? Particularly when you get my age. So the oldest woman in the room was probably, it's okay, just leave it there for now. Oldest woman in the room was probably in her 50s maybe. And I said, I don't understand a thing that's going on here. Like that word abstinence. What the hell does sex have to do with losing weight? And that was the first time I heard a phrase that I have now heard 10,000 times. Keep coming back. And so I did. So I left there, went home. The last thing they told me to do was when you get home, go to an OA meeting the very next day. It was a 12 hour drive home. When you get home tomorrow, go to a meeting until you want to go to meetings. So I did, I went home. And the next day I went to a meeting in Poughkeepsie, New York. And I've been going to meetings ever since. I've never stopped, never stopped going to meetings. OA saved my life, literally. And it showed me how to live a life. And that's what the steps are all about. So we're on step 12 here today. Three part step. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry the message and practice these principles so I'm going to break it into three parts, talk about my spiritual awakening, such as it is. I still argue, guess who wins. Always. You know, I say, are you sure, God? You sure you want me to do that? You sure you want me to go there? Okay. Okay. So we talk every day, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. So I came as a hardcore atheist. As I said, it's been a long journey. There's something greater than myself in step two, having came to believe that something bigger could help me. That was the recovery in the rooms. If there had been no recovery in the rooms as examples, I wouldn't be here. That was my higher power. I just said, okay, these people, these crazy people have got something. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to stick around because there's maybe some hope here. That's what step two is all about, hope. The third step for me, no God stuff. It was simply signing a contract and committing to working the rest of the steps, right? So that was it. So surrender was not giving up. It was deciding to cooperate with a whole new set of ideas called steps 4 through 12. And that's all I really had to do to keep moving. And then, of course, in step four, things really began to happen. That's where I began to finally understand that food wasn't my problem. At 400 pounds, food wasn't my problem. It was the symptom of my brain. I was using food unknowingly as a coping mechanism. I was using food for comfort and escape. Didn't realize that until I put the food down and got sober and abstinent. And then I could feel what was going on in step five. The emotional wall that I had around me began to crumble a little bit. I mention this because as I look back, this was the beginning of opening my mind a little bit to this higher power stuff, right? Because I had a wall around me that was designed to keep people out so I didn't get hurt. So the wall was there. But as I sat for about four hours, as I recall, and read my fourth step to someone, it was the very first time in my 41 years that I had ever been 100% honest with another human being. First time, 100% honest. And as I did that, something began to happen inside. I didn't understand what it was. I left that place and I thought, what is going on here? But I had such a feeling of gratitude. And as I said, the wall began to crumble when I began to feel stuff That I hadn't felt for a lot years, maybe 20 years, something like that. And that's where the wall began to crumble. I began to open up a little bit to maybe thinking that maybe there is something here bigger than me. You know, they say the worst time for an atheist is when he's really grateful and has no one to thank. And that's the kind of the way I felt as I looked back. Right. I didn't know what to do. I was so anti Christian and anti religion and anti every kind of thing like that. I just didn't know what to do. Later on I got it. The big book says on page 55 we found the great reality deep down within us. In the last analysis, it's only there that he may be found. So no, I cannot see God, but I can feel the presence of this force. The spirit of God is in me and I am in God. The spirit of God is in me and I am in God. It's an affirmation that I use. So wherever I am, God is. My gradual spiritual awakening was becoming aware of this presence within me that had been there all along, but I didn't know it. So conscious contact for me is connecting to this spirit within this quiet inner voice that can guide, strengthen and calm, underscore the word calm, very important to me. So it's a force for good. I sometimes I have many, many synonyms that I used over the years for this higher power thing. Force for good was one of them, which still works. It still works. You know, there is a force for good there. Even if I don't understand it. A force for good always lives in my soul, always at work inside of me. This force for good clearly wants me to be a living and useful human being and be all that I've been given the ability to be. That's the way I look at this higher power. My job as a human being is to do all I can to stay aligned with that force deep within me. The program has shown me how to do that. And that's