Together We Can

A Publication of the Overeaters Anonymous Metro DC Intergroup February 2014

SEXUALITY AND THE OA PROGRAM STUCK Roughly aIntergroup year and a half ago, I heard Some animal is stuck in my kitchen fan! someone “qualify” for her very first time. Making ongoing scratching noises She started with the phrase: “I can’t What the heck is that? talk about my compulsive eating history without talking about my sexuality too.” Sounds like he or she is desperately For the speaker, and the other members trying to get out gathered around the table of this Overeaters Anonymous meeting, both the How long will it be immediate and the after-effects have Assuming it is stuck been profound. Occasionally, some of us Assuming it wants out in the room that night had heard qualifications in which people spoke It may go until it is too tired about their personal history of sexual Or dead abuse; but on this night, 4 out of the 6 Not before attendees shared pieces of their own sexual abuse histories. Out of desperation

Unfortunately, sexual abuse is all too Because that is the only thing it knows common for many of us in the program. to do It is often at the crux of continued Sort of like a compulsion . We pack on the weight and It HAS to do it keep others physically away from us. It HAS to do it Others, like me, have shielded ourselves It HAS to do it from intimacy through our verbal and non-verbal behavior. And the notion of No brain involved trusting anybody and anything, much But a desperate attempt less ourselves, can make having a To relieve the pain spiritual connection nearly impossible. The suffering The chains of whatever has it bound There is no , and we are not victims. The moment you walked into Sort of like the animal these OA rooms, you declared yourself That will brave. When caught in a metal trap Chew its own leg off to survive From that meeting 18 months ago, the Desperation idea of a sexuality and compulsive eating Only one way out workshop has fomented, and has finally Thank God for learning about other been created. options!

Come join other OA members sharing (PS the little bird got out with help!) their experience, strength and hope - and how they got there, Saturday Katrina evening, March 8. A post-able flyer is on the last page of this newsletter. Sealani

FIVE PLUS FIVE = service for the still suffering compulsive A BETTER OA PROGRAM overeaters. There were pictures that I am grateful for the opportunities I have came in with one or more of the "tear- had to learn and grow through offs" already removed and some places workshops at various OA conventions that reported that all of them had been and retreats – and in turn – am writing removed! JUST AWESOME! here to share two sets of key words that can help us along the way. So, following are our 2013 results and awards: Prevention of relapse: Here are 5 words (4 of which I learned a few years 3rd place: 20 Posters ago at a Tidewater Retreat in Virginia Tues. 7pm Hillandale HOW Meeting Beach, VA) to include regularly in one’s 5 Newcomer Packets action plan to help prevent relapse: Structure, Support, Self-Care, 2nd place: 23 Posters , and Service. Fri. 7pm College Park Meeting 10 Newcomer Packets Recovery: And here are 5 words (learned at the 2012 Region 7 1st place: 24 posters Convention) that, when acted on, can Wed. 7am Bethesda Big Book Meeting strengthen our recovery from the disease 15 Newcomer Packets of compulsive overeating: Practice, Prayer, Perseverance, Patience, and ....a very close race! Progress. Seven additional meetings reported As an exercise you might want to expand posting posters to us! on each. Here are some examples to get you (us) started: structure – have a daily Thank you all for your service - for plan of action; support – keep in touch sharing information about the challenge, with OA friends; self-care – participate in taking posters to your meetings, posting a retreat or workshop; spirituality – them and encouraging each other. In meditate; service – make a regular gratitude for your Outreach in Action! commitment; practice – use something DC Metro IG Outreach you’ve learned in OA; prayer – make a request for help; perseverance – do a HOLY CROSS MEETINGS PARKING: program action despite its difficulty; The Sunday 9:30 a.m. meeting at patience – tolerate delay; progress – keep Holy Cross Hospital has historically been moving forward toward a destination. the largest meeting in the Metro DC area. Linda S. Since parking fees have now been instituted for the main parking lot, we OUR SECOND ANNUAL have noticed a drop in meeting POSTER PLASTER CONTEST attendance. We wonder if this may be 2013 RESULTS: directly related to the issue of parking The DC Metro Intergroup and its fees. Until a decision is reached as to Outreach Committee are so excited to how our meetings may respond to this share with you the results of the 2013 challenge, we suggest that you park for OA Poster Plaster contest. free on the street or in the Valet parking spots. (FYI - there are no “Valets” on As the reports of posters plastered came Sundays, so those parking spots are in to us over the past several months, it available on a first-come/ was so inspiring to see the enthusiasm first-served basis.) that our fellowship brought to this

