Surrender

I think yesterday's binge might have been a blessing - despite its misery. 

OA's first three steps are:

1. We admitted we were powerless over food — that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Have I finally, truly, taken the first step? 

I realize now that I treated my first few weeks in OA as yet another diet, another way to control my eating. Indeed, I had lived the definition of insanity, doing the exact same thing I was doing before but expecting different results.  I was doing the same Calorie counting and attempting to control my eating through willpower. Are you surprised it didn't work again, just like last time?  In hindsight, I'm not.

Maybe yesterday's post should be called "A 'gift' of desperation." I am finally, brutally confronted with the reality that I just can't control myself when it comes to food. There is no magic pill that will cure me.  There is no eating plan or diet that will solve this problem. 

I have an underlying disease whose main symptom is an overwhelming compulsion to eat everything in sight.

I asked for help.  I am ready to surrender my will (after all, it doesn't work) to a Power who can actually beat the dragon inside me.  Obviously, I lack the strength to carry this heavy a cross.  Someone will have to help me carry it, or I'll never make it to the top of the mountain. 

Relient K says it well in the song Be My Escape:

I’ve given up on giving up slowly, I’m blending in so 

You won’t even know me apart from this whole world that shares my fate

This one last bullet you mention is my one last shot at redemption 

because I know to live you must give your life away

And I’ve been housing all this doubt and insecurity and 

I’ve been locked inside that house all the while You hold the key

And I’ve been dying to get out and that might be the death of me

And even though, there’s no way in knowing where to go, promise I’m going because

I gotta get outta here 

I’m stuck inside this rut that I fell into by mistake

I gotta get outta here 

And I’m begging You, I’m begging You, I’m begging You to be my escape….