Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: So my name is Ed and I'm a grateful, recovering, compulsive overeater.
Hi, guys.
Just a little bit of qualification. I've been in program since 1989.
I have relapsed three times.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Is this a meeting or is this.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: Are we supposed to be recording it? I am recording it. We are, yes. Yeah, I'm recording. I just thought you'd like to know a little bit about me.
[00:00:26] Speaker C: Oh, absolutely.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: So I've been in programs since 1989. I've relapsed three times, the last time ended in 2019. And I've been abstinent since 2019.
And I'm maintaining an 80 pound weight loss.
So it's a little bit about me.
So my father, who I did not have a close relationship with, died in 1991.
And when he died, he promised me, he made me promise him that I would take care of my mother.
Okay. My mother was younger at the time, 10 years younger than my father. My father died very young. He was 72.
So I've been taking care of my mother very well for the past. Since 1991. And in the last year and a half, two years, she's began to suffer from dementia.
And she's sort of at the midway point now, so she's not thinking as clearly as she used to. She can't do her checkbook, she can't pay her bills, but she's not like at the point where she doesn't know who I am. Okay? So she wants to live in her. The apartment that she has been living in for the past 40 years.
When she started to get dementia, I wanted her to come and live near me. Now I live five and a half hours away from my mother. I live in Rochester. My mother lives in Queens, New York.
Mom, come on up. Live with me. Live near me. Live in assisted living. No, no, no, no. Can't do it. Not going to do it.
Come on, Mom. I promised Dad I would do this. Come on.
No, no, no, no.
So I see my weeks, I drive down to New York City.
As she's gotten a little worse, I've gotten a little worse.
And I've become more insistent that she come either to assisted living or any kind of thing near me. I don't care where she goes.
And her and I would fight.
And it got to the point where I could no longer see my mother without us fighting.
Okay, mom, you gotta come. My mother, she's so classic Italian. My mother, she gets mad at me, she turns her back on me, and then she won't Then she won't talk to me for the rest of the afternoon. One time, she got so mad at me, not only did she turn her back on me, but she wouldn't come to the dinner table. She's like, no, no, no, I'll eat over here. It's okay.
So finally it got to the point where I really couldn't see her. I was just angry all.
And, you know, and talking with my sponsor about it. I have a Wonderful sponsor. He's 40 years sober in AA and more than 20 in OA and finally he said to me, ed, why are you fighting her?
And I said, that's what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to fix this. I'm supposed to take care of her. That's my mother. I promised my father I would take care of it. I promised him I would fix it.
How's that going? He said. I said, it's going. Going terrible. She won't listen to me at all.
He says, well, how about you just accept the fact that she wants to live in her own apartment?
What do you mean?
Yes. How about you work on getting her AIDS and keeping her having AIDS so that she could live in her own apartment?
I mean, it seems obvious now, but I could not give that up. I couldn't give it up, But I have.
And about two weeks ago, I hired an attorney to help me find a way to get her the Medicaid that she's going to need to stay in her apartment. Now, my mother is 95, so she doesn't have that many years left, okay? So I'm going to try now to do exactly what she wanted.
But I had this. I had. You know, for as much as I know about myself and my character defects, I could not surrender the fight with her. I could not give it up until I did. Until my sponsor said, what are you fighting for? Okay? And isn't that the way. It's the way I was with my addiction. It's the way I was with my compulsive overeating. I would not give it up.
I thought that I had to use willpower.
Willpower to fix it.
And so for many years, I was yo yo dieting.
And it wasn't until I had some crisis at work that changed everything for me that I realized I was powerless. I could not. I could not fix this thing, just like I could not fix my mother as much as I wanted to.
And I don't know about you guys, but I was always raised to think men fix things. Men take care of Things men are supposed to make everything okay. I realized I had a very traditional Irish Catholic, Italian upbringing, so the men were always supposed to take care of things. It was really hard for me to accept that I couldn't control my compulsive overeating.
So when I look back on it, it's like, what was I afraid of? What was I afraid of to admit? I just couldn't admit it.
I was afraid to fail, just like I was afraid to fail with my mother.
I could not let my father's memory.
I could not admit that I was beaten. I could not.
And when you look back and when you make your step three, you say, well, what was the big deal? You know, why couldn't we turn. Why couldn't I turn this over to God? What was stopping me?
My lack of humility.
It took me a long time to come into program.
