Crash

Attention All: this is a community service announcement concerning public safety:

Foodfairy is learning to drive!

Actually, I've been learning to drive for a while now. But today I had my first accident. I'm pretty shaken up about it, and my natural reaction would be to eat. I can control it for the time being, but without some program work that will only be a temporary soluation. As one of the virtual speakers I've been listening to lately mentioned, if you don't write about your feelings you will eventually eat over them, sooner or later. That has certainly been my experience. I can deal with my emotions by bottling them up for only so long. But inside that bottle they all ferment into hunger. So I know I need to write about how I feel right now. I haven't been injured physically by the accident, but I could still be injured by the emotional fall-out.

So basically what happened was this: I was driving along a two-laned road that becomes one lane about 200m down from where I was. So, knowing I would have to change lanes at some point, I thought I would be smart and get in early. However, there is an important turn off before the lanes merge, so, the cars in the target lane are liable to be stopping quickly. This is why, in fact, my supervising driver had always waited until AFTER we passed the turnoff to tell me I needed to change lanes.

So, being inattentive and wilful as I usually am, I decided to change lanes early, without being directed, and without seeing that there was a car getting ready to stop and indicate.I was going too fast and I didn't check in front of me as well as behind me before I changed lanes. I think I got distracted when my supervising driver asked me why I was changing lanes. Anyway, I pulled in behind the car in question, and, I think, accelerated. I saw it, and my supervising driver yelled BRAKE!!! and I put my foot on the ACCELERATOR. I soon realised that I had put my foot on the wrong pedal and switched, but it was too late. We banged corners. Here's a picture of the corner of my car.

So the other guy got out and said I'd hit something. I said I hadn't, because my supervising driver said she didn't think I had. This got his back up, and he said "Yes you have, get out and have a look." Well I didn't want to get out and have a look. I was stopped in the middle of the road held in place only by the footbrake, inches from his car, and taking up two lanes. I asked if we could drive down the shoulder at the bottom of the hill. But by now he thought I wasn't going to take responsibility for it, and so he was trying to insist that I give him my name, license and registration before I went anywhere. We managed to convince him to follow us 100m down to the kerb, and I got out and gave him my license and name. But by that time I had started crying and was close to breaking down. So my supervising driver took over and I went to the car and started shaking and bawling. We went straight home, and I sat on the couch and bawled and cried some more. My supervising driver happened to be my mum, and so she sat on the couch with me and comforted me.

I have so many feelings going round in my head at the moment and I don't know what they are. I feel angry and resentful towards the other driver and my mum. I'm not exactly sure why. I mean he didn't really do anything wrong. The accidwent was undoubtedly my fault. It was no one else's fault- not my mum's and not his. He was angry and pedantic about getting my details-but who wouldn't be, especially after I denied I hit him in the first place? I'm resentful of my mum because she didn't tell me that I was a wonderful driver and it wasn't my fault (which is what I wanted to hear, but it wasn't the truth) and because she's still upset and gloomy, and that makes me feel bad and guilty.


I'm afraid, very afraid. I'm afraid that he will come after me for all I've got, and that the damage to his car and/or our car will be much worse than it looks, and there will be, at the very least, a huge insurance excess that I can't afford and my parents can't afford (I'm really struggling with money at the moment anyway). I'm afraid that my mum will think I'm a terrible driver and not take me out driving again. Or, if she does take me out driving again, I'm afraid she'll get all overcautious and overprotective and do the whole "You have to drive at 40km an hour [24miles] in an 80km [48miles] zone" thing. I'm afraid that my ADHD will stop me from ever being a good driver. That I'll never be able to pay attention to everything on the road, and that I'll be stuck at home with no life forever. Or else I'm afraid that one day I'll have a terrible car accident and get brain damage and turn into a zombie or a horrible person or something. (Yes I'm getting ahead of myself). I'm afraid that my parents will be angry at me and hate me.

I'm also afraid of my feelings- that they're not right or proper or real or something. This is a longer-running issue that is coming out in my fourth step. But I often use sad feelings to manipulate others, and I can't tell the difference between genuine bad feelings, and dramatized ones. Often I think it's a combination of both. But I still have this guilt and confusion about where one ends and the other begins. Today, when I was crying and shaking, was it to get sympathy and leniency from the other driver and from my mum? Or was it because I was actually shaken up? The thought certainly did cross my mind that I should cry, and that it would be better for me if I did, but I was also upset, I think. And when I called the people whom I'd been goin to see to say that I wouldn't make it, did I really need to tell them I'd crashed my car, so that they'd be all sympathetic? Couldn't I have just said something happened? Wouldn't other people be too ashamed or shaken to tell anyone that? Doesn't the fact I was able to use it to excuse something show that I wasn't really feeling ashamed, guilty and shaken enough?

I also feel fear about guilt. I worry taht I don't feel guilty enough. I'm really quite self-centred in my reactions to all of this. I"m not concerned for the person I crashed into, or my mum's trauma and state of mind. I'm not concerned for the other people on the road (primarily). I know I need to feel guilty, and to feel humbled so that I won't be so cocksure of myself next time I drive. But I can't make myself feel these things to a satisfactory extent, And if I did feel them to the extent I think I should I woulnd't be able to cope anyway. So I'm scared of not feeling the right way, scared of feeling the right way, and just damned confused and guilty.

Epilogue: Learning to drive in my part of Australia:

Ok, so the first thing you guys need to know is that I've had my learner's permit for about five years. That's a little bit long, but the reasons for it are threefold:

1. Finding the time and money was difficult for a long time

2. I am a procrastinator

3. The laws about driving in my part of Australia are insanely strict. So it's becoming more and more common to take a long time to get your licence

In my state you have to go through ALL the following stages to get a full licence

1. Turn 17 years old

2. Take a test on the road rules and safe driving habits, getting a very very high score

3. Complete 50 hours of driving practice under the supervision of a fully licensed (not provisional) driver, practising a variety of manoevres in a variety of conditions (since I got my learners' permit it's gone up to 120 hours thank goodness I missed that.)

4. Pass a very strict on road test, which almost everyone fails the first time.

5. Receive a 1st level provisional license (red P's) and keep those for a year. Your driving is restricted during this period, and you have ot display P-plates on your car

6. Pass a test based on a computer simulation designed to test how you deal with emergencies on the road

7. Receive a second level provisional license (green P's) and drive for another two years with P-plates on your car and restrictions

8. FINALLY receive your full license.

Is that overkill or what???

My favourite quotes from the 10th Tradition

Hi there. I'm Foodfairy, a compulsive overeater. When I was reading the Tenth Tradition in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous, I wrote down these passages and I thought I would share them with you.

"The OA recovery program is essential to each one of us. Our very survival depends on it. Without it...many of us would have litle time