Step One Relief

On May 28, 2017, I attended my first OA meeting. The courage to attend arose when I discovered the pamphlet Maintaining a Healthy Weight. I finally admitted I did not like my body or my weight. I realized I could not manage my weight by myself. Most importantly, I realized and admitted that not liking myself made me have nasty, weird thoughts about myself and my relationships with other people. I needed to ask for help both from a group and from a Power greater than my self-determination and ego.

I started reading about Step One even before I asked a woman to be my sponsor. The more I read, the more I realized I needed to honestly examine why I ate the way I did despite knowing the harmful consequences. The “why” would lead me to know my powerlessness and unmanageability. Working Step One, by reading, writing, talking with my sponsor, and asking my Higher Power to stay close to me, helped me uncover a long list of unhealthy, false beliefs and denial about my compulsive eating.

Becoming aware of these unhealthy beliefs, however, did not change my actions, even though I was now even more uncomfortable with myself. Feelings of shame and guilt and the nasty, jealous thoughts about others continued. Still, as I grew in awareness, I felt only support and understanding from my sponsor and other members of my OA group. Step One, I found, was not an exercise in self punishment. Step One was opening my eyes to acceptance. As Voices of Recovery states, “I don’t have to beat myself up for being a compulsive overeater any more. I also don’t have to waste time trying to ‘fix’ myself in ways that don’t work” (p. 71) and “What a relief to discover that it wasn’t just a matter of willpower!” (p. 84).

I felt the relief. In fact, relief, hope, and freedom started for me in Step One. Hope was tangible in the faces and sharing of my sponsor and others at meetings, and I was not alone. Freedom rose from trusting that a Power greater than me would do what I couldn’t do for myself.

Before I could surrender to the program, I needed to experience my powerlessness. I needed to own all the ways my life had become unmanageable because of compulsive overeating. Step One allowed me to write my own OA prayer and write and rewrite my own plan of eating. I shared both with my sponsor as I worked the First Step. I continue to use the Tools. My first action plan was “Ways I take care of myself that do not involve food.”

I am a newcomer, already feeling welcome and accepted in OA. I am so grateful for phone calls from members who barely knew me, for my willing sponsor, for our literature, for the Step One podcast on oa.org, and for all OA members who have kept this program healthy and growing. I will return the gift I have been so generously given.

— Mary Beth S.