I'm relatively new to OA. I hope you don't mind if I ask some questions here. I like to get different perspectives besides those from my sponsor and the others in my support group.
Would anyone mind sharing what abstinence means for them? How did you decide on what to abstain from, and has it changed at all as you've moved through the program?
Hi sidhe--Thanks for bumping that thread. I had seen it yesterday while searching and I think your response is so well written. It really helped me to better understand what abstinence means and how it is a fluid thing. Thanks for that.
I would still like to hear other personal stories of abstinence. What did you do to decide on what to abstain from? How did it work for you? How did you decide if/when to change what abstinence meant to you?
I guess I'm just trying to get a feel for what others are doing to learn from that.
Thanks for raising those hugely interesting topics. This has been a long historical and difficult journey for me, and I often thought I ‘had’ abstinence nailed down, but fell off the wagon again and again.
Something has changed. My abstinence today is defined by my Higher Power, and my Higher Power is defined as my ‘intuition’. Abstinence for me revolves around my Higher Power. That’s a given for me. I’m not very religious or anything, but Ann I was in torment trying to define abstinence. I’m very joyful a lot of the time, because I feel so at home with my food plan. Abstinence is evolving very healthily, I think because I am learning to trust myself. I have a disease, but as long as I’m using the OA tools, I’m free to make good choices.
I used to allow others define my abstinence. As a long term sober AA member, I was drawn to 12 step food recovery. I ran out of OA – far too loose and unstructured for a woman who wanted all the I’s dotted and t’s crossed.
Found what I believed was the ‘cure’. FAA – food addicts anonymous. I loved this at first. Felt like I was just abdicating the bother of having to make decisions. I found a sponsor, asked her what she ate, and promptly drew up a food plan based on HER recovery. I happily emailed my food every morning and stuck to the plan like my life depended on it. I also declared myself a food addict at every meeting. I think that’s true to an extent, I know when I take sugar my bloods go crazy and I want more. But only to an extent, as I’ll share further on.
I became obsessed with not letting sugar in any manifestation past my lips. FAA had given me a factsheet with the 99 scientific names for sugar, and I stood in supermarket reading the most minute labels to check it off my ‘blacklist’. It often seemed like there was nothing I could buy in a packet! Knowledge is one thing, perfection is quite another! FAA obviously suits some people, but it just made me more compulsive.
The pressure was too much. I felt deprived and obsessed and there was nothing spiritual about this for me. I kept trying to tell myself this was God’s plan for me, but my 12 steps told me all I had to do was surrender my eating and I’d be ok, yet this FAA was all about control and reporting and being considered a ‘slipper’ if a grain of sugar went into my body.
I suffered so much after that not just with binge eating but with beating myself up for being a failure.
In OA, my sponsor encourages me to define my own abstinence. She is an amazingly sane woman and her abstinence is very different to what it was – I knew her in FAA too. She even eats chocolate on occasion, but she's around a long time and is no longer obsessed with food! Yet she's not complacent. She attends EDA too - and seeks balance. She is so in tune with her HP too. For my own definition, I use my intuition and some practical info I have about myself – an allergy test I had some years ago said I should eat wheat only in moderation. I try to avoid trigger foods and trigger situations. Too many carbs make me want to binge. I love chips – fries – and mash potato & butter, I don’t eat them now. Yet I can have baked potato - but only choose that about once a month. I avoid sugar in the main, but on holidays, I ate some cake and did not binge. That was a month ago – the cake was homemade and had no white flour but had a trace of sugar and some raisins which I normally avoid – high GI. I ate this cake in a non-compulsive manner and I did not go binge-eating as a result.
I know this might sound unsatisfactory if someone is looking for clarity but it works for me just for today. I weigh in once a month and lost 3lbs the first month – my portions have kind of naturally got smaller since, which is another miracle. There was I, agonising with my sponsor about the magic day I would weigh and measure once I got used to the 3 meals a day structure, and I find instead I am naturally putting less food on my plate. Don't get me wrong, I still struggle with crazy compulsion, but way less than even a few weeks ago. It's hard to stay abstinent in a market economy which has a vested interest in getting me back to the fast-food track again. I don't want to go there. That kind of processed-XXXX makes me feel good for 5 minutes then I want to crawl under a stone and sleep. Today, I rode my new bike in the rain, ran on the beach, when the rain got too much, I hit the gym, swam in a heated sea water pool and felt wonderful. Sorry for being so long-winded as usual.
Searsha--I agree that it's important for each person to define his/her own abstinence. I often wonder if others are really doing that (me included ) at my OA group. When speaking of abstinence, everyone says the same thing, "no sugar, no flour, 3 planned measured meals per day with no snacks."
Although I am going sugar and white flour free, my abstinence is turning out to be somewhat difference. While looking back at my struggles and thinking things through, it occurred to me that I do best when eating more frequently. This was recommended to me by my doctor some time ago due to being insulin resistant. Although my food is planned, abstinence for me includes 3 meals and 3 snacks. I eat about every 3 hours. I find that it results in my blood sugar being more stable and I feel fueled throughout the day. I am also much less likely to binge if I am not letting myself go too long between meals and get too hungry. I can't tell you how often I've gone for trigger foods due to extreme hunger and low blood sugar while on diets in the past.
