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Getting Warmer

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I came into program uncomfortable with the concepts of belief and faith. I preferred facts and proof. Belief, I felt, was a sentiment best reserved for the religious, which I was not. I was, however, powerless over food and I wanted what this program had to offer. More than anything, I wanted the Twelve Step promises to come true in my life (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., pp. 83–84). I would have to find a way to approach Step Two: “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

This is how I did it: I agreed to work under the hypothesis that there is a God and God has my best interests in mind. Because I wasn’t asking myself to believe anything, this was a place I could start. What happened was my life got better.

Once I figured out how to access this God, my life got better. The way I learned to communicate with my Higher Power was to play the Hot and Cold game with it. In the game of Hot and Cold, someone identifies an item and directs another person to that item using just temperature words: “warmer!” or “colder.” If the seeking person is moving away from the item, they’re getting colder; if they are moving closer, they’re getting warmer.

To play Hot and Cold with God, I had to act. I did this by asking God to “show me how to take my next right action.” Today it’s become my habit to ask “show me how” and then take action, while also being still enough inside to feel whether my action is moving me farther away from God or bringing me closer.

In the last two and a half years of abstinence, I’ve been warming to God. With the promises starting to become true in my life, I have all the proof I need to believe in God and have faith in its benevolence.

— Rachel C.

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