Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: I'd like to introduce our keynote speaker for this evening, Linda B. From Ontario.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Right.
I'm scripted as well, just so you know.
And Sandy, you're going to tell me if I'm too quick, right?
I'm too quick for interpretation.
[00:00:48] Speaker C: There we go.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Can you hear me now?
Ah, good evening, everyone.
I am nervous and I thought the small people in the room, this isn't on the script, that this was good. There wasn't very many people. I wasn't worried about Zoom. But look at you all. Thank you.
Make it longer, slower.
My name is Linda B.
I am a compulsive overeater and a food addict.
Thank you.
I have been in OA for 43 and a half years, abstinent for 33 and a half years, maintaining an approximate weight loss of 150 pounds.
I do not speak for OA as a whole. This is my journey and experience working the OA program.
I am the eldest of five children.
I am the only one in my family of origin who used food to avoid feeling and became a food addict. Okay.
My parents were good people, doing their best to take care of their family.
But somehow I never felt as though I belonged.
I crossed the point of no return at the age of 30 when life got too difficult and I could not stop eating, bingeing and purging.
I had married an alcoholic. He became very abusive. So in 1976, I left my husband, taking my two small children with me.
Life was good until it wasn't.
I was miserable.
Life was so hard for me at times. I did not want to live.
February 1982, at the age of 34, gravely obese, I had become so isolated. I just ate, not feeling anything.
[00:03:05] Speaker C: It's not going to work.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Never feeling loved or belonging anywhere.
Hating my life and not wanting to be alive.
I couldn't stop eating.
I was close to losing my job when a friend introduced me to oa.
I walked into my first OA meeting.
Everyone was laughing and talking to each other.
I was certain they were all losing their minds.
I stayed and kept coming back.
I went to a newcomers meeting where I learned about abstinence.
Three meals a day, nothing in between, one day at a time.
I was told to get a sponsor, do service, read away literature, and it was suggested that I attend a minimum of six meetings to find out if away was for me.
The first thing I did was set my abstinence. Eating three moderate banquets a day.
And very slowly, my portion size got smaller and smaller.
I was able to take my family out for supper and the feeling that others were judging me, that I was so obese, I did not deserve to be there, had left me.
[00:04:35] Speaker C: That's a miracle.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: I was able to lose half my body weight after two years in program.
I helped at the meetings by setting up the meeting room and greeting new members.
I asked a member to sponsor me.
It took me six weeks to call her, but when I did, she was very generous with her time and let me know that she cared and would help me.
I called my food in for 21 days.
After I gave her my food, she asked me how I was in such a caring way.
[00:05:18] Speaker C: This helped me to learn to be caring to myself and my fellows.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: I was so undisciplined. The structure I was shown to do to keep me abstinent helped me.
I was learning to have discipline in my life and understanding that being free,
[00:05:40] Speaker C: a free spirit, did not help me stay abstinent.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: After a few months, my sponsor had me take her to an Intergroup meeting in Toronto where I learned the service of Intergroup representative.
When I was comfortable with the service, she said I was ready to take this service on by myself and she
[00:06:07] Speaker C: stopped coming with me. And I live in Ontario, Canada, so it was Central Ontario Intergroup that I went to.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: I truly enjoyed service above the meeting level.
Bringing back information to the meeting.
I was part of the intergroup when the OA 12 and 12 was being reviewed and feedback was sent back to World Service.
This was a very exciting time for me and I did the very best I could to provide information to those at the meeting.
Attending Group Conscience meetings was a true gift.
When I arrived at oa, I had no voice.
I was afraid to say anything to anyone or share my thoughts with anyone.
I didn't believe I had any ideas worth sharing.
At my first Group Conscience meeting.
Thank you.
I had an idea and when I presented it at the group at the meeting, the members discussed it and thought it was a good idea and it passed.
I wasn't as successful with each issue, but this experience gave me the courage to speak up and trust the outcome.
I had never been able to stop eating once I started working.
Pardon me.
Once I started working with others.
This doesn't make sense.
[00:07:50] Speaker C: I wrote this myself.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: I had never been able to stop eating once I started.
Working with others was very difficult and being willing to trust another person to work on the OA program was nearly impossible.
But I was able to do all of this. It was miraculous.
I had trouble understanding the concept of a higher power and my sponsor had had me pray for Peace, happiness and prosperity for an individual who I had strong anger and thank you, resentment towards. For two weeks, each time I prayed for this individual, I let God know that I didn't want to do it. I didn't believe a word I said. My sponsor told me to do it.