I fought it, really, a long, long time.
But I'm so glad I did because it has made all the difference in the world for me. And one of the things I've learned from being in the program is that it's okay to fail.
It's okay to fail because you can always get up again.
I relapsed three times.
Each time, it got a little worse.
Each time, my higher power helped me get up again.
And each time I found a different sponsor that helped me to grow in ways that my previous sponsor didn't.
So one of my favorite spiritual writers is Richard Rohr.
And Richard always talks about how, as men, in the suffering that we go through, there's always like.
There's always.
How does he say it? There's always, like, a flame of hope.
There's always a flame of. There's something to be learned from the suffering, okay?
That's what I. So I learned a couple of things from my inability to surrender, my inability to give up.
So one of the things I learned. A couple of things that I learned. I made some notes, so forgive me. Some of the things I learned was I learned that some things are possible and some things are not possible, okay? And the fact that some things are not possible doesn't mean it's me. It just means the situation are not possible.
My mother will not leave that apartment until probably the day she dies, okay? Or the day she just loses complete consciousness of who she is and where she is. She won't do it. It's not possible, okay? And there were so many other things that are not possible.
So I learned that that's. And that's okay. That's okay to do what you can. And if it's. If you can't do it, that's okay. That doesn't mean it's not a. It's not a defect of me as a person, the fact that I can't do that, that I can't do everything.
I learned also that today, you know, we live one day at a time, and that sometimes when you have a problem today, you may not solve it today. I had to solve it today, okay? I couldn't wait till tomorrow. I had to solve it today. But sometimes things are better when you wait, and that sometimes when you wait, things pass.
I'm a social worker, and for 27 years, I worked in a urgent care psychiatric clinic. So people would come in with all degrees of psychiatric difficulty, and we'd have to assess and then plan and then make a treatment plan, okay? And that all had to be done within two or three hours of each time we saw a patient.
I love that because I'm a controlling guy who likes to fix things, okay? I enjoyed that. I was in that job for 27 years.
But that's not life. And I had to learn through program that there's always tomorrow, next week, next month.
Things need time sometimes to fix, to take care of.
I had to learn also that, like with my mother, the floor in this whole situation.
So I was focusing on her stubbornness, okay? Her unwillingness to want to move, okay? And I was completely blind, even after all these years in program, to my own stubbornness and my own inability to compromise and to see things differently.
Sometimes we have to look and see what? To see the problems in ourselves, Right? That's step four. Worked for me, but I didn't see it. I didn't see it because I was too preoccupied with taking care of her. So now I know. Yes, mom, you're stubborn, but, yes, Ed, you're just as stubborn as mom was, okay? I have to remember that. I have to remember to look first at myself and clean off my side of the street before I look to anybody else.
And it's difficult. It's difficult when it's people you love, okay? When it's not people, it's like. It's like patients in the hospital. I had no trouble doing that, all right? But when it's people you love, people you love, it's a whole different story. Whether it's. Whether it's my wife or my mother or my sister, sometimes all of us will fail no matter what we do. Sometimes we'll fail, and sometimes those failures will be irretrievable.
They'll be unfixable.
Okay. In the course of our life, I've had that a couple of times.
I'm divorced and remarried. I got married very young and I was completely unprepared for marriage. Got married when I was 20.
I married the first woman that showed me any affection.
And I was totally unprepared, Totally unprepared.
So long story short, we got divorced.
And the divorce was very difficult.
And in the process, it was a lot of hurt feelings on everybody's part. But the one who suffered the most was probably my daughter from that marriage, Jennifer. Okay? She still, 40 years later, is angry at me for divorcing my wife still.
And I've done everything I can do to make amends to her for all the suffering she went through, but it's irretrievable. And maybe one day, you know something, maybe God will help her.
But I don't ever consider it to be fixable between her and I.
And it's an unfixable problem that I have to live with, that I contributed to.
And sometimes problems are like that.
And we as men who want to fix everything have to contend with the fact that we can't always fix everything like that.
So being defeated by a problem is not a disaster.
It just means for that particular problem, we've been defeated.
And I don't know about you, but when I was always facing something that was difficult for me, I was always trying to bulldoze my way through it.
I keep trying and trying and trying. You know, phone calls, phone calls, calling people up. Okay, you say no, so I'll go to your boss, you say no, I'll go to the head guy, you know, you say no, I'll go to the regional guy. It didn't matter. I was always trying to push my way through. Okay, that doesn't work. Sometimes we just have to accept and have humility that we can't do anything.