what these steps and traditions and everything, all the principles that I'll talk about at the end of this step are all about physical abstinence, emotional abstinence and spiritual abstinence obtained through the 12 step process. Align me with this inside force that's bigger than me. However, I always like to say, unlike some, I believe that I'm in a partnership with God. I believe my life is a co creation with God. I don't believe that God is going to do for me what I need to do for myself. So every day is a sort of a co creation. I've been given the power to think and to make decisions and to make choices and to take actions. That's all on me. God didn't put me here, God didn't fix my breakfast, God didn't do the shopping, God didn't, etc. I had to take the action. So I have the choice. You know, I can just say God, forget it and ignore, or I can do something. I have the choice what I do with my life. Well, my job is to try to stay aligned with what I think God's will for me is. But what I do is up to me. In other words, I am accountable. I am accountable. The third step decision for me, as I said, is useless. Third step decision is useless unless it's followed by the rest of the steps. Decisions, unless followed by actions, are illusions, delusions, whatever the right form of that word is right, it means nothing. I can sit there and take 1, 2, 3, 1, 2 and 3 forever and never get well. Just in and out, in and out, in and out of relapse. So in a sense, the step, the steps are two steps. One is put down the food to get sober detox. Two is changed. If I don't change the reasons I ate in the first place, I will continue to eat off and on the rest of my life. And it will kill me if I don't get honest with the food and identify those foods that are really problems for me. I will continue to fight it for the rest of my life. So that first step is about honesty. As we're talking about in a few minutes. Let me finish up the spiritual part here by giving you what I call my Articles of faith. Spirituality has grown. About 15 years ago, I tried to write down what I believed. At that time I called it my Articles of Faith. This has been constantly revised over the years. The last time I Revised this was 2021. So let me just quickly run through these 13 articles and then we'll move into service. 1. I don't need to understand God for God to exist. Argue, argue, argue. Forget it. You can't win. And I'll need to understand exactly how it works. The God of the universe is beyond understanding. But one manifestation of this God that I don't understand is this unexplainable, unprovable, unseeable, but very feelable force for truth, goodness and love deep within me. No matter what I call it. I called it a lot of things for a lot of years. I finally Said, this is too hard. I'm just going to say God because it's the God of my understanding. By the way, remember everything I'm sharing here today is dawn. I'm not teaching 12 step or anything like that. I'm sharing Don's concept here and how I worked it and how I work it today and how I did it then. So a spiritual awakening for me was discovering this divine presence deep within which was always there, but which I blocked with my self centeredness and arrogance and counterproductive ideas. 2. I believe that higher power is a spiritual compass that will show me the path if I can connect with it. If I can connect. That means asking, listening. It's easy to say the prayers in rote form and just keep going. If you don't stop to listen, why bother? I have to slow down sometimes and say, listen to the words that I'm saying, Don. Okay? That's the difference between rote prayer and really feeling it. 3. I believe that God loves me unconditionally, wants only good for me, wants me to be all that I've been given the ability to be. 4. I believe that higher power, God and I are in a spiritual partnership to co create each day of my life. I've been given the power to make decisions and take actions. As he is always there to love me. He is always ready to work with me if I'm willing in making those decisions and taking the actions. 5. I believe that while I strongly influence my destiny with my decisions and my actions, ultimately anything can happen. I'm in charge of actions. God's in charge of results. There's an old slogan that says plan your work, work your plan, but leave the results to God. That means I can't fix any of you. I can't tell you exactly what's going to happen. I can only do what I think is the right thing for me to do. 6. I believe that God won't do for me what I need to do for myself. I am accountable. I cannot abdicate my responsibility in the partnership. We have choices, right? We can make choices. You can choose. It's up to you whether or not the program works for you, but whether or not you take the actions to work the program. So if it doesn't work, then say, what am I not doing? 7. I believe that God will give me the strength to accept and deal with whatever life brings, especially the chronic pain and disability that I'll have for the rest of my life. He's always with me, in me, beside me, around me, ready to Help me on my journey, even carry me if need be. There have been a couple of times in my life when I look back and say, God must have been carrying me for me to get back, for me to have gotten through that. 8. I believe I must accept wherever I am in my life, what is is deal with it, do the next right thing. Sounds so simple, but sometimes it comes down to okay, I don't know what's the next right thing to do, this half hour, this hour, or whatever. 