It's exactly how it went down.
Ah.
At the end of that two week period, the feelings that had taken over my thoughts and life subsided.
Another miracle, I could move forward.
I remained abstinent for three years. Attending meetings, having a sponsor, doing service, going to retreats, one one day events and conventions.
I did not do any step work. My sponsor wanted me to, but I did not want to change my regular meeting.
After three years, my sponsor left away.
I did not want to ask anyone else to sponsor me, so I sponsored myself.
This was not a good choice and it did not work out well at all. I was incapable of being honest with myself.
When my teenage daughter was having difficulties and life got very difficult and unmanageable, I relapsed.
I struggled for several years trying to get abstinent again.
I got a week here and there, but could never get past this.
Food had taken over.
I regained all of my weight plus another 30 pounds.
Life became increasingly unmanageable.
I had been in a way long enough to know that there was nothing else out there that could help me with food.
So I kept coming to meetings.
I tried to control everything and I was angry and full of fear.
I was so afraid that I would not become abstinent again.
At my meeting, no one would.
At my meetings, no one would step up for service.
So I did everything myself because I wanted the meeting to continue.
That wasn't a good choice either.
I needed a way and I was terrified what would happen if I did not have the meeting.
November 1991. A new person joined our meeting who became my sponsor. Her only requirement was that I attend a step study and call her daily. There were two requirements.
I let go of all the service at the meeting and others stepped up.
I was so happy that members had taken on the service, but was concerned that things would change.
I remembered my sponsor and I focused on myself.
I attended the step study every week and I started to fully understand the OA program and what I needed to do.
As I slowly went through the steps, I started to change.
I had hope again, but I was still having trouble putting down the food.
I started first. Pardon me. I started first with three meals a day, nothing in between, and one day at a time, attended step meetings as well as many other meetings each week in hopes of becoming abstinent again.
February 1992 I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I realized that I was looking for the pink cloud abstinence again, the excitement and the newness of away.
But it was not going to be that way again.
I was at an event for work and I threw the food I had in the garbage, starting my abstinence over again.
It was not easy to do the food thoughts were strong.
My sponsor explained that this was normal.
They were thoughts, not commands.
I went to retreats, big book studies, conventions and many other OA meetings and events to support my abstinence.
I started to exercise and redesigned my plan of eating, adding foods to the list of not now.
I then started on my emotional and spiritual journey.
I had done many four steps early on, but now I had many things that had risen to the surface and I had to work on each of them over the years.
I heard we are like onions with layers coming off one at a time.
I am so grateful for this as I could not have dealt with everything surfacing at the same time.
I started working on past hurts and my part in them and did inventory on all that surfaced.
It was not easy as I did not want to own my hurt, but I did it.
I started to feel better emotionally.
I worked on letting go and using the Serenity prayer as a tool to understand what I needed to do. I would do everything that I could for an issue and once I was done I had to turn it over to God.
I had been doing service at the meeting level and was asked to become an intergroup rep.
I had just gotten a new computer so at the intergroup election I took on the service of secretary.
This experience got me ready for the changes my employer was making as a com as computers were just starting to come into the workplace and I was able to use my new skills to move forward in my job.
I continued on my OA journey but I was not using the tool of writing and I often struggled with issues as I had not been trusting God and not turning them over to Him.
The speaker at my OA meeting handed out a pens and a writing book to everyone there and asked us all to go home and write out three gratitudes.
I started to do this to use pardon me. I started to use the tool of writing nightly.
My grat. My attitude started to change and I had hope, peace and happiness.
This had been very hard to find.
I used OA literature for the reading and writing focus on it during the meditations.
My literature choices were the OA 12 and 12 AA big book. Thank you Marlene.
Voices of Recovery and just for today.
I found service helped me stay connected to others and kept me out of my head so I would do service above the meeting level.
It also kept me connected to OA and kept me coming back.
As I started to grow in program, I was trying to understand how to be humble.
In one of our meetings it said to be humble means you are teachable.
To be teachable meant that I didn't know everything.
I wanted to be humble. I liked the idea of knowing everything.
So this was hard. But finally I was able to say at a meeting that I didn't know the answer to something.
[00:16:46] Speaker C: I was free.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: The next step was to listen to others share.
I would share first all the time so that I could listen.