And sometimes we have to accept that it's in God's hands. Everything is in God's hands, okay? I don't really have control over everything.
I can do things, I can make decisions, I can do things that are helpful. But I can't control everything. I can't control the world. It would be great if I could.
It's in God's hands.
So I'll make one last point.
When it comes to. When it came to solving problems for me, I always felt like I had to be self sufficient. I always had to feel like I couldn't ask you for help.
I felt I had to do it myself. Because that's what men do, right? We solve everything ourselves being a part of our program.
Okay? We have a community of people around us that can help us all the time with our addiction.
And program has taught me that it's okay to ask for help. I never could ask for help. Could never ask for help for a number of reasons. One, because I thought if you knew I couldn't do it, that you would think there was something wrong with me, that I was defective in some way. I was embarrassed, you know?
But my sponsor told me that that's not true. He helps me with that.
My first sponsor was a real estate appraiser.
And he was a lovely man. Why are you laughing?
You're a real estate appraiser. He was a real estate appraiser and he was a lovely man, you know, and he just was honest with me and caring, and he helped me understand that it's okay to ask for help. This is something I couldn't do.
All right, well, that's my 15 minutes of speech.
And now let's hear from you guys. What do you want to talk about?
About men in recovery.
[00:18:14] Speaker D: It's a real challenge to be able to speak up and say things. You want to keep it to yourself that you.
You figure, I can handle this. You know, I can do this.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: You want to come up? Come. Come up.
[00:18:28] Speaker D: No, cuz.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Cuz otherwise we can't hear you on the recording.
Thank you.
[00:18:35] Speaker D: You're welcome.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: Thank John.
[00:18:39] Speaker D: Hi, I'm John.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: Hey, John. Hey, John.
[00:18:43] Speaker D: As men, we feel that we can handle something, that we can do this. We don't need anybody else. We don't turn anybody. We more or less leave it to ourselves to figure out what needs to be done. We do it.
And that, you know, the outcome is dependent upon how we do handle things.
I know I don't talk to my sister or my brother in law as much as I used to.
That's probably not good. I'm sort of isolating. But I want to handle everything myself.
I've been taught that when you're given a responsibility, it's up to you to make it work.
If you don't do it, then you know the blame is on you and it's nobody else's blame.
And I've lived like that quite a while. Years ago, I was in a job in the Air Force where I was a shift commander.
My job as shift commander, I was responsible for 90 people on duty.
70 of them were in nuclear weapons security, and 20 men and women were in base law Enforcement. If anything happened, it fell upon me. And that's. I was dealt with in the service.
And it's just, you know, that's the way I've always been. I'm recovering from it, but it's taking time. I'm a lot better now than I was years ago where I was just really out of it.
So thank you for your share. It was very good. I learned a lot about it. I realized, you know, if you fail, you know, there's nothing you can do about it. It's happened. You can't control it. You can't put a spin on it. You just have to accept what happened.
And it doesn't mean that I'll fail at any other things. But for that particular instance or situation, it didn't work. So I have to more or less accept the failure, move on with my life and keep on trying and do the best I can. Thank you.
Anybody else?
[00:21:11] Speaker A: Should we.
[00:21:12] Speaker E: Ed, can we come up and form a line?
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's fine. Come on.
[00:21:22] Speaker F: I'm Mark. I'm a compostable reader and a food addict.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: Hey, Mark.
[00:21:26] Speaker F: Ed. Thank you for bleeding. And I've been in program a long, long time. And it was actually through a female friend in program over 30 years ago.
I was having relationship problems with my ex wife and she turned me on to John Gray's Women Are from Mars or From Venus and Men from Mars. And it helped me out a lot because if you read into it, you know, as previously stated, you know, men were supposed to fix things and women just want to be heard.
That was probably the basic conclusion I got out of it because I thought about it was my ex wife would come home from work and she'd be bitching about the people she worked with. And I'm ready with a solution.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: I'm ready.
[00:22:22] Speaker F: Oh, I gotta tell this guy this, this, this and that and stuff.
And what the book taught me was, and I use this in a lot of my relationship with my present wife or with any female and stuff is when they want to bitch about something, they just.
And I find out afterwards that it's true. They just want to be heard. They don't want you to find the solution for them. So.
