Recovery in the Middle

I was so new to program I didn’t really know what this was supposed to mean: “It works if you work it.” I thought it was corny and wondered why every meeting ended with everyone holding hands and saying it. After several weeks, my HP spoke to me, when I heard a spiritual advisor offer this analogy about faith:

One morning a mother went to wake up her son and found him on the floor. He had fallen out of bed sometime during the night. She tenderly picked him up—but the next morning, the same thing happened. Every night, she’d tuck him into bed and every morning find him on the floor. After about a week of this, one morning she was surprised to find him in his bed rather than on the floor. When she asked him what happened, he said, “I decided to get in the middle of the bed.” The point is that faith can be the same way. If we keep lurking around the edges instead of getting in the middle, then we might wonder why we keep falling out of faith.

A light went on in my head! I started to think about recovery. What was I doing with this whole new Twelve Step program? Was I lurking around the edges? Was I going to meetings and just letting that be the extent of my involvement? I decided right then I was going to put myself in the middle of my program. No more being on the edge and wondering why I wasn’t feeling better. I would begin doing everything the program suggested.

I started with Step One. I read a bit, then wrote my reaction. I went to The Twelve Step Workbook of Overeaters Anonymous and answered all the questions related to Step One. I got a sponsor and talked to her about my progress—I would not quit with Step One until I understood it: not just with my head, but with my soul as well.

As soon as I accepted Step One in every cell of my body, I gave myself a new assignment. I decided I needed to use all the Tools of the program, and only when I was consistently doing all the Tools could I move on to Step Two. Wow, was that hard. Pick up the phone and call someone? At first, I kept hoping the person on the other end wouldn’t answer—in fact, I chose to call people when I knew they’d be at work and wouldn’t answer. But I kept at it, reading all the Tools over and over again and writing about them—then finally using them.

By that time, I was so much in the middle of the program that I found a new way of being. I began to see that I could trust myself and I liked myself. I was ready for the next Step.

— Marie, North Carolina USA