If if I didn't do it this way then my thoughts would always take
[00:17:03] Speaker C: over and they would be what am
[00:17:06] Speaker B: I going to share? What will I say? And I didn't hear what anyone had to say. It took time but I was able to do this.
This began the journey of change.
Letting go and letting God was not easy.
I finally realized that if I did all I could do for something troubling me, then there was nothing left for me. So God could take care of it.
I could forget it. Surprisingly, it went away and was fixed
[00:17:40] Speaker C: with God's plan, not mine.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Trusting God had not come easily to me.
I was transferred to Toronto to work in 1996.
[00:17:55] Speaker C: And it turned out that leaving my
[00:17:57] Speaker B: at 6am and getting home around 7:30pm did not make meal planning and sleeping easy.
[00:18:05] Speaker C: So I started taking lunch and dinner
[00:18:07] Speaker B: with me each day.
[00:18:10] Speaker C: I was very resentful about this but there was nothing that I could do.
So I persevered and after eight months
[00:18:20] Speaker B: it was no longer an issue.
[00:18:23] Speaker C: I had accepted this and moved on.
That was a miracle.
I joined a Big Book all addictions step study.
We did an in depth four step inventory.
I learned that fear was the basis of all my resentments.
I read the Big Book three times cover to cover.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: Through all the reading, writing and connection
[00:18:51] Speaker C: with my partner in the study, I grew.
Acceptance was one of the hardest things for me and I found that the story acceptance was the answer in the Big book. In particular, page 419read daily helped to
[00:19:09] Speaker B: understand that I was not God.
[00:19:13] Speaker C: I could not change anyone or anything but myself.
Reading this daily has helped me on my OA life journey.
I became willing to do service above
[00:19:26] Speaker B: the meeting level and went back to intergroup.
[00:19:30] Speaker C: Stepping up to do the service of organizing the meetings attached to the my intergroup.
After doing this service for some time, I became the Region 6 representative and attended Region 6 assemblies.
At the assembly, I learned about OA convention service. I truly enjoyed all the service and meeting all the OA members.
I was asked to take on the service of secretary for Region 6 and and I did.
I was helping with convention. I was having so much fun.
After three years, I became the Region 6 Coordinator, World Service Business Conference Delegate for my intergroup, Chair of my intergroup.
And when the pandemic hit, I wasn't going to lose my meetings. So we started using Zoom for meetings and intergroup meetings.
I don't recommend that much service all at the same time.
I knew that I needed a way I wasn't going to let go. I had to try and see if the virtual meetings using Zoom would keep us together. I trusted God that this would work and hoped our members would come out. And they did.
Sharing at meetings is so important and often I want to only share how wonderful things are. But now I share how wonderful they are along with my struggles.
Letting newer members know that I have things that are difficult and I use OA to help me through them.
I speak at OA functions because I remembered the times others have shared their journey of recovery and how it impacted me.
My first sponsor said that if you share your story and only one person hears something that they need to hear, it is all worthwhile. Remember that OI means a lot to me.
It saved my life.
I believe that without OUI, I would not be alive today.
I have had so many miracles in this fellowship.
I put down the food abstinent for 33 and a half years. Maintaining 150 pound weight loss was not something I ever thought would happen.
I learned to work with others.
This is. This is really important because working alone, I didn't learn anything.
I became a sponsor.
That part was hard. I didn't have anything to offer anybody and I waited almost 20 years to get my first sponsor.
I advanced at work using skills I learned through service for oa.
When I arrived at oa, I was close to losing my job and I retired from this company after almost 36 years of service.
Thirteen years ago, the relationship I had with my parents was repaired.
My children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are in my life.
I have good connections with all of them.
I have two children and a daughter in law, six grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
I forgot to mention in here that I also have good relationship with my two brothers and two sisters which I would not have had.
I love service and working with others, and I am alive today because of away.
I. I didn't put this in the script, but when I retired, when I. When I was planning my retirement, my goal was to do service for oa, And I think I accomplished that.
I'm still there. I'm going to become the webmaster, and I'm going to learn how WordPress works.
I have had a wonderful life beyond my wildest dreams.
I look forward to the new and wonderful things coming. With God at my back and away with me at all times, I know that the next part of my journey will be fun.
So this is the end.
Thank you very much for letting me share my experience.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: How many minutes?
Okay, that works.
[00:24:45] Speaker C: Thanks, everybody.