But from a man's point of view, we go to the cave and they talk about that in the book. You know, we have a problem that really overwhelms us and stuff. I'm sure a lot of us, you know, I speak for myself, we isolate. And he does bring that up. And I think it's very, very important that we have opportunities like this, like the sub fellowship within oa, that we can still reach out to guys. And the more trust and the intimacy you develop with other guys, that you can really open up more about, hey, here's what's going on in my life or, you know, revealing certain things. And, you know, I'm fortunate. I work not only with a food sponsor, but with a big book step study sponsor that people that I've known for a long time, that, you know, I can be open and honest with them about things that are going on in my life and stuff. And that's really a blessing of for me what 12 step recovery has done.
And can I solve all the world's problems today?
[00:23:57] Speaker A: No.
[00:23:58] Speaker F: I used to when I was £300, something pounds, but not anymore.
And, you know, somebody asked me, you know, not only here, but, you know, I deal a lot with the earth people, you know, people outside the halls.
And, you know, recently I, you know, a guy, you don't talk much, you know, you don't say much and stuff. And, you know, it's only taken me 40 years. When I used to. When I first come into program, they used to say, take the cotton out of your ears and stick it in your mouth. Well, I found from being in program a long time ago that I finally found out the secret is I take the cotton out of my ears and I put it in my mouth because I like to listen. I like to hear what other people have to say. And I think it's very, very important. And for me, where food addiction is my number one problem.
I need to hear the newcomers. I need to hear, you know, how people are struggling and stuff, because it's getting a message up to my brain, you know, to be alert for things that I am susceptible to also. So thank you for all being here.
[00:25:12] Speaker E: Hello, I'm Alan. I'm a compulsive eater.
I just wanted to say thank you, Ed, for running this. It's wonderful to have a men's group.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: That meets within, within the oa.
[00:25:28] Speaker E: I've been in program for six years.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: I really had physical recovery for about the last.
[00:25:35] Speaker E: My absence is 165 days.
[00:25:37] Speaker B: And believe it or not, I've saved $2,322. I can't believe that if anyone wants.
[00:25:44] Speaker E: The app that I'm doing, just grab me afterward.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: But what I want to do is.
[00:25:49] Speaker E: Cordially invite you to a Hundred Pounders.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: Meeting on Wednesday night.
[00:25:53] Speaker E: We meet on Zoom. If anybody is interested in that.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: It's a wonderful group.
[00:25:59] Speaker E: Just find me afterward and give me a number and I will text you the information on that. So that's what I wanted to say. God bless everyone.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: Hi, everyone.
[00:26:24] Speaker C: I'm Michael. I'm a food addict.
You know, I really don't know.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: How.
[00:26:33] Speaker C: My being a male and my being an OA intersect.
We're definitely a minority, you know, and I, you know, I've been coming around between 35 and 40 years. I'm not sure why. You know, I've heard some people say, oh, there's just a bunch of women there. I don't want to go there.
It hasn't been a burden for me. I don't have an answer. I just think it's. I'm sitting here thinking, what would I have to, you know, men in an oa? What would I have to share?
If you know me, it's not hard to get me to share, but I really don't have anything to say. The reason I came down is that I heard the previous speaker. I have a document with dozens of men's meetings and their zoom information. So if anybody wants that, you can either ask me, I can tell you where to find it, but you can also go to oaregion6.org click on the news tab because I'm the webmaster and I put it on there. So anybody who wants this list, you can go. And I mean dozens. I couldn't believe I got it at a meeting of men.
[00:27:45] Speaker G: So.
[00:27:49] Speaker C: That'S all I got. Thanks.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: I'm Steve, compulsive eater, as I like to say. I'm Stevie. Oh, amen.
That's not what I say. Stevie and OA man don't eat from a garbage can. Surrender my will weigh and measure my fill. I'm Stevie and OA man do do. There's also a website, oamen.org I don't know how up to date it is, but it exists, so I wasn't going to share. I've gone to men's meetings and I just don't identify. It's the weirdest thing.
So I.
The second meeting. So I've been around 22 years, keeping about £120 off.
I've worked steps multiple times. Actually, I'm looking for a step sponsor again. But at my second meeting, there's a woman I shared. There's a woman who said, oh, you should go to a men's meeting. So I did. I went for years before I realized I wasn't getting what I needed from it and went to a different meeting, which also had a lot of men. But it was a mixture, so I don't understand what it is.