9. I believe all life has changed. What is now will change, whether I see now is good or as bad. 10. I believe that I must look at everyday difficulties as growth opportunities, not torture. I need to continue growing, no matter my age. When growth stops, decay begins. That's part of my life force now is staying, trying to continue to grow. Even at my age. I still study vocabulary, I still read things, right? I say that just for today's every day. And one of those just for the day is I'll exercise my mind, I will study, I will learn something new, et cetera. I still do that. That's a big part of holding on to recovery. Love. And I believe life is meant to be fully lived, not simply endured. My life before program was a reactive life, passive, just drift and react. Now my life is okay. What do I want to do? Go for it. Proactive means I'm in charge of my life, nobody else is. I blamed everybody, of course, when I came here. 12. I believe that there is more good than bad in the world. And more often than not, good begets good. As I give to the world, so the world will give to me. And 13. I believe my purpose in life is to live in love and service. To use those words of Dr. Bob toward the end, actually in his last speech, live in love and service and the many meanings of those words. Love, for example, as expressed in patience, tolerance, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, understanding. Service, for example, is expressed in sharing my experience, strength and hope with you guys, right? Trying to help people in this program rebuild their lives. You know, for me, it was almost a brain transplant. You know, I had to let go of all this, unlearn and learn new things in order to move on. So when my life and my mindset are aligned with these articles, I am calm, I calmly face and I deal with reality. I'm focused and productive and, and useful. And I do not need to seek relief in food or any other kind of compulsive behavior. Second part of the step, of course, is to carry the message service, right, to carry the message to other compulsive overeaters. I'll just cover this by giving you several quotes. Remember, tradition five says each group has but one primary purpose. To carry its message to the compulsive eater who still suffers. So that's the reason we're here. Let me give you nine quotes. These are all big book for the first seven here. Big book, Roman numeral, page 17. Strenuous work. One alcoholic with another was vital to permanent recovery. Underscore permanent right. We can do anything for a while, but if we don't keep doing it and service is part of the keeping doing. Page 15, big book. When all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day. Service is one of OA's tools, remember? So work with another alcoholic, another compulsive eater. Our very lives as ex problem drinkers, people in recovery, depends on our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs. Important quote for me. Another one, even more important. Page 89. Big book. Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics, with other compulsive eaters, with other people who suffer from the disorder. Whatever manifestation of the disorder there is, whether it's compulsive binging addiction like me, or whether it's restricting or whether it's anorexia, believe me, whatever it is, nothing will so much ensure immunity as working with others. Page 97. Short and sweet. Helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery. A kindly act once in a while isn't enough. Helping others is the foundation of your recovery. It doesn't say helping others might be help you. It says is the Foundation. Page 102. Big book. Your job now is to be at the place where you may be of maximum helpfulness to others. So never hesitate to go anywhere if you can be helpful. 164. That last page that we read so often. Ask him in the morning, asking him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. A couple of other quotes from for today. Only through working with those who are not yet free do I fully realize my freedom. Only through working with others do I fully realize my freedom. Voices are recovered just in the last two or three days. People who remain in recovery are people who continue to give service. Service gives me practice at freeing myself from the bondage of self. So why does OA exist? OA exists to help other compulsive eaters. Who does that? Who is it that helps other compulsive overeaters guess what? You do, I do. There is no they. We are they, right? It's us. If we don't do it, OA dies. It's that simple. If we don't carry it forward, if we don't do everything we can to help other individuals and do as much as we can to help OA stay healthy and strong, OA dies. There have been lots of other organizations that tried kinds of things that we do and they died because eventually they died because of, I would say they didn't follow our traditions. That's what our traditions are about, telling us how not to kill each other, right? How to stop