Question 8 (AA Version) Re-read Step One. Discuss & reflect on what the knowledge of Step One can do for you. During your reading underline and note passages that are meaningful to you. Why are they important?
The knowledge that I am powerless over food has given me the gift of freedom, sanity & understanding. I am now able to flourish into the beautiful spirit I was created to be w/o having mud on my wings to weigh me down. No longer do I have to question whether or not I am damaged, defective or nuts because I just “can't stop”.
When I first discovered I was powerless – powerless, imagine that – I was absolutely enlightened by this sage revelation. I received a beautiful gift of tranquility & felt a soothing sense of calm wash over me. No longer did I have to push water up a mountain trying to “fix” whatever it was that made me lose all common sense when it came to a freshly baked brownie or chocolate chip cookie. I knew. Finally! I was exactly the way God wanted me to be but there was a little glitch in my wiring. My hardware was flawed – I was powerless not inferior.
From Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions:
Page 21:
“Alcohol now became the rapacious creditor, bleeds us of all self-sufficiency and all will to resist its demands.”
My disease kept absorbing the life right out of me like a blood sucking creature leaving me depleted of energy. My disease also diminished my comprehension due to the paralyzing state my disease. My brain cells were frozen – & some were obviously gulped out.
“We perceive that through utter defeat are we able to we are able to take our first steps toward liberation and strength.”
I had to toss in the proverbial towel & surrender to the harsh, glaring truth that I was not ever going to win anything but a pine box going round for round w/ my disease. It was kicking (not to mention killing) my ass & yet I was deluded enough to believe in my sick, twisted cranium that “this time” I was gonna beat it.
“We know that little good could come to any alcoholic who joins A.A. unless unless he has first accepted his devastating weakness and all its consequences. Until he so humbles himself, his sobriety – if any – will be precarious. Of real happiness he will find none at all.”
For me, this means surrendering my distorted mindset to the fact I am powerless – this is the first step. In a nutshell, this is taking the first step.
Page 22:
“... we were the victims of a mental obsession so subtly powerful that no amount of human willpower could break it.”
Mental obsession. Thank you, God! I am not inadequate. I am just in the lethal vise of a mental obsession. * Exhale *
“... increasing sensitivity to alcohol – an allergy...”
What a comforting unearthing to come to the realization I was suffering from a sensitivity. I had an allergy & that was why I reacted the way I did. What an epiphany!
“The tyrant alcohol wielded a double-edged sword over us: first we were smitten by an insane urge that condemned us to go on drinking, and than by an allergy of the body that insured us that we would ultimately destroy ourselves in the process.”
Here is the come hither flirtation my disease always trapped me in – “come taste this & all your troubles will just melt away like chocolate on a stove.”
Gone is the heinous memory of the debilitating angst I endured from utterly succumbing to that bite, as the food thought slithers into my sickened mind to whisper, “This time will be different”. Amnesia slips in temporarily as the anesthesia from the food settles over my being as the poison pulses through my veins.
“It was a statistical fact that alcoholics almost never recovered on their own resources.”
There is no way I could do this on my own, if I could there would be no vacillating w/ the binge, purge, starve, repeat...
Page 23:
“...that it was indeed the beginning of a fatal progression. To the doubters we could say, 'Perhaps you're not alcoholic after all. Why don't you try some more controlled drinking, bearing in mind meanwhile what we have told you about alcoholism?'”
It was my more “controlled” eating that gave me repeated relapses – this last bout of telling myself, “You got it, kid” & “You can have this & that” led me to a six year relapse. It is sad to know I went back into the dungeon for six years – I have to grieve for that time lost but not beat myself by chastising myself when the truth is, I have a disease. I am not a screw up – I have an illness that can be arrested a day @ a time. Miraculous!
“It was then discovered that when one alcoholic had planted in the mind of another the true malady, that person could never be the same again.”
Amen! Going back to testing the waters w/ a tasting spree was always ruined by the knowledge of the gifts of the phenomenal 12 step program.
Oh, this program has been ingrained in me from the moment I walked into the mildewed church. I know there is only one way to address my disease – the 12 steps & 12 traditions. It isn't the latest diet, exercise equipment or gadget... it is all about following the steps as it is laid out before me period!
Pages 23 & 24
“After a few such experiences, often years before the onset of extreme difficulties, he would return to us convinced. He had hit bottom as truly as any of us. John Barleycorn himself had become our best advocate.”