LITERATURE: HANDY TOOLS TO It helps to keep literature easily BOOST YOUR PROGRAM accessible and in view at home and to Reading literature on a daily basis is part carry wallet cards in my purse. These of my morning routine and has been one have come in handy a number of times of my favorite tools since I first came into when members did not have access to OA in 1988. I’m a longtime subscriber to the meeting room or group literature and Lifeline magazine and often read a few we had improvised meetings in pages before going to bed at night to someone’s car or we sat outside the focus my mind on program as I nod off to building. Who would want to inform a 3 sleep. Lifeline also gives me a flavor of newcomer in such circumstances that OA’s diversity with stories by members the meeting is cancelled when it took so from all over the country, throughout the much courage for them just to show up world, and of varied backgrounds. At the first time? Consider “Pocket other times I have found reading from Reference for OA Members” part of your Seeking the Spiritual Path and Abstinence portable OA survival kit and “be uplifting boosts. And when I returned to prepared” for the unexpected! OA after several years away I found the extra experience, strength and hope I I have held literature positions in needed in the pages of A New Beginning: different meetings over the years and am Stories of Recovery from Relapse. currently the Literature Coordinator for Intergroup. In this role I sell literature at In my early days of program I found two Intergroup events and maintain a limited short pamphlets particularly helpful in supply of frequently purchased books beginning to string together small and pamphlets, such as Region 7 amounts of fragile abstinence: “A journals, Newcomer Packets, 12&12’s, Commitment to Abstinence” and “Before workbooks, Big Books, and more. You Take That First Compulsive Bite, I bring a rolling suitcase with a broad Remember…” These pamphlets are assortment of items to the monthly packed with simple, concrete suggestions Intergroup meetings, usually held the for becoming abstinent and maintaining second Sunday from 12:30-2:30 at Holy that abstinence in the many and varied Cross Hospital in the Physicians Dining circumstances we all encounter every Rooms 1&2, next to the cafeteria. You day. I made it part of my program can make purchases at this time, shortly practice to read these pamphlets every before or after Intergroup. day until I internalized the messages and replaced bad habits with good habits to Or contact me directly at 240-328-4619 support my recovery. It was difficult at or [email protected] to make first but the daily reminder to make a other arrangements for purchase and commitment reinforced my desire to pickup. change and encouraged me to follow Monica H. through. Sometimes I just had to “act as if” I was willing and motivated to make FOOD A FALSE HIGHER POWER changes. After a while, just seeing the At a meeting that I attended recently I titles reinforced the concepts for me. had an “ah-ha” moment in which I was reviewing something I discussed with I love our literature and am amazed over other members of our fellowship. These and over how something I know I’ve read other members kept telling me before becomes fresh and new all over repeatedly that OA must be the highest and gives me helpful insight for whatever priority in my life in order for me to I’m facing that week, day or moment. succeed in my recovery. Making my program #1 priority has been near to impossible for me to wrap my head

around. That sounded almost cultish or At this point I am willing to see food for somehow out of balance. I should come what it became in my life—the occupier first, or my family, my religion or my of position #1. I have learned from OA country but NOT my OA program, meetings, and from processing this although I could concede that to gain program with fellow overeaters, that I recovery OA had to be near the top of my can only recover if I put my Higher Power list. in the position where He/She belongs, position #1. Then I am in position #2 as The revelation I had today was that to a being created in the image of my HP - a this point, whether I like to admit it or primarily spiritual being. I think that not, of all things FOOD had been my #1 this is the only way I can attain sanity. priority. Now if that is not insanity, I Eating like a human being rather than don’t know what is. Somehow at some like an animal means eating to live and point this happened. Perhaps it began NOT living to eat. “In the beginning.” It is interesting to note, and please believe me that I am not Only if I am Higher Power centered preaching Judaism, Christianity or any rather than FOOD or SELF centered will other religion, I just think that it is this be possible, at least for me. interesting that in the Judeo-Christian Nancy G. bible the very first rule G-d made was about FOOD. G-d said to Adam and Eve, COMPASSIONATE, AWAKE, WHOLE: “Don’t eat from the tree of Knowledge.” INCURABLE AND PROUD! Adam and Eve made the decision to Not all darkness is bad. Not all shadowy disregard this one simple rule. Perhaps places are scary. Not all secrets are that’s where all out of control shameful. Not all pain is evil. desire/addiction began. ~ Rob Brezsney

