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mother would worry about my heart and my father would say, must don't
eat.? Uh, okay. Doi. But when my life was at the bottom (as they say),
when I was reeling from the toxic levels of prescription and other
speed and still sitting on the kitchen floor at three a.m. eating
from a bowl of stuffing with my hands, my best friend took note and
tried a different tact the one you learn to use after taking in a
few hundred Overeaters Anonymous meetings: she handed me a little
book of meditations and quotes. (The book was a Hazelden publication,
a 365-day/page book that on each day had a quote to think about and
a meditative write-up to help you get through the day or night. She
said if I ever wanted to come along to a meeting I was welcome
I am not the typical
fat archetype you see on TV or in comic books. I wear cool clothes
(or so I used to), am mouthy and direct, and, while I have to stuff
myself into shoes one year or lay on the bed to button jeans the
next, have never been lacking in boyfriends, romance, or even husbands
or proposals from guys who would like to be my husband. I am also
not a big joiner, having a tendency to run the show or stay at home
and run my own. So I wasn't real excited about these Overeaters
Anonymous meetings that carried on like some clandestine cult of
shosen ones. I wasn't into God this and God that, for I was also
at the time big on studying the existentialists who had denounced
God, and was more nihilistic and hateful than grateful.
Ah, but that is exactly
what makes one a perfect candidate for Overeaters Anonymous meetings.
While they appear to contain rituals that are rote and mind-numbing
and people who are way too into hugging, they also do this uncanny
thing of leaving you to yourself until the concept, feeling, or
revelation snags you and you are in and understanding all of it.
You get that the rituals establish normalcy. You understand that
the slogans give you positive mantras to cling to when the stinking
thinking will drive you to drink or eat or whatever you are abusing
yourself with. And you understand that the necessity of Overeaters
Anonymous meetings is not to scam you out of millions of bucks (the
meetings are free or by donation) or to rope you into making paper
poppies to sell at the airport (and you don't have to shave your
head or sacrifice chickens or small children), but the Overeaters
Anonymous meetings are to give you someone other than your ill-gotten
thoughts and self to connect with, to call attention away from yourself
and onto others worse off than you, and to force you to take responsibility
for your own actions and be accountable to someone (or thing) greater
than your selfish self.
Overeaters Anonymous
meetings, like all meetings of all 12-step programs, are remarkable
constructs that keep millions from destroying what they so unintentionally
destroy in their efforts to self-destruct. They help you break the
cycle. They help you stop being tired of being tired of? They help
you until you can help yourself.
I am sorry this is so
cryptic, if it is. But you will just have to find out for yourself
what the program does for you.
Overeaters Anonymous
meetings are held all over the world. There are schedules for every
major metropolis and every teeny town. Call the hotline in your
area for meeting times, and know you will not be compelled to do
anything other than shut up and listen. They work if you work em.
I promise.
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