Day 26

I had a slip yesterday. It followed several days of bad attitude and feeling really disconnected from OA after going to Pittsburgh, despite going to two meetings this week. It just didn't gel, and I didn't want to do any of the things I was supposed to do to maintain my program. It was a bad attitude times 10. All this culminated in my doing an actual binge yesterday. Still not the "feel sick, can't button your pants" variety binge, but a deliberate "I'm going to the grocery store and I'm going to buy my binge foods" binge. Which I did. And I ate most of them. And it calmed my nerves a bit. And then I woke up this morning with an even worse attitude. The kind of attitude I have when I'm in the food. an I don't care, screw it, life sucks, I'm just going to roll over and go back to sleep attitude. But I couldn't sleep. So I went to a meeting. And then I called my sponsor, which I didn't do yesterday.

My sponsor told me to read a passage in the Big Book called "Acceptance Was the Answer." She told me to see what I got out of it, think about the things in my life that were unacceptable or that I was not accepting, and to write on them. Which I am doing. But very much with an "I hate this, this sucks, I want to stop" attitude. Ugh.

My first thoughts were, "why is she making me read this? It doesn't apply to me." It was all about he couldn't admit he was an alcoholic. I thought, "is she saying I'm not admitting this?" I think I have admitted I'm a compulsive eater. But about 3/4 of the way through the story I started realizing that this man's story does apply. And I started underlining. The first part I underlined said that at first during abstinence he had a reason (legit, he thought) for why he should take a pill each time he was tempted. I do that. I think that my pain or emotions are bad enough that I need the food.

Then he said he got to a point where he coudl say he was an alcoholic and it was "all right" with him. I haven't done the "its all right part." I always wondered in meetings when people said they were grateful compulsive eaters, not gratful recovering compulsive eaters. I got how you could be grateful to recover, but grateful just to be a compulsive eater? That didn't register. Though you do hear peple say they woudn't have learned the life skills they have without being in OA, so I guess I can see it. Then the story says that he began living in the solution to his problem, rather than living in th problem itself. I think I've been living in the problem. I can't get out of the negativity. I need to live in the solution.