This morning I weigh 363.2 pounds. I think. My digital scale is like a slot machine. I have to get on it three times at least -- sometimes four or five -- just to get a consensus, just to get it to give me the same number more than once. This morning's 363.2 seems right.
I own one pair of shorts that fits, two pair of jeans (one with a split in the groin), and I've been cycling through the same 5 or 6 t-shirts for months.
It's been a long time since I could stop myself from bingeing.
OA helped me for a long time, but I don't know if I'm willing to go back. Too often, especially after my mother died, at best I felt completely disconnected from the people in the program. At worst, I felt betrayed. I know myself enough to know there's a good chance my feelings of distrust toward OA has more to do with my own bullshit than anything that anyone in OA has done. But at the same time, I know that no one I've met in OA -- should I ask them what they think -- is capable of telling me anything other than "OA is the answer." Or, you know, one of their goddamned slogans.
I know I can write. I know I can walk. Maybe I don't need anything else.
The first of the 12 steps was never a problem for me. "We admitted that we were powerless over food -- that our lives had become unmanageable." Yeah, sure, DUH.
But after that?
"Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."
"Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."
Eh.
Tell a 12-stepper your problems with that and they will laugh knowingly. There's a lot of knowingly laughing in the 12 steps. In fact, a lot of times I think a lot of 12-steppers stay there just so they can keep laughing knowingly and pretend they're fucking Yoda.
In fact, after what? At least 7 years of being at least peripherally attached to OA, and I still have not had one person -- in spite of multiple requests -- even try to explain to me what turning my will over to a higher power means in a practical sense. No one. Not one. I tell them I don't understand and I get smug fucking knowing laughter. They have nothing else to offer. Or if they do, then they would just rather act superior.
Like, what do I do? When I need to make an important decision, do I wait for "signs" from supernatural forces? Do I literally do nothing until I get some burning-bush-esque manifestation?
Early in my OA recovery I told a woman I had struggled so hard the day before to fight against the urges to binge. She said, "well that's just it -- you don't fight the urge, you just turn it over." And I just said "yeah," like an idiot because I was too afraid to admit I had no idea what she meant. After 7 years, I still fucking don't.
Because I can say, "I turn my will over to a higher power," sure. But then I can still buy the motherfucking ice cream! Fucking Thanos isn't going to show up and snap his fingers and make the ice cream disappear to balance the universe's ice cream population. So what does that mean? What does it mean to "turn it over?"
And after years and years and questions and questions I never got anything better than smug fucking knowing laughter.
Well.
So apparently I'm angry at OA.
I don't know. I don't know what the point of this post was and I don't know if OA is in my future.
I just know what I weigh and how I feel and that things have to change.
So I'll do my best to not hurt myself with food today. Tomorrow I'll let you know how it went.
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