Updates

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile! All is well. Things have gotten a bit complicated with my job, leading me to be busier and needing to work a stronger program to avoid getting stuck in fear. Mostly it's working!

I've recently been granted new willingness to add a few more things to my red light list.

My experience in OA with food has been that some things are easy to let go of and some things require a lot of back and forth and surrender before I am willing to give them up. I struggled with popcorn and tortilla chips for months, for example, before I was willing to let them go.

I was new in program, I'd already given up sugar and alcohol and thought I really shouldn't have to give up anything else. I was very resentful about it. But every time I ate popcorn or tortilla chips, I couldn't control them.

I'd take my kids to the movies and bring a container so I could measure out 3 cups of movie popcorn. As soon as I finished my w&m portion, I would be back in the bucket, getting more, and eating FAST so I was sure to get enough and those greedy kids wouldn't eat all the food (parent of the year, folks!)

Same with tortilla chips at a Mexican restaurant. I'd measure out 14 (which I remembered from my old Weight Watchers days was a serving), I'd eat them carefully and then eat another 14, and another 14 . . .

But worse than the overeating was the fact that if I was obsessed with popcorn and tortilla chips, I wasn't focusing on the movie or on the dinner conversation. It's so exhausting to be in a relationship with food...people are exhausting enough!

For months, I would make a commitment to give up popcorn and chips and it would work for a few weeks, and then I'd find myself thinking it was okay to have them again. I'd have them, and be reminded of my powerlessness all over again.

I've heard some people call this "doing research."

I used to hate that I couldn't just decide to give something up and do it, but I now recognize it as my process. I think it's happened every time. It's just the way I do things (apparently)... I need to wrestle with it for a bit myself before I fully give it over to God. It turns out that, much to my dismay, deciding to do stuff usually doesn't work for me in any arena. I need help.

The gift with sugar has been that I have never for a moment thought it was safe to have again. Almost everything else I've given up has been sneakier.

I never went crazy for salty snacks when I was in the sugar, so they have been the hardest to admit I had a problem with. I never snuck a bag of chips late at night, stole pretzels from my kids, or pulled a bag of popcorn out of the trash (all things I did with ice cream and candy).

Finally, something changed, and about two years ago, I officially added "recreational corn" to my red light list and it stuck. It's been probably three years and 99% of the time, it doesn't call me anymore (the first 5 minutes of a movie in the theater is still hard, but it passes, and I rarely go to movies).

Over the years, I've added more things over time, as God gave me the willingness and ability, once I was done fighting it on my own for awhile.

Exactly a year ago, I worked the steps with a Vision for You sponsor who asked me to give up all of my yellow light foods just while we worked the steps together. I was willing to do it, and I found that for awhile it gave me a lot of freedom.

After awhile though, my undereating side started to kick in, and I started thinking about food a lot, thinking about the food I wasn't having, what else should be on my red light list, etc. It got really exhausting.

In conjunction with my sponsor, I took a few of those foods and put them back on a yellow light list. My sponsor doesn't really believe in a yellow light list--she says either a food is taking you closer to peace or further from it. But she's also very willing to let me find out for myself through lots of experimentation and communication with my higher power. She never laughs at me when I say, "I think God wants me to take back nuts." She says, "give it a try and see if it feels peaceful for you."

For the record, I don't know what she would do if I wanted to take back sugar. I believe I have a physical allergy to sugar that is unlike anything I deal with when it comes to other foods. I believe based on long life experience that if I had a piece of cake tonight at my dad's birthday party, I would be back in full relapse instantly. It just hasn't been the same FOR ME with stuff like flour, chips, fried foods. I reserve the right to decide those are all alcoholic foods for me too someday.

For example: French Fries. About 75% of the time when I have them, it goes fine. I have a small portion and don't want more. A lot depends on my mood and a lot depends on the kind of fry they are. Then 25% of the time, I have a very hard time having an appropriate portion. My sponsor says if they trouble me 25% of the time, it's not worth it. Just give them up.

I have a hard time classifying a food like that as alcoholic if I'm okay with it 75% of the time. But welcome to my life, I will argue semantics all the way to the gutter.

I now agree with my sponsor that there are no yellow light foods for me, but I have had to learn this myself the hard way over time. I

f anyone had made me give up all my yellow and red light foods the very first time I ever worked the steps, I would have rebelled. My higher power has shown me gradually what does and doesn't work for me.

