A humble reply

I wrote the following in response to a recovery friend's question, "How are you doing?" It is a humbling truth about me, a woman who seems unwilling to work her program of recovery:


To be honest, I don't know how I am doing. I feel stuck in the warp of food and sexual addiction ... God "told" me -- not nuts, just the message I got while I was walking -- go to gym every day. If you don't do anything else, go to the gym every day. I stopped going. My doctor told me eat a little bit of protien and the rest fruits and vegetables, with only a few carbs every day. I didn't listen. My inner core tells me to pray and meditate every day, instead I waste my time looking for either new sex partners or new love partners. My OA friends say, you have to get a sponsor. I call people in OA, but never the people who I want to be my sponsor. I am paralyzed when I think of calling them. You've told me, others have told me -- get a counselor, but day after day I don't make the call. I need an SLAA program in my area, and at one time had the willingness to start it. But every day passes by ... I don't make the contacts to the church that I need to. I am still going to OA meetings, but have stopped my Al-Anon meetings almost all together. Instead I isolate and act out. I know, I have seen, God has shown me, honesty and acceptance are my two keys. I still lie, I still judge, I still expect outcomes, I still eat and have sex with strangers to make up for the "lack" of my expectations being met.


Why, you ask. Why, I ask. I don't know my friend, other than it seems that I don't want to get well. That's a lie and we both know it. It's all a bondage of self, a disease ridden self destined to kill herself one way or the other. The third step prayer says ... "God please release me from the bondage of self." Some days, the shame of all that has been and all that is keeps me from even praying, "God give me the willingness." Yesterday, when I wanted to go get a whole package of snack cakes and eat them, or go home and post an ad and find a dinner and bed partner for the evening (My husband is out of town.) I struggled with the voice inside that said, "make a call, go to a meeting." But I shrieked out ... "God give me the willingness." And I made two calls til I found someone who was going to a meeting and said "See you there." On the way home, I still wanted to stop and get those snack cakes, but I just kept driving and had the willingness to pray, "God, just get me home. There's nothing there that can hurt me too much." When I talk about the shame to even pray ... it's my codependence there ... I'm even codependent with God. I feel like such a disappointment. It's one thing when you do all these things and you don't know better. It's another when you know and you just keep going ... you don't take the action. But, guess what? The first step says ... "We are powerless." My friend, I am powerless. But I am not hopeless.


There is a woman who spoke at two different OA meetings last week ... and I feel that she could be the answer to my ongoing silent and spoken prayer to God for a sponsor who can help me. I had the willingness to ask if I could call her this week, to which she said, "Please do.", the willingness to write down her number and I am terrified to call her -- I can even at times feel the call of my disease saying "But I don't want to get better." But I am going to call. Let me rephrase that ... I am continually praying for the willingness to call her, without any expectation of the outcome, other than praying ... "If this is the one, let her say yes." The answer will come one way or another. There is something in "How It Works" in the AA Big Book that says ... "No human power could have saved us." And the further down the spiral I go, the more I realize how true it is. A sponsor can help me, but no one, and especially not me, can save me. That's the humble, honest truth.


Thank you, my friend, for asking. Thank you God for giving me the humble and sobering answer I needed to write.