One member once invited me to join a non program men's group.
I liked the guy, I respected the guy. A lot of recovery. I figured I'd try it. God, I hated it.
Absolutely despised it.
So I don't know. I guess what I want to say is that I am grateful that for the men who get their recovery get a stronger support system from other men in program, that I'm grateful that there are men's meetings for them. And I'm grateful that I am not prohibited from going to the meetings I go to and that we have this diverse opportunity of meetings to go to. And for that I can be grateful. And I can be grateful that I am not the only one who sort of feels this way, I think.
And I'll pass, thank you.
[00:30:27] Speaker H: Hi, guys, I'm Ken. I'm a very grateful compulsive overeater and a food addict.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Hi, Ken.
[00:30:32] Speaker H: And I walked in these doors at £475, suicidal, didn't want to be here, but I didn't have anything wrong with me and I didn't need it. Freaking help.
And as a man, it is really hard to say that a Franken Twinkie has me beat.
You know, we are taught to be the strong ones.
It's culture, it's, you know, we're supposed to be the warriors, you know, we're supposed to be the fighters.
And food beat me.
And, you know, I found out in this program that I had other addictions, but they weren't the ones that were going to kill me.
Food is an isolating disease.
I'm not gonna speak for you guys. I'm gonna tell you what. In my whole time of binging, there weren't two people in the world that saw me eat the way I ate.
We went home and ate. We had a date. We ate before we went out, we ate on the date and we ate when we got home.
No one was gonna see me eat.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: The way I ate.
[00:32:02] Speaker H: That false pride characterized every aspect of my life.
And it wasn't until I found these rooms and this was the kicker and listened to the women that I learned.
Because a woman would get up and talk about having to lose £20 and I'd be sitting there going, crap, that's a good bm.
I mean, really, come on.
But then I hear the impact it had on their soul and their hearts and their being. And I realized that's where I was.
So I had to own that side of me.
I was Blessed. I've had sponsors. My first sponsor was the bravest little man in the world. He walked up to a 475 pound ball of rage and looks at me with this little smash, but this high. And he goes, hey, you got a sponsor?
[00:33:05] Speaker E: No.
[00:33:08] Speaker H: Call me Tomorrow morning at 6:00, I'm just going to bed. He goes, good, stay up.
You know, I wasn't getting out and I didn't want it. This was not what I wanted. And that was 35 years ago and I have not been abstinent. I've relapsed three huge times, back to 375 pounds and 13 years ago, 14 years ago, I came back in at 375. Today I'm a trace over 200 and I'm healthy and I'm working out for the first time in my life.
But my ego and my false pride as a man damn near killed me.
So I can tell you that I am truly grateful what this program has offered and all of the men in it and all I can encourage you is if you're a man and you're not sponsoring, why the hell not?
Why the hell not? We need each other.
The women in this program are great, but they don't share all of the same internal things that we do. And I'm not talking the ones down here or I'm talking to ones in between here.
Thank you.
[00:34:24] Speaker G: Hello gentlemen.
[00:34:25] Speaker I: I am a compulsive eater. My name is Bruce.
[00:34:27] Speaker D: Hi Bruce.
[00:34:28] Speaker I: From Ottawa, Ontario. That's why I'm wearing shorts. It's very warm here.
When I first started coming into program in 2000, I think I might have had two different emotions, rage and silence. That's how I, the men in my family grew up like that, then started working with the steps I'm giving. The sheet was explaining how to do step four with like 70 different emotions on it that you pick from to figure out like why this was pissing you off. And I'm looking at this. Who has 70 kinds of emotions?
Oh yeah, I do. I just wasn't able to see any of them beyond the rage or the, you know, like the denial that I, that I wanted to have them and turned out like, you know, I can be a very complicated person at times and I didn't realize that until I started getting absent and started working those steps that these women in their meetings kept harboring about.
And I could really see that the, I could see the share those earlier where, sorry, my mind's a little bit scattered today, but what I got from you Know those meetings at the beginning and we had a lot of men at our meetings beginning.
Our main meeting in Ottawa had like 70 people and was a good 25, you know, were men. But you know what?
[00:36:17] Speaker A: There's.
[00:36:17] Speaker I: I don't. There's not one of them that's still around in the program. I mean, some, some have died. Some have died. Abstinence. Some have died from the disease. Everyone else has left.
I don't know why I'm still around like for. By the grace of God, do I?