arguing and work together, etc. So if we don't pass on the message of recovery to suffering compulsive overeaters, OA fades away. Of course, if we don't do the work that leads to our own recovery, we don't have a message to pass on. So we are in charge of recovery. It's us that has to take the actions. If I don't have a desire to help other compulsive eaters, this is a strong statement. If I don't have the desire to help others, then I'm not really in recovery because this is part of recovery. This is where the freedom comes from. This is the way you keep it. Wanting to help others is ultimately what it's about. My commitment to service is the reason I'm still here. You know, I get asked a lot, why are you still here after all these years? And I say, well, you know, I found something that saved my life. How can I not want to help others who have the same problem find the solution that I did? And that's why I'm still here. Part three, to practice these principles in all our affairs. Well, you know, there's a lot of different ways to look at the principles. For one, you can look at the moral principles attached to the steps and traditions. Another way is looking at specific thinking and behaviors that we learn in the program as we transform ourselves into new people. A third way is looking at the fundamental principles in actually working and taking the steps. And four is looking at new coping mechanisms for dealing with life's challenges. Since many of the old coping mechanisms didn't work in the interest of time, I'm going to give you two examples of those four. So principles for getting well. 1. Accept my disease and my willpowerless over it. Sounds familiar. Step one. Two, commit myself to the 12, 12 and 9 steps, traditions and tools as a way to arrest my disease and keep it arrested. 3. Let go of trying to arrange and control things that are not controllable and arrangeable. That's called self centeredness. And when I came I thought self centered. Oh no, that's crazy. I'm not self centered. Of course I was the most self centered arrogant person in the world and angry. 4. Ongoing inventory and correction of flaws as I go. 5. Have the courage to face and deal with reality. Face and deal with reality. 5. 6. Be absolutely honest with someone. 7. Be willing to change my thinking and behavior and be open to new ideas. 8. Forgive myself and others in order to heal and stay healed. The door to forgiveness of others comes through me comes through self forgiveness. Until I can really accept myself and forgive myself and rejoin the human race. I find it difficult to accept other people as human beings without all their flaws and all the stuff that they may have done. But if I want a peace of mind, I have to come to grips with that and come to peace with it. I don't have to have liked it. I need to detach, give it to God and move on. If it comes back, do it again. The program didn't say that I was going to have forever this nice smooth sailing. What it did was teach me how to deal with this stuff right? Because life isn't fair. It just is. Life is right? So deal with reality. 9. Clean up my past and then my mistakes as I go. 10. Keep on doing self evaluation for daily defects and make course corrections. 11. Make amends as I go. 12. Pray and meditate every day. Try to keep myself aligned with God's purpose for me. 13. Try to help others who share my disease. 14. A shift in attitude from self centered to God centered and other centered. Cultivate a mindset of love and service and all the permutations of those two words. Now I had a whole nother set of wisdom type stuff in there, but let me just go right to the steps and go through these moral principles and the steps as Don tries to live them, right? So step one is about honesty, right? Practice honesty in all aspects of my life, particularly self honesty. Except I'm not truly in control of anything except my own choices. God's in charge of outcomes, I'm in charge of actions. As I said before, accept that I have a disease that I cannot control with my willpower. Second step is about hope moral principle. I'm using the principles outlined in the OA 12 and 12 here. So second step is about hope cultivate and I'm talking about living the steps, not just taking the steps. If I were talking about taking each step, it would be a whole different set of words. I'm talking about living every day 24. 7. Hope cultivate an attitude of hope and positive thinking rather than gloominess and negativity and fault finding. Expect the best, not the worst. That's what I grew up with. Expect the worst and never be disappointed. That was my mother. Expect the worst Don. And then you'll never be disappointed. And of course that is total bullshit. You know that's not the way to live. It's not the way to live. 3. Faith Third Step is about faith Living faith. Surrender control of the world to God. Trust tomorrow to God, but do today what I think God would have me do to prepare for tomorrow. I have to plan. I have to take actions. I can't just sit back and wait for everything to come to me. I have to take the actions trying to keep it aligned with what I think God would have me do. [00:34:31] Speaker C: 4. [00:34:31] Speaker A: Is about courage. Face and deal with life as it is, not as I wish it were or think it ought to be. 5. Integrity. Be open. Be who I am. Be part of the world. Be my true self. Don't hide out. Try not to have any distance between my inside and my outside. Just for today I will be who I am and give of my best is one of my affirmations. 