ollieacompulsiveovereater

It has been about a year since I last posted; in terms of abstinence it has been pretty good. This is what I look like today:


I am the one on the left. ;-)

I've been attending 3-4 OA meetings per week, following a foodplan (no binge foods, ever), working with others, making daily phone calls, working with a sponsor and I've introduced a (mostly) daily Step 11 practice in the morning.

What has changed?

I've come to grips that I don't believe in a supernatural power of any kind, nor do I believe in something I don't see evidence for. If one believes the surveys of top scientists, I am in the company with 93% of the elite scientists (those elected to the National Academy) and 60% of the "rank and file" ones (where I belong), even if I am in the minority in the general public and in the meeting rooms.

It is possible to have success in OA and remain an atheist or an agnostic! Of course, OA literature says as much, but there is always the absurd "We Agnostics" chapter from the Big Book; the approach there seems to be "don't worry if you are an atheist or an agnostic now; many of us were just like you but got started anyway, and now we are believers!"

For some reason, it just doesn't occur to people that some of us are non-believers because that is what an honest assesment of the facts takes us; but I digress.

Of course, the literature is useful.

When the literature (e. g., Big Book) says to do something ("take an inventory", "when these crop up, do this: ") then I follow directions. Why? Because when I do, I get more serene and abstaining is easier! I have evidence.

But I don't see the literature as something devinely inspired; I see it as a good training plan for life that my fellows came up with.

Don't get me wrong; I see the comically bad writing, the incorrect "facts", and the sometimes fundamentalist ranting. Nevertheless, the outline for the program of action is good.

Where I've had trouble is with those in the program that I'll call "fundamentalists".

I had a brief period of minor unpleasantness in my life recently, and another program friend told me that I had brought that upon myself; I was quoted:

Our actor is self-centered, ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays. He is like the retired business man who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the minister who sighs over the sins of the twentieth century; politicians and reformers who are sure all would be Utopia if the rest of the world would only behave; the outlaw safe cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up. Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?

Selfishness, self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.

Now, I see that much of this applies much of the time; i. e., if I look down on my yoga students and try to inflate my self worth by showing off, I shouldn't get my feelings hurt if they don't come back. If I act in a selfish, inconsiderate way toward my family and the resent me, well?

But not all aspects in life are like this; in this case the person who sent me this quote seemed to be under the impression that I insulted a person who read my other blog by a harsh expression of a political opinion and they retaliated. That wasn't the case at all; I turned in a possibly threatening message (made to someone else) to law enforcement, and the person who made the threat was angry.

Or, I wonder if the person who sent me this thought that those who either died or were injured in the Oklahoma City bombing brought this on themselves?

Anyway, I asked the person who posted this for a clarification, and he said some things, including "You think that you are smarter than the Big Book".

Well, yes I do: the Big Book is a book and hence lacks intelligence. There is certainly some wisdom there, even in the above quoted passage. But it is hardly an answer for everthing that life might throw at you.

Besides, the Big Book and Alcoholics Anonymous is hardly a miracle cure;

“95% of the people who go to their first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting
never return for a subsequent Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Of the 5%
that do stay in Alcoholics Anonymous, many of those continue to drink
and use drugs.”
http://www.soberforever.org/sprinks.html

People often quit drugs or alcohol without entering treatment or
support groups like AA. Vaillant also found that of those who either
quit or cut back drinking, 75% did so without benefit of treatment or
AA."
http://www.peele.net/lib/harvmed.html


Heading Back To Basics by Georgina Gustin - 10/13/2002

“Back to Basics is a return to the original AA program of the 1940s
when we had a 50 to 75 percent recovery rate from alcoholism,” Wally
P. explained. “And we are seeing identical results today, and the
reason it has been brought back, or that I brought it back, is that
today the recovery rate is five percent. Nineteen out of 20 people who
enter AA do not recover, and back in the 1940s three out of four made
it.”
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:i_QicAMycCEC:www.aabacktobasics.com/Newspaper%2520Articles/Back%2520To%2520Basics-New%2520London%2520CT%252010-13-02.doc+nationwide+alcohol+recovery+rates+one+year+percent&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Though it does work for a certain subset of people.

So, what is my point? Here are a couple:

1. People can have long term recovery with different approaches to the program and to spirituality. I am an agnostic who leans toward atheism (I liked the new atheist books such as the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins) whereas my sponsor is a Roman Catholic.
2. Not everyone who has had success sees resources such as the Big Book in the same way. My friend had this bumper sticker on one of his vehicles; I would never do that as it would not only be embarrasing to me, but also dishonest.
   

The Big Book is just that: a book, written by humans.
Yes, I know, there is the danger of just cherry picking the parts that seem easy
and pleasant while neglecting the hard work that one really needs to do.

But that is true for any plan, be it an athletic training plan, a plan of study,
coursework at a university, or whatever.