abstanence day 2/candle light meeting

Yesterday I completed a 90 minute 25.12 mile bike ride for my training.

Every year here at my OA home they have a candle light OA meeting. This year we had the topic of the promises if we follow the 12 & 12 of OA. 12 individuals each was able to pick a promise & give a 3-5 minute share. Below are the promises. I'll post my share below the promises.

1. We know a new freedom and happiness.

2. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

3. We will comprehend the word "serenity".

4. We will know peace.

5. We will see how our experiences would benefit others.

6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

7. We will lose interest in selfish things.

8. Self-seeking will slip away.

9. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change.

10. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us.

11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us.

12. We will realize that God is doing for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves.



My promise was #2 We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.



The hardest lesson for me to learn is to be gentle with myself. Every binge I'd beat myself up, I'd punish myself, hate myself. My self loathing & stress over my bingeing caused me to binge even more. Even when I was doing well with my eating I'd be obsessing about my past or future binges.



It wasn't until many months into my program that I realized God put my eating disorder into my life for a reason. It's there to keep my focus on God. When I stop turning to God I end up falling into a binge. If God put this into my life why would I regret it? Regretting & fretting the past causes me to repeat it. Yet ignoring the past will also cause me to repeat it. The only way I can recover is by learning from my failures. Each time I fell off the wagon I try & learn what the causes were.



I should strive for progress not perfection! I've found when I strive for perfection it causes me to procrastinate. Procrastination causes paralysis Looking back I ask myself if I would have done differently if I HAD The chance. "Darn right I would!" But the gift of this promise is the realization that it has been the totality of life experience that has brought me to this stage of my spiritual journey. And I have come to love the man I ha e become & still becoming, having learned to love the lessons (at least eventually) that come with my struggles to live into the fullness of who God made me to be. It would be hard to imagine an addict coming into recovery who does not regret the harm they have caused themselves & others. But these promises are listed not at the beginning of the book, but after the part describing the 9th step, which is "made direct amends to such people that we have harmed wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. If I'm following the 12 step program of recovery I will have made a sincere attempt to do all I can to right any wrongs & move on to forgiveness. If I have committed myself to practicing this spiritual discipline on an ongoing basis, in the context of a relationship with God, I can't see that regret is of much use. At some point I, a recovering addict has to let go of beating up on myself & focus on gratitude for the opportunity to really transform my life for the better.