It's not about the weight

It's finally raining here in Southern California. I used to love the rain because it meant curling up in a blanket and eating, eating and sleeping and just re-charging and re-fueling when the tanks are already full. It meant extra cups of hot cholocate and pizza delivery. It would be embarassing at the end of the day when I finally gave the heave ho to myself off the couch and there was at least an inch of crumbs around. The cats loved it.

I go to a meeting held at my church on Tuesdays that is a Recovery Eucharist. At this Eucharist, anyone with 12 step membership is invited to attend. It's an interesting mix of Al-Anon, AA, NA, SLA, OA, MA, CMA, DRA, etc. I have been going to this for almost 3 years now and it's a group that was my only meeting for a while. It becomes a sacred space because not only are we all together in the life boat of recovery, we are in sacred spaces inside a church. Sometimes this meeting becomes a bit like soap opera with 12 different life stories being updates weekly. We come to support each other and ourselves in dealing with the drama of the world. Yet, sometimes this drama gets in the way of feeling the feelings that I used to hide from, use over, drink over, eat over..

I shared about step 2 and how I had finally come to believe that God could and would do something about my food addiction if HE were sought. This was such a novel concept for me. I talked about how grateful I was about the daily reprieve from obsession I've been feeling and mentioned that the weight loss is a secondary benefit. I refuse to play the numbers game because then I forget about why I'm really here and focus on just making the numbers go down. My sponsor and I have come to the conclusion that weighing in once a month is appropriate and even if I never weighed, I'd be ok because we are working on the steps and not on a diet. If I don't work these steps to the best of my ability then I'm going to sink back into the food when life's little details get me down or if my students are asses.

I am bothered when people always qualify and saw how much they have lost and how long they have kept it off. It's hard to clap because we're not really clapping for that person, we're really clapping, as a friend put it, for God and how God works in that person's life. That I can clap for. I of course am amazed at the stories of personal recovery but this physical recovery comes from being open to allowing emotional and spiritual recovery to happen.

I went to a 730am meeting this morning. I was so tired. My sponsor and I were sharing our driver's licenses and playing -- top my fat picture. I was convinced that my albino clown picture of me at 300 pounds from 1996 would win. I keep trying to get rid of it but the DMV just wont let me have a new picture. I was really tired at this meeting since I had stayed up too last night but as always I was glad to be there, glad to be a part of and glad to be able to be present without wondering what I was going to eat next.