Yes! I was battered, broken, bruised, damaged, and wounded when I entered the rooms again November 2009.
The knowledge that I am powerless over food has given me the gift of freedom, sanity & understanding. I am now able to flourish into the beautiful spirit I was created to be w/o having mud on my wings to weigh me down. No longer do I have to question whether or not I am damaged, defective or nuts because I just “can't stop”.
When I first discovered I was powerless – powerless, imagine that – I was absolutely enlightened by this sage revelation. I received a beautiful gift of tranquility & felt a soothing sense of calm wash over me. No longer did I have to push water up a mountain trying to “fix” whatever it was that made me lose all common sense when it came to a freshly baked brownie or chocolate chip cookie. I knew. Finally! I was exactly the way God wanted me to be but there was a little glitch in my wiring. My hardware was flawed – I was powerless not inferior.
From Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions:
Page 21:
“Alcohol now became the rapacious creditor, bleeds us of all self-sufficiency and all will to resist its demands.”
My disease kept absorbing the life right out of me like a blood sucking creature leaving me depleted of energy. My disease also diminished my comprehension due to the paralyzing state my disease. My brain cells were frozen – & some were obviously gulped out.
“We perceive that through utter defeat are we able to we are able to take our first steps toward liberation and strength.”
I had to toss in the proverbial towel & surrender to the harsh, glaring truth that I was not ever going to win anything but a pine box going round for round w/ my disease. It was kicking (not to mention killing) my ass & yet I was deluded enough to believe in my sick, twisted cranium that “this time” I was gonna beat it.
“We know that little good could come to any alcoholic who joins A.A. unless unless he has first accepted his devastating weakness and all its consequences. Until he so humbles himself, his sobriety – if any – will be precarious. Of real happiness he will find none at all.”
For me, this means surrendering my distorted mindset to the fact I am powerless – this is the first step. In a nutshell, this is taking the first step.
Page 22:
“... we were the victims of a mental obsession so subtly powerful that no amount of human willpower could break it.”
Mental obsession. Thank you, God! I am not inadequate. I am just in the lethal vise of a mental obsession. * Exhale *
“... increasing sensitivity to alcohol – an allergy...”
What a comforting unearthing to come to the realization I was suffering from a sensitivity. I had an allergy & that was why I reacted the way I did. What an epiphany!
“The tyrant alcohol wielded a double-edged sword over us: first we were smitten by an insane urge that condemned us to go on drinking, and than by an allergy of the body that insured us that we would ultimately destroy ourselves in the process.”
Here is the come hither flirtation my disease always trapped me in – “come taste this & all your troubles will just melt away like chocolate on a stove.”
Gone is the heinous memory of the debilitating angst I endured from utterly succumbing to that bite, as the food thought slithers into my sickened mind to whisper, “This time will be different”. Amnesia slips in temporarily as the anesthesia from the food settles over my being as the poison pulses through my veins.
“It was a statistical fact that alcoholics almost never recovered on their own resources.”
There is no way I could do this on my own, if I could there would be no vacillating w/ the binge, purge, starve, repeat...
Page 23:
“...that it was indeed the beginning of a fatal progression. To the doubters we could say, 'Perhaps you're not alcoholic after all. Why don't you try some more controlled drinking, bearing in mind meanwhile what we have told you about alcoholism?'”
It was my more “controlled” eating that gave me repeated relapses – this last bout of telling myself, “You got it, kid” & “You can have this & that” led me to a six year relapse. It is sad to know I went back into the dungeon for six years – I have to grieve for that time lost but not beat myself by chastising myself when the truth is, I have a disease. I am not a screw up – I have an illness that can be arrested a day @ a time. Miraculous!
“It was then discovered that when one alcoholic had planted in the mind of another the true malady, that person could never be the same again.”
Amen! Going back to testing the waters w/ a tasting spree was always ruined by the knowledge of the gifts of the phenomenal 12 step program.
Oh, this program has been ingrained in me from the moment I walked into the mildewed church. I know there is only one way to address my disease – the 12 steps & 12 traditions. It isn't the latest diet, exercise equipment or gadget... it is all about following the steps as it is laid out before me period!
Pages 23 & 24
“After a few such experiences, often years before the onset of extreme difficulties, he would return to us convinced. He had hit bottom as truly as any of us. John Barleycorn himself had become our best advocate.”
Yes! I was battered, broken, bruised, damaged, and wounded when I entered the rooms again November 2009.
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