6. Willingness maintain an open minded, flexible and accepting attitude toward life knowing that the only constant in the world is change. Always be willing to learn and change and cooperate with the guidance of my higher power. I said a while ago I try to continue to learn new things. This is about the open mindedness. You know it'd be easy for a guy with 41 years of program and at my age and all the stuff I've been through to be an arrogant butthole and just think I know stuff. But I don't know. The older I get the more I realize I don't know. I really don't know. I guess it's called wisdom. You know you're getting old when you realize you really don't know much at all. 7. Humility. Be teachable. Be right sized. Be open minded. No better than, no worse than simple child of God. Let go of status seeking pride, thoughts or actions that belittle others. Trust God to change me. Wear the world like a loose garment. 8. The 12 and 12 says uses the self discipline. I add the word forgiveness. For me this is a big part. If I haven't already forgiven, this is a big part of preparing for step. 9. So I say forgiveness and self Discipline, self discipline. Practice self discipline in my words and actions toward others so as to not hurt them. I have no right to hurt others, to salve my own ego. A closed mouth gathers no foot, as they say, right? Practice forgiveness. Hold no grudges. Give up blaming. Give up blaming. Give up blaming. 41 years I spent blaming my parents, my culture, my spouse, my job, my whatever. Fill in the blank. All their fault. 9. Love. And I add tolerance. Love and tolerance. Unconditional love for myself and others. Love and accept others as they are, not as I wish them to be. Take full responsibility for my actions and my feelings. I can, of course, change how I feel by changing the words going through my head. You realize that, you know, if you think you can't do that, you know, if I say to myself, I'm feeling low, I say, okay, today I am strong, healthy, loving, enthusiastic, faith filled, serene and confident. I would challenge any of you who feel sad to say that five times and then look in the mirror at yourself, smiling at yourself. We can change our feelings, so we're in charge of it. So if you're blaming everybody else, think about that. Perseverance step 10. Perseverance to work at growth every day. Keep on keeping on in all areas of my life. Ongoing self assessment. 10. Spiritual awareness. Let God be my compass instead of my logic. Cultivate things and people who nourish my soul. It's God that heals, but he requires my cooperation. Connect to God every day to understand his will for me. And 12. The one we're talking about here is the spiritual principle in the book is service. Live a life of service and love. See what I can put in rather than take out. So my path over the years has been this slow, slow movement from how do I get? So how can I give? How can I be useful to oa, to my spouse, to my kids, to my grandkids, especially the grandkids. I'm such a better grandfather than I ever was a father, thanks to oa, right? So help others who share my food problem. So in closing, let me just say, as you can see, finding freedom and holding on to that freedom from the obsession isn't free. That's one of my themes. That's my story in the OA3 book. Is freedom isn't free. A new way of eating and a new way of living life. The disease is arrested, but I still have it. I stay free only as long as I continue to live the program, to live the steps as I described and especially every day to do the daily disciplines that keep Me free. I'm not going to go what I do every morning, but I will say I do 30, 40 minutes every morning. Reading, writing, et cetera. Praying, meditating. That's what keeps me free. I'm going to stop there and just say, you know, these are slowly developing miracles that we see around us and in ourselves that happen when we put ourselves in a position to receive them by working and living the steps. No magic, just actions and faith. Just keep on keeping on. Freedom isn't free. Okay, I'm going to stop. We've got 20 minutes for sharing. You guys know the drill. I'm not going to bother reading the stuff. You know. You got three minutes. We have a timer. Come up and share how you know about the 12 step and what you think about any of any of this stuff. Remember, you're being recorded if you don't want your name used. And make up your name. Right? All right, so just come on up, get in line. I will get out of the way here. There you go. [00:40:49] Speaker D: I think I came up here to say thank you because he said it all today. You know, you've inspired me many, many years to keep with love and service. Whenever I would write a note, as when I was doing service, I'd say, please remember, because the words don't forget kind of cancel out the rest of it. But please remember love and service. And when I took a really good step workshop recently, the fellow that was the moderator focused on learning the principles. And about the same time, I was