In any event, in every human being’s A while back I wrote this on Facebook: personal history, food/eating is the an excerpt from a conversation I had primary means of relating that we have about recovery and shame and the stark as we begin to interact with the world separation we make erroneously between from the time we are born. Perhaps those in recovery and those who people with a are stuck on seemingly don’t need to be in recovery food being the center of our lives because from anything. It was an attempt to in some way we never got past food being soften the harshness and ignite some the currency of our existence in early compassion within those of us who draw infancy. We needed food to live and that a distinct ‘better than/worse than’ line was within reason, but somehow that between (in our case) Foodies and morphed into living to eat. Normies and then pick up that line and use it to whip ourselves within AND whip Then came the misconception that food ourselves into shape with. has the power to “cure” all ills. Food is the solution to all problems. Truth to tell, “On Addiction: that amounts to worshiping FOOD - a Everyone ‘uses’ something. In the same kind of idolatry. Instead of appreciating way a tree 'uses' the stuff it grows in to that I am primarily a spiritual being discover its growth pattern to the sky. whose job it is to make my Higher Power more manifest in the world (i.e., do Some destroy their lives for a while until service), I got sidetracked by making they learn how not to and instead acquire food the be all and end all. Now, how more of a taste for vulnerability, change insane is that? and movement.

Then 'using' becomes true intimacy with these new winds will take me – which is choosing, assimilating, empirical living not very far. What I have forgotten again and gracious dying. Eyes wide open. is that eating was easy because life and my relationship with it at that time, was 'Using' becomes life sustaining and ends easy, I was at ease with it and in it. up being a quest for answers and an There is no place where this is so all of intimate relationship with Life. the time. Some call it Grace. Unhealed Addiction is very expensive. Healed Addiction could be called Desire, What keeps me on my base and helps me 5 or Motivation, or Joy, or even Love.” track wholeness once more is that I know what I have done and I know that I What I didn’t understand when I came will do it again and I am under no into recovery was that I could never be illusion that I will ‘get with the program’ cured. I heard it many times over but I for good and be able to leave all the never got it. Then one day I realized that unsavory mistake making parts of myself I could never be cured from Life and behind. (Except, of course, when I am living in it and this was what the under the illusion that I can and will!) program was really offering me: the What this softness, compassion and knowledge that there is no end point inclusion offers is a place for all of me where I put down my books and my and all of the many aspects of me that community and get on with something will show up looking for the fast track to else less spiritual. This path to serenity liberation, so none of me gets left out in and freedom in this particular form as a the cold - and if there is one thing that is 12 step program, like all paths to sure to trigger a food frenzy it’s feeling serenity and freedom in every other form, like I have been exiled and left out in the is a forever one. cold. It also brings me back into the realm of humanity where the drive for a According to religious text, Saint Paul fulfilled spiritual existence is paramount was hit by a blinding light on the road to no matter what it appears as on the Damascus and from then on began to surface. It makes me no different than follow his path of simultaneous darkness anyone else and it shifts the focus from and illumination into all the answers he food as shameful escape chute to food, had been searching for in all the wrong and my relationship with it, as a mirror places. I awoke to my skewed into my Self and my relationship with relationship with food and nourishment Life. This I can live with, one day at a of every sort and got a 12 step program. time. Same-same. Sarah R.

After enough years to gain perspective and clarity and a base from which it is hard to dislodge me permanently even during the most turbulent holiday DIRECTIONS TO: season, I practice recovery with awake- UNITY DAY ANNAPOLIS ness and wholeness as my guides. I am (see flyer p. 6) never fully awake for very long, I have Calvary United Methodist Church – shining moments that I love when eating Take U.S. Route 50 to Exit 24 – “Rowe is easy and then, because I am human Blvd.” Stay in right lane on exit ramp. and always on the lookout for shortcuts This forms its own lane on Rowe to enlightenment, instead of tracking Blvd. Continue through two signals, *and wholeness I make this ‘easy’ as my new then take the next right turn. goal, set a course for consistent Turn left into church drive. Follow perfection and then sail out as far as around to parking on the right.