Overeaters Anonymous

So I went to my first meeting on Saturday! I was excited about somethings and disappointed about others. Let me start by telling you what I learned about myself.

What is Compulsive Eating?

"Compulsion" is defined as an irresistible desire to take an often irrational action. The word "irresistible" means we are unable to resist the urge, no matter how many promises we have made to ourselves or others. In our case, we have the compulsion of being unable to control our eating behaviors. In OA we believe compulsive overeating is a disease with physical, emotional and spiritual components. A disease causes some aspect of the body to malfunction. In our case, it's the complex system that governs food behavior. The body mechanisms  that allow normal eaters to push the plate away, or otherwise control their food behaviors, don't function properly for us. For some, the disease acts much like an alcohol or drug addiction; except in our case, certain foods or overeating itself stimulate an insatiable craving for more. The OA definition of compulsive eating covers all facets of unhealthy eating behaviors. It's not only how much we eat or how much we weigh, but the ways in which we try to control our food. Some of us hide our food and eat in secret. Some binge and purge, while others alternate between overeating and starvation. All compulsive eaters have one thing in common: no matter whether we're struggling with overeating, undereating, bingeing, purging, or starving ourselves, we are driven by forces we don't understand to deal with food in irrational and self-destructive ways. Once compulsive eating as an illness has taken hold, an individual's willpower cannot stop it. The power of choice over food is gone. (This paragraph was taken straight from the Overeaters Anonymous Question and Answers guide)

So this shouldn't be news to me, but it was. In the back of my mind I was ready for God to deliver me from this addiction. Don't get me wrong I know he has the power to do anything. But I now look at my addiction like my sinful nature. I will always have the sinful flesh in my body, but God has given me the power to not be sinful. I think it is the same way. I will always have this compulsion, but God can give me the power to abstain from overeating. In OA the times that we do control our overeating is time of abstinence.

So I know that this is a process and that I will with God's help overcome these periods of non-abstinence. But until then I will continue to quote the motto, One step at a time, one moment at a time! Every minute I choose God's way in this is a minute more of peace and understanding. That is true with everything in life, we can fight God or we can walk with Him in the garden.