reading a book by one of the good, the great teachers of the steps. And he'd say, you know, I think the churches have fallen down not teaching the principles, because if you don't know the principles, sometimes you break all the rules. But if you know the principles, you don't break any of the rules. So as a result of that, you know, every person I speak, I work with now we do step one and Tradition one. And I say, what's the principle behind that? And I say, is there anything that you can use there? Does it make sense to you? Because that's the point. The point is to come alive as a result of working these steps. So what I can say for myself after 40 years here is, I have more heart available. You know, I'm not as closed down as I used to be because of my experience with the steps. You don't develop faith by reading step three in our book. You develop faith by having experience with the steps. And my relationship with something outside myself has developed because I said, okay, let's just Move through this. And on the other side, I said, I guess that was God's hand in my life. But I didn't know it until maybe somebody in the program pointed it out to me first. So that's what I had to share. Thank you. [00:43:07] Speaker E: I'm Margaret Ann. Very grateful. Recovered, compulsive overeater. And I looked at the title like, oh, that's where I want to be this morning. And then I remember last night going, I haven't heard dawn speak, so. [00:43:21] Speaker F: How. [00:43:21] Speaker E: Amazing that that worked out. That was just an incredibly beautiful share. I share the experience. I've been an Overeaters Anonymous. I always like to start out by saying I came in February of 1990 as 215 pounds of chain smoking, suicidal fun. And every word that you've spoken has rung. True, but more so because I've actually watched you walk this path. I mean, we haven't been in constant contact. We don't live in the same place. But it's that lived experience. I feel like after this many years in the program, abstinent working, doing service, doing, you know, blah. I know less than ever. I really do. But it's, it's, you know, this never runs dry. So the words that were true. I remember at a region after my marriage had come apart and I heard you speak. I don't remember a damn thing you said. And it wasn't like warm, fuzzy anything. It was about, you know, living in reality, living life on life terms. And you had no idea what was coming and neither did I. But it turned out to be true. And it just keeps getting truer. Life on life's terms. If you want to know how my program is, ask my husband. You know, if you listen to me at the podium, I sound amazing. If I sponsor you, like, oh, your words. But if you want to know how it is, you know, talk to my co workers. What am I like to work with? And it's that idea of trying to bring that spirit of service and the same thing. If you've been given this freedom, how can you not possibly want others to have it? I've never. It just, you know, I don't know. I had wonderful things that I was going to say, but I forgot them all. But I'm just incredibly moved. Those of us who live this program don't simply carry the message. We are the message each day that we live well. We are well. I choke up every time I read this. And we embody the joy of recovery which attracts others who want what we've found in OA. We're always happy to share our secret. The 12 Steps of Overeat is anonymous, which empower each of us to live well and be well one day at a time. It's a God given book and I'm so grateful to everybody who has worked on this book over the years and to you all for being here again. Thank you. [00:45:52] Speaker G: Good morning, I'm Diane B. Gratefully recovered, compulsive eater. [00:45:57] Speaker A: Hi, y'all. [00:45:58] Speaker G: Thank you so much. Oh, my gosh. Every time I hear you, I'm like, I get something else. So I'm sorry. You know, doing service is what keeps me going. It's really been so helpful in my recovery. These days, these past, like my recent past, it's amazing. I can't gather my thoughts. I'm so sorry. And then carrying the message. I've heard it said in the rooms that sometimes we're the only big book that someone will see. And so it's so important for me to remember that. And you just keep reinforcing that and reminding me, and I love about a closed mouth gathers no foot. Because I always say, open mouth, change feet, you know, so it's like. But practicing the principles in all my affairs is so much easier in the rooms than it is in my real life. In my. Not my real life, this is my real life. But in my civilian life, as I call it, because here I am, people are practicing the principles with me. And so I am forgiven and I am given hope. And I am being told that I'm doing the best that I can in the moment. And with people outside the rooms, like, I don't get that kind of leeway. And I. And I need to not get that kind of leeway because I need to remember that I have to do this wherever I go, not just here, although it's safer here. So, anyway, I think that's all I want to say. Thank you. [00:47:43] Speaker H: Good morning. My name is Amy B. I'm a compulsive overeater from Poughkeepsie, New York. Shout out, Poughkeepsie. I've been in program for five years, five months, two weeks today. And