I'm surprised more people in OA don't eat healthy snacks between meals, but I guess some feel it might trigger them. Most current research shows that eating smaller amounts more frequently is much better for the body and your blood sugar. I know I feel exceptionally better eating this way and it allows me to stay abstinent. I just don't think I could do it if I was only eating every 6 hours.
I've been looked at in an odd way at OA when I share my frequency of eating with others. This is actually what led me to start this thread. I'm afraid that some in my OA group are of the opinion that there is only one way to define abstinence. For me, I had to dig deep to define my plan of abstinence. It took a week to define it and I'm still re-defining it.
That's why I was so interested in what others had to say on this matter. I really wanted to get a feel for what others have done to define their abstinence and how they've evaluated it/changed it while on plan.
It can be confusing and I remember feeling just like you at the meetings. Because many of the people in my group followed the HOW plan which has some really great aspects of it. But for me, it was too rigid. Unfortunately, sometimes there are those few OA's who forget that there is more than one way to define abstinence and food plan. In OA we're supposed to only "worry about our own side of the street".
I highly recommend the OA book titled "Abstinence." It's got an orange cover and really helped me understand what shape my abstinence needed to take.
For years, I had been overeater, bulimic, anorexic (very brief), over exerciser, binge for days/starve for days; I tried just about every diet spending ridiculous amounts of money, the gamut of insane behavior around food and losing weight. I had to learn to just eat without being insane about it and for me that meant keeping it very simple and not following any specific diet or plan.
So on the advice of a sponsor I ate three meals and one snack per day which were at planned times. I had a handful of foods that I knew I shouldn't touch and that I still stay away from. You should have seen my meal plates in the beginning--Fred Flinstone portions!
As I got stronger and relied on my HP, used the tools, and worked a program, and stayed committed to my simple guidelines, I started putting less on my plate and making sure each meal was packed with nutrition. I still follow this and I've lost twenty pounds, granted very slowly, but it works for me and I don't feel so crazy about food.
That's the great thing about OA, YOU decide what works for you and if you're having a hard time in this area, there is help from a sponsor or others in the group. Some choose to go to a nutritionist and follow a plan like WW. Whatever fits you and your life.
Now I feel that my abstinence and food plan are separate but so important in that they relate to each other.
Here's an excerpt from the OA book 'Voices of Recovery' which has a quote from various OA literature and then an actual OA member that has shared about the quote.....
"Just staying abstinent-if it's all I can do today-is reaching for recovery."
"Abstinence is where my recovery begins. That is the "food" I need to reach for. That is where insanity ends and serenity begins. Once I got a "taste" of serenity, I wanted more and more. The feeling of freedom from food is incredible. I have learned to ask for help from God, my sponsor, and my group. I have learned to tackle new problem foods in order to get more recovery. What I want to reach for now is not more food, but more recovery. Am I calling someone? Am I getting to meetings? Am I praying daily? Am I being grateful in prayer? Am I reading? Am I working the Steps? Am I asking God to make me willing? When tempted, I ask God to help me reach for more recovery instead of more food."
[quote=charlenej;1806491]
As I got stronger and relied on my HP, used the tools, and worked a program, and stayed committed to my simple guidelines, I started putting less on my plate and making sure each meal was packed with nutrition. I still follow this and I've lost twenty pounds, granted very slowly, but it works for me and I don't feel so crazy about food.
Thank you Charlene, you give me hope. I still feel so very new to all this, and it’s great, and I got through a tough day but a good day in ‘reality’, and reading your description of how your abstinent evolved expresses the kind of sanity I seek around food. Hope I ‘keep on keeping on’.
Ann:Although I am going sugar and white flour free, my abstinence is turning out to be somewhat difference. While looking back at my struggles and thinking things through, it occurred to me that I do best when eating more frequently. This was recommended to me by my doctor some time ago due to being insulin resistant. Although my food is planned, abstinence for me includes 3 meals and 3 snacks. I eat about every 3 hours. I find that it results in my blood sugar being more stable and I feel fueled throughout the day.
That’s really interesting Ann. I was recommended ‘little and often’ medically. I did G.I with my diet-mentality, and I felt physically great, I have to say. I wonder how it might work even better for me now that I have ‘invited’ a power greater than myself to help me with my food. Since joining OA, I’ve stuck to the 3 meal schedule for now. Somedays, if I feel a ‘low’, I’ll eat half portion of yogurt and fruit from my evening snack. It’s easy to get low on the 3 meal plan.
I love coming here and getting "filled up" on all of your experiences in program.
Abstinence is definitely a personal choice, process, and adventure. Ann- You are learning what that means to you. You have a good understanding of what abstinence means. You are doing great.
Abstinence
