I have never been fantastic about money. I would prefer to hoard it, ignore it, covet it, and complain about it, rather than take an active, responsible role in managing it. As a child, I got all my clothes off the clearance racks. As a young adult, I chose my treats based on what might be best, not on what was cheapest. As a high school graduate, I hoarded all my paychecks from my minimum-wage jobs, occasionally even forgetting to deposit them into the bank for weeks or months at a time. By the time I graduated from college, I had almost $100,000 in student loans. I lived in an expensive apartment and bought cable TV and Internet access. I ate out for almost every meal, or had three- to-four microwavable dinners at a time. I had lost my first roommate, and my second roommate had found a girlfriend and moved... Continue Reading
My sponsor suggested that I stop watering my lawn. What? What does my lawn have to do with my abstinence? At the time, I was very tired, relentlessly looking for work, anxious about my dwindling bank account, and over $13000 in credit card debt. I was resentful about not being able to pay for yard help or house help and about living in less than clean and beautiful surroundings. I felt guilty if chores took me away from job hunting and guilty if chores got ignored. With meetings phone calls, shopping, chopping, reading, and praying, I could just never do enough! However, I took my sponsor’s suggestion and stopped watering my lawn, which turned out to be a wise suggestion. It saved me about $50 a month. When I stopped watering lawn, it stopped needing to be mowed, and I didn’t need to replace the lawnmower I had just broken... Continue Reading
I felt abandoned and frightened when my brother was born. When I was growing up, plotting ways to hurt him fueled my whole being. After all, he took mother’s attention away from me. I would start fights with him, and my mother would intervene and give out flour and sugar products to calm us down. This pattern set up many unconscious coping behaviors in my mind. What does this have to do with my current relationship with food? Everything! During one of my AWOLs (a way we study and live the Twelve Steps in recovery), I found out that my overeating and mental obsession with food had deep roots in the feelings of resentment toward being abandoned emotionally by my mother. I unknowingly took it out on my brother for years. When I was little, I knew where mother kept the junk food for herself and the babysitters. I would... Continue Reading
Four years ago, my first FA sponsor suggested that I choose and commit to three meetings per week as part of my recovery program. My addict’s brain defined “commitment” as trapped and over a barrel. I balked, and immediately had an attack of the “whys”: why should I not drop in and out of meetings at my convenience, and why did it matter which meetings I attended. Why did I have to commit, and what difference would it make? My should-be-sainted, patient sponsor gently explained that it had worked for her, and if I wanted what she had… Groan…okay… Still, it took me a long time to grapple with the idea of committed meetings and even longer to work them into my seemingly unique schedule. Thankfully over the past few years, I have gradually come to understand the value of committed meetings. Yes, it does make a difference, and it... Continue Reading
My first 90 days were uneventful, for the most part. The first day, I committed my food to a sponsor and actually only ate what I committed. Astonishing. The next two days, having given up sugar and flour, I was exhausted from lack of my drug. I felt “unplugged.” I remember thinking to myself: was sugar and flour my only fuel? I thought I might fall asleep at the wheel driving to work for the next few days, and I had to place my head on top of my desk at work to catnap. But after about a week of that, I felt better and the food got put in its proper place—as nourishment, not drug abuse. What did not get put in its proper place were my lifelong habits of people pleasing— putting the feelings of others ahead of my own. There were three incidents in a row. The first incident... Continue Reading