Don, I am grateful to have heard your message and to read your message constantly, which is great because I'm going to praise the principles, not the personality, because the carrying of the principles, the service, all of it has been just so helpful to so many people. And that's the point, is that we're carrying a message. And I think so much of a problem for me my whole life is that I could Talk about anything, but there was nothing behind it. And now there's a message, and that's what we do is the message of recovery. I think a lot of people are hesitant to sponsor because they don't know what they have to offer. And the title of this session, we are the Message. We are a vast and varied fellowship. We look different, we experience different. We have a personal experience of our disease, of our spirituality. So we all are that message, and it's different. We don't work our programs the same. And okay, so how do I take myself out of it? Myself out of it and carry the message of this program of spiritual solution and of the directions in it that are in the steps? I have this note saved in my phone, and whenever somebody asks me about it, I send it. And it has four things on it. Number one, it's like how to address any issue when carrying the message. Number one, what does the Big Book have to say about this? Or the age, the OA, 12 and 12 literature. What does the literature have to say about this? Number two, here's my experience with that, which may or may not apply. Number three, I don't have any experience with that, but here are some people who may. I used to say, go look for someone who may. And my experience when I followed that advice is sometimes I look for somebody who I know is going to give me the answer I want to hear. So I will try and say, let me ask for someone who has that experience so you can reach out to them directly. And number four, and again, these are in no particular order is have you gotten quiet, listened for the still small voice, God, higher power, love. And that's it. And it's just about taking ourselves out of it and seeking the message through the collective of our delivery. Like we are each the delivery devices for a higher power, for the message, for our experience through the steps. The other thing that I want to say in terms of carrying the message and like, please disagree if you want. Recovery looks different and it can be messy. And that's the kind of addict I am. Sometimes I'm abstinence. And I do my best, but, like, I need to carry a message that I have a step about cleaning up because I still make mistakes. And that's the kind of addict I am. And that's why I need God. And that's why I need steps. And I'm out of time. Thank you for letting me show. [00:51:25] Speaker I: Good morning. I'm Rebecca, food addict. [00:51:27] Speaker G: Hi, Rebecca. [00:51:28] Speaker I: Just want to say thank you. I actually came to the wrong room. I was going to the trigger food session. And what I'm realizing this morning is that God wants me to hear a message that I'm still focusing on the food too much. This morning I did the two way prayer and my question to God was, why am I still thinking about food so much? And then I was heading to the trigger food meeting and here I am at a 12 step meeting. So I really. That's a powerful message from God this morning that, you know, I've been in and out of this poet program for 25 years now. And I'm still obese and I'm still ashamed and I'm still struggling. I follow a food plan, but I'm still fat and I hate it. But I'm focusing on the food. So I think that's the message. Stop focusing on the food. You know, the food is not the problem. And I say, I say that I have a very strong emotional and spiritual recovery, because I do. I feel great. I feel so much better than I ever have since 25 years of being here. But I focus so much on the fact that I don't have this physical recovery that I think I'm supposed to have. My doctor tells me, you know, stop, you, you can't lose weight right now. For various medical reasons, I just cannot lose this weight. But I'm obsessed about it because I'm sick of being fat. I'm sick of being the fat girl. And I'm getting older and I have sore knees and sore hips and so, you know, and I'm right in the thick of menopause. So I just have to like, be kind to myself and hear the messages and I really, I thank you so much. [00:53:37] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:53:45] Speaker C: Hi, my name is Dale. I'm from Connecticut and qualifying briefly in the program since 1981 when I was over 300 pounds. And right now, three and a half years absent, back to a normal healthy weight. So it is progress, not perfection. I had a long period, eight and a half years up until on and off until three and a half years ago in relapse. For me, the second half or the end of the twelfth step is what really mostly matters. I went after six years in Republic Recovery into back to graduate school, got two professional licenses. I'm in a helping profession, so I'm practicing these principles in all my affairs in that regard, but also just coping with that. And being married now, 30 years in a relationship that is better now than it has ever been. And my wife was looking up when she was living with an active addict in relapse. What