food abuse
 

I'm thinking about Step I of OA which asks us to admit that we are powerless over food. It's food. That is like saying I'm powerless over my car. Well it's for certain if I let go of the steering wheel I'm going into the ditch. I'm having a problem with this one; not that I completely disagree with it, just my understanding of it.

Should it be something more like I have GIVEN my power over to food? I think about Dr. Phil stateing that we teach people how to treat us. I think of the abused and battered wife that has given her power away and allows herself to be mistreated. When I'm emotional, stressed, and bored I allow food to mistreat me, and boy do I have the battle scars, all 80lbs. of them.

I admit my life has become unmanageable. I look at the other areas of my life, all of them, and they are just as out of control as my eating. I love my husband, but there is little to no intimacy. My house is a mess. I've lost the vision of what I wanted my life to be.

I heard someone say how you do anything is how you do everything. Any thoughts?

I can see how this quote might apply to my life. I've always been messy for as long as I can remember, and though I'm better now than as a kid I'm nowhere near perfect. I was watching the show Hoarders a few nights ago and some of the scenes looked very similar to how my bedroom was as a kid - I have some pack rat tendencies.

When I look at my life overall, I realize that being messy and being fat have this in common: I'm lazy and for a long time didn't care enough about the consequences to curb my actions. As a kid, I did a lot of emotional eating because my parents divorced and I got teased a lot. As I got older, it turned into less of me eating because I was teased daily but because it was a habit. Sure it bothered me that I was fat, but because I had grown up fat it was the norm for me and I had no idea where to start with weight loss. My best friends would sometimes confront me about my weight and say they were worried, but I haven't had any adverse health effects yet and I was skeptical as they were all skinny - how could they understand what food was to me?

When I got to college, I got a room mate that was neater than me. I adopted her habits and though I still have clutter here and there it is 95% better than what I had as a kid. I learned from her example that being clean isn't that hard when you take a little extra effort to put things back every day instead of having to spend a whole afternoon cleaning once a week. In that way, I think my dieting approach is similar; if I can have enough willpower to not buy junk during a weekly shopping trip, it makes it easier the rest of the week.

I suppose my point is that I don't believe anything is black or white or 100% right or wrong. I don't know if I agree with the statement of being powerless over food, but I do agree that people self medicate and that food (among things like alcohol and drugs) is one way that they do so.

In any case, I think it's good to question and really reflect on the steps of OA. It means that you're taking it seriously and that you're really trying to get something out of the process.

Did you wathch the new Hoarders? Wasn't that a shocker? Yes, it while watching Hoarders and Clean House that I began to see not only a connection, but myself.

The peple had not only lost control of their homes, but in most cases their lives, many of them , especially the women, were also overweight. I watched the newest Clean House last night, and sure enough, she had emotional relationship issues.

For me, there must be a key to how I handle relationships. I go back to the couple of times I lived alone and I easily kept my life in oreder. I was thin and didn't use food. My house stayed clean because I cleaned up after myself. I kept my finances in order and didn't overspend.