All this is to say, in late fall, I started to feel like it was time to add these to my red light list: nuts, peanut butter, recreational butter (which just means if butter is an ingredient in a recipe, it's fine, but when I put butter on rice or potatoes, it usually isn't, even though I am w&m it), and basically anything from a bag or box.

I gave up eating between meals a long time ago, so things like crackers and chips just haven't been that hard for me. I weigh out a portion on occasion, count it as my starch, and move on.

But lately, all of those things have been getting "noisier" for me. I've been struggling with not eating at night...and these are the kinds of things I want to eat. I don't want to eat my nice weighed and measured optional snack of a cheese stick and a small apple, I want to have a spoonful of peanut butter or rice crackers and cheese.

I feel HP gave me the awareness that these were issues, and I had the willingness to give them up, but I didn't yet have the ability. 

I give them up.

I take them back.

I give them up.

I take them back.

You know the drill. This is incredibly frustrating for me because I have near-total neutrality with so many foods! I want neutrality with all the foods! And it really sets off my fear that my red light list will keep growing and growing until I can't eat anything at all.

After a few months of this back-and-forth with this small list of yellow light foods (that really should CLEARLY be red light foods), I talked to my sponsor about it for the hundredth time, with a new plan for how I was going to let these things go. I was outlining my 98-point plan for her that was DEFINITELY GOING TO WORK THIS TIME, when she slowed me down.

"Your plan sounds nice, but I really think you just have to tell your higher power, 'hey, God, if I should be looking at this, you gotta help me do it.'" She told me to pray about it every morning and every night for 30 days.

As is so often the case, I am struck by the simplicity of the approach and the language:

"God, if you want me to do something different, I need your help to do it."

So I said that, and then I made an index card that said, "God, if it is your will, please remove my desire to eat nuts, peanut butter, anything from a bag or box, recreational butter, and anything else that is taking me further away from you." I read that card every morning and every night before bed (ok, MOST nights before bed). Even when it's rote, even when it's automatic, I do it anyway.

I didn't eat any of those things for a few days, and it was hard, but not that hard. And it kept getting easier as I kept saying the prayer.

A few nights later I had a weighed and measured portion of mac and cheese for my starch, and knew instantly that it wasn't a good idea for me. I added it to the list. I haven't had pizza in years, but it has called to me a few times, so I added it to the list as well.

I struggled a little bit over Christmas break with a snack mix my mother-in-law makes that I think should be ok for me to have, and it just isn't. But I believe HP helped me let it go and add it to the list.

Last Friday night, I was feeling restless. Friday nights are often hard for me, and I often want to eat after dinner. I texted my sponsor and said "I want to eat. Can I just make a decaf coffee with almond milk instead?"

She said she thought that would be okay.

I thought about it and realized that the reason I wanted coffee instead of tea is that coffee takes the edge off more than tea. My life today needs to be about finding ways to take the edge off that are not about putting something in my mouth. So while decaf coffee is a fairly innocent indulgence, if it's taking the edge off, I'm not sure it's a great idea for me today.

I told her that, and I said, "I've been praying for God to show me what I should be doing, and I'm getting this intuition that I shouldn't have that decaf. That I need to deal with this restlessness some other way."

So I didn't have it.

And that is what my higher power does for me when I seek it out.

If you had told me 5 years ago that OA would lead me to skip an after-dinner decaf, I would have run out the door.

Isn't decaf so much better than a bowl (or a pint) of ice cream? YES it is, in that it doesn't set off the physical allergy. And if I NEED that decaf to keep me away from the ice cream, I'm all for it. But as I grow in my program, I'm finetuning some of these smaller things. I realize that if the decaf is keeping me from feeling my feelings, for me today, I want to skip it and let my HP show that she can carry me through, that I don't need the decaf.

I am not telling you that you have to give up an evening decaf or everything that takes the edge off. I was once in a newcomer meeting where an oldtimer talked about giving up rice cakes, and I was so annoyed with her. No one will sign up for a program where rice cakes are dangerous! But the oldtimer had a really valid point . . . if she's finding herself dreaming about rice cakes, they are not a safe food for her.

The point isn't about rice cakes or decaf, it's about whatever I eat to take the edge off will come between me and my HP.

So that's what's been up with me. Added more stuff to my red light list, and it's going fine. Still praying for relief every day from these new foods because my pattern is that once I get relief, I stop doing all the stuff that gave me that relief. Yes, I know it's ridiculous, but I'm betting most of us can relate.

Happy new year to all of you!