And I guess I'll just say, feeling a little rambling now. So I'll just end there and say I'm very grateful to be here today. Thank you.
[00:37:12] Speaker B: Time for a sing along or something.
[00:37:15] Speaker C: Please, somebody share.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: He's heard me sing before.
[00:37:21] Speaker G: I heard you sing two minutes ago.
[00:37:50] Speaker C: My name is Olivier. I'm a compulsive overeater.
You can call me Oliver.
I know Olivier is a mouthful in your language. Yeah.
I have no idea what I'm going to share, but been struggling with my abstinence lately. But I'm in a relationship with somebody that I met in the program.
She's 20 years abstinent. She has great recovery for all three pilots.
And it helps me immensely even if I'm, you know, we can. We came here together today, yesterday, and yeah, I mean, I'm. I'm still here.
There are men in my home group.
Sometimes it's 50, 50. Most of the time we're fewer than the women, but they are men.
Where I am in Quebec City.
Yeah. For me it is difficult to share. Right. Somebody said, oh, yeah, for me it's. It's easy. For me it's very difficult.
I don't know, it never comes up.
I clam up. I'm like, well, stupid to talk about this. Stupid talk about that.
So, yeah, I'm practicing. Practice makes perfect.
So.
And it's. My second language comes out even worse. I'm sure.
I had a woman who sponsored me for, for a while.
I think now I'm ready to get mail person to sponsor me because, yeah, the other things, it's. It's different. Right. She helped me a lot, but it's different and it's.
Yeah, I think it's important that we're here for each other and you know, come back. We need each other and we're already a minority, so.
All right. Thank you.
[00:40:32] Speaker A: It.
Come on, guys.
[00:40:57] Speaker H: Come on.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: You can stay there if you want.
[00:41:16] Speaker G: Hey, my name is John. I'm a compulsive overeater from Albany, New York, Ed, thanks so much. I really identify with so much you had to say today because my experience was very similar to yours. I was a caregiver healthcare proxy for my mother who had pretty aggressive Alzheimer's and she really struggled. And after she passed, it was that following spring that I joined oa and I had no idea what it was. I was just referred to it by my daughter and really didn't know anything. Coming into the meetings I was listening to, people had no concept of 12 step, but I stuck with it. And a lot of people got scared of the God thing and God was always part of my life, so that didn't scare me so much. But I was really pretty grateful for finding a terrific sponsor initially. He was hardcore, worked the program very hard, worked me very hard and I wanted what he had because he had a, he was a hundred pounder. And I, I came into the program at about 3:15 and my, my recovery has been decidedly up and down with a lot of flat spots in between. But I'm grateful for the fact that I've been trying to use the tools and work the steps. And I remember when he and I first went through our fourth step, it took me, it took me about five months to do my fourth step because I absolutely hated come to terms with all the stuff that was, that was in my past. And you know, when I finally turned it over to him and I explained to him that it was really pretty hard for me to do and there was some pretty bad stuff in there. And then when I, when I turned it over to him, he said, is that all? You know, it's not so bad.
So it's all your perspective, right? But we have a great relationship today and my life is decidedly more positive and found a friendship with him and really, really glad for it. And you know, he's not my sponsor anymore, but we still see each other at meetings and whatnot. So that's very fortunate. But you know, I'll never forget with one of the first share the struggles you have with someone that you love so dearly that is struggling with a debilitating disease and you know how, how helpless that can make you feel. And I just, and I turned to food as to kind of push down all those emotions and it allowed me not to feel and you know, it was, it was something that was, was going to have a negative impact on my life if I didn't do something about it. So you know, I've worked the program that was probably spring of 2018, so it's probably been a little over six, six and a half years now that I've been in program. And the more I do it, the more I more I'm working the program and showing up to meetings and doing writings and meditating and getting closer to my higher power, the more I'm finding that how much more I still need to know how much more I still still need to work to do and to. And to get the. Because I have a goal. I mean there's a place where I want to end up, you know, that I would be considered a healthy body weight. But you know, my addiction is in the corner still doing push ups and sit ups and you know when they say you get a daily reprieve, it's, it's. I thought that that was crazy, but it's so true. I mean you get today, if you're lucky, if you do the hard work, if you do the things that are, that are difficult to do, then you get a day and then you have to start all over. And there's been times even in the recent past year where I've had so much going on in my life where I've had to put my program on the back shelf. But I found that you can start to feel physically and emotionally and mentally not as, not as fit, not as strong as you are when you're actively working your program, attending meetings, using the tools and the steps.
I just found that those are. I'm still in the process of discovery. I still have a journey that I plan to be on for the rest of my life and I grateful for fellows and this is the first men's meeting I've ever been to. So thank you for your participation. That's it.
[00:46:36] Speaker E: Hey guys. My name is Wayne. Very grateful Cabos veer and food addict in remission.
Thank you all for being here to help me with my recovery. Yeah, I came in the rooms in 2011 and I've been absent since November of 2011 and when I first come in it was mentioned I was the man, only man in most of the meetings I went to. Every now and then there was another man. A couple of times there was two men and I was really impressed. I thought wow, this is great, right? But no, and it didn't bother me. But I think the main thing is like with a lot of guys, you know, we are, we don't want to share in front of women because there's not mantra to have a problem with food. You know, if it's drugs, alcohol, sex, that's a different story, you know, but they don't Want to just. With food, we're supposed to not have a problem with food, you know, we're supposed to be better than that. We think, you know, I thought of a lot of things before. I thought I knew everything, too, until I got in here. I found out I don't know nothing.
And the more I'm learning, I'm learning every day. I'm still. I'm finding out more and more that I don't know. I'm on a journey, and I just hope I never get to the end.
But I plan on living for another, at least another 18, maybe 20 years. I didn't come in until I was 69. I'm 82 today, and I can do things today I couldn't do when I was 40. I can bend over, pick up something on the floor. I can tie my shoes. First time I picked something off the floor, I started crying like a baby. I looked at it, I got halfway up. I said, I didn't realize that I could never do that for how many years, you know? And I'm just so grateful. If I didn't find these rooms, I wouldn't be here talking to you right now. I know it. Because I was over £400 and I was on the way to going, still going. I was still going strong. There was no holding me back. But until he got here and my higher power stopped it because I worked the programs. One of my sponsors says one day, he said, I got to work this program like my hair's on fire.
So I thought about that. I said, I think that's what I did. Because what got me was my cardiologist. I was 69. And he says to me, wayne, how many people, you know, over 70 that were over 300 pounds? And he said, I couldn't think of anybody. He said, that's all I'm going to say. So he says, I'll be right back. He says he stepped out of the room. I think he stood outside the door for a couple of minutes and just to let that seed sprout. And it did. I went to my first OA meeting that weekend, and the rest is history, you know. And I got absent very, very quick because I was scared at that point, you know, because he told me, he says, you know, he says, when you're like that, he says, you're in a whole different ball game. He says, cpr? Forget it. He says, they're just going through the motion because when they're pushing, they can't get through that fat to get to the heart muscle to make it pump. He says, when they go in and check you for your primaries, they go in, they always check you for tumors, all that sort of stuff. They don't feel nauseous, they got anything, it is all a fat. He says, they just go through the motions. So he says, you're in a whole ball game, different ball game. He says, so you got to lose some of this damn weight. He says, well, it's basically, that's all I'm telling you. He says, you're going to die, basically. So I says, and I had young grandchildren I wanted to see grow. So I got in here and I worked the program. It's very, very strict. And the only goal I ever set for my weight was I wanted to be under 300 by my 70th birthday, which is April 2nd. I got on a scale. April 1st, I was 299 pounds. And I cried like a baby again. And I'm thanking God, thanking you people. And my God isn't the God of the church because I didn't want that. I didn't want nothing to do with God. When I started reading his God stuff, I don't want nothing to do with that. This guy, I was brought up there. You did something wrong, you get struck by lightning, something. This is going to happen bad to you, all this other shit. I said, no, no, no. I said, I don't want any of him. So I was told, sit down, make a list of what you want your higher power, your God to be. So I put down and go, I want somebody tender, caring, loving, forgiving, all these other things wrote down. I said, okay, that's your higher power. So today it's my higher power. And I call. It's my God. It's probably the same God that everybody else in religious gods believe in, but it's. But to me, I didn't see it that way because I always thought there was a punishing, punishing God and I don't want him. So like I said, I got here and I just, I.
I worked it. Like I said, there isn't any rules or regulations gotta do here or anything like that. All that stuff is suggested to me. It was all suggestions. But if I wanted to get well, I had to do this. I had to follow the suggestions because that's what I like about this.
I can work the program how I want to work it. As long as I'm doing the steps. I'm doing what it says in the book, in the big book, the 12 and 12. I left it a 12 and 12 the OA, 12 and 12 in the big Book. I use them all. I'm just. To me. I went through the steps, through the Big Book with the only sponsor at the time, my first sponsor. I couldn't get a sponsor to start out with for a while. It took several months. I got abstinent without a sponsor, but he was anorexic. And we got to the third step. We're finishing that. And he says, you know, Wayne, he says, I can't help you anymore. He says. Because he says, we're at a whole different game. He says, I'm anorexic, bulimic. He says, so I don't know anything about what you're going through. So I had to find another sponsor. So I'm looking around, looking around. There's nobody in our area. So I get onto. At that time, this is before Zoom, and I was on the phone. I went to one of these phone places. I think it's a. I can't remember her name right now. Somebody recovery something or other. And they had different disease, different problems, you know, different alcohol, this and the other. And I found the food one. So I got into that.
Excuse me. And I found a temporary sponsor, a woman.
I never laid eyes on her today. She's gone now, but I never laid eyes on. I wouldn't know if she walked into the room. I had her for 10 years as a part. As a. As a temporary sponsor.
I said, okay. You still want me to hear? She said, I ain't letting you go now. She said, you're doing too well. And she pushed me. I got through the steps in 13 weeks, and she was. It was tough. And I had. There was one meeting I went to especially. There was two older women in there, and they were staunch aa besides oa. And they were worse than my sponsor, any of my sponsors ever were. They got into my shed. If I did anything, they would jump right on me after the meeting and go up one side of me, down the other. And I needed that. That's what I needed. Because I knew everything.
And all of a sudden, they scared me because it was like the first, I think, my third meeting, I met them, and one of them says to me, he says, you got the Big Book? I said, yeah, I just got it last week. Should you read the doctor's opinion? And she wasn't talking very nice. I was a little stern, and I said, no, I haven't. She said, well, go home and read it. I said, okay. She says, when you get through it, read it again. And she Said four times, she said, made me read the doctor's opinion. She says now you maybe learn what the program's about, what your problems are. How are you going to find a solution? And I'm going to shut up now because I'm ready to get carried away. We'll go over my time, believe. And thank you all again for being here to help me my recovery in November23. I love you. I love you all.
[00:53:35] Speaker J: Hi, my name is Dan and I'm a compulsive overeater something. It was, it was clear to me the first meeting that, that I went into that, you know, at the very least, the meeting that I was going to be in was going to be more women than men. And then with every subsequent meeting that I went to when I was like either the only man in there or the other man in there, it became clear that this was a fellowship made by women and our founder was a woman.
The history of the fellowship was there was a time when men weren't allowed in it in several meetings.
And I'll be honest, though, I don't think that cover colors it very much.
But I do know, I suspect this from my experience. I was lucky enough in the first meeting that I went into that I went in a half an hour early with. And there was only one other person there. And this person decided I was a sponsor about eight, decided he was my sponsor about eight weeks before I asked about to be my sponsor.
And he told me what to do. And in many cases, these, and in just about all cases, it was stuff that I didn't want to do and knew that was necessary to do. I don't know that I would have taken that from a woman.
I don't know that I would have let somebody talk to me with that level of, like, certainty and knowledge given just my own experience. And I think there's a lot of women who won't take a man as a sponsor, and they think that it can be because they had a similar experience with men that I've had with women and the other way around. So especially given how few of us there are and just how vulnerable we are when we get there.
I think my experience has been that it's like, as a, as someone who sponsors men, you know, we are like, we need to be sponsoring if we can, when we can, because there are not enough male sponsors. Hell, there aren't enough female sponsors either. But in our case, it's even worse.
So, yeah, this is telling me I need to get myself a new sponsor because I haven't taken on a protege to even help them get started for some period of time. So bad on me. And thank you for putting this together. Thanks so much.
[00:56:20] Speaker A: I forgot to mention I'm sorry because I wanted to get started that everything here is being recorded.
So if anybody doesn't want to be on the recording, I will destroy the recording there. Any objections to what we've talked about today?
Otherwise I can erase it. I don't care.
Okay, thank you guys. I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking so. The opinions expressed here today are those of individual OA members, O members and not OA as a whole. Let's close with the Serenity Prayer in the plural.
God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done. Thank you guys.