do you do when you don't love the person you married anymore? But for me, the essence of this recovery is I devote my life to the practice of patience, kindness, tolerance and unconditional love for myself and for all others. Especially the people that don't share any of the same values and are being exceptionally difficult. I like to say that there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who practice patience, kindness, tolerance and unconditional love, and those who give others the opportunity to practice. So no matter how big of a. What do you call it, a rectal orifice a person might be, at that moment, everybody is just a frail, imperfect, damaged, hurt and hurting human being. And it is especially the opportunity to love unconditionally. Just meaning I could be viscerally angry at something that happens, but at that moment, the patience is. If my buttons get pushed, I might have to gasp in terms of the breath that I take, but it's then breathe through my nose and keep my mouth closed. In other words. And I am generally not going to be blurting out irritable, irritated things to people other than me and my wife, when she would be critical, maybe for reasons that I deserve especially. That's hard to take. So if something blurts out quickly, I forgot breathe my nose, keep my mouth closed. We have an excellent relationship now because I have 20 years of practicing keeping my freaking mouth shut when I'm pissed off. And when something blurts, I know to make amends immediately. In other words, it's just stop. Sense something's wrong inside or out. Stop before I make it worse, center myself and then think what really I'm out of time. What really happened? An ego button got pushed. What really counts? Unconditional love. Thank you. [00:57:02] Speaker A: We technically have only three minutes left. We have two people though, that would like to share. There's nothing that follows this workshop. Can we go over an extra three minutes and let these two people share? Yes. [00:57:16] Speaker B: Hello everybody. My name and good morning and thank you for being here to help us with my recovery. My name is Wayne and very grateful composter and food addict. I walked through my first. Just about 12 years. It was sometime this month, 12 years ago, and I've been. Abstinence is November next month. God willing, I'll be having 12 years of abstinence. When I first come in, I had no idea what to expect. And I was only in about, I don't know, six or seven months, whatever it was. And I was at a retreat. And so I've known Don since that because he was A keynote speaker at that retreat. And we're pretty close to the same age and our stories are pretty similar. I followed everything he was saying. I'm sitting in there, I'm sitting there crying like a baby, listening to him tell my story. And I was just so grateful for that. He gave me such. Inspired me so much that he just kicked my program into high gear. And I said, I want what this man has. And he just came in from a flight from Ireland to New York and this retreat was in Connecticut. He drove from there to the retreat. I think he had maybe 20 minutes or so, and he got up and he was a keynote speaker. [00:58:26] Speaker A: He got through and went home. [00:58:27] Speaker B: I mean, that's dedication. And he's. Every time I hear him, I've known Don since then, we got to be pretty good friends after that. And then he inspires me constantly. Every time he speaks and he shares, I learn more and more and more. I just can't get enough if he's speaking anywhere. I try to go there just to listen because I could absorb so much, only so much at a time. So I have to hear him over and over. So fortunately, I go to quite a few meetings with him too. So it all helps and it's really done wonders for my recovery. And like I said, I wouldn't be here today. I think what he did was just kick me in high gear and I'm here. Thank you all for being here to help me by recovery. [00:59:13] Speaker F: Thank you all for your kindness for giving me extra time. I'll try not to take the whole three minutes, but I just wanted to tell myself because I wanted to come to this session because I was like, I have something to say. And I sat down and of course I arrived late and what I heard was ego and humility. And it was exactly what I needed to hear this morning. And I'm so grateful and I'm on fire for this program. I've been abstinent and recovered for over two years after coming back from a six year relapse. And all I want to do is carry the message and, you know, and I want to like, shake people when they're not listening and they're not hearing it. And again, it's all, you know, ego and humility, right? Like, all I can do is carry the message and practice these principles in all my affairs. [01:00:06] Speaker A: And. [01:00:06] Speaker F: And I feel like maybe that's right, that's the part that I need to work on most because I've got this sponsorship thing down. But if I'm not practicing these principles in all my affairs. My message is probably not that attractive. So, anyway, just want to say thank you. [01:00:30] Speaker A: All right. Thanks you all for sharing. Thank. Thank you all for coming. Shall we close with the Serenity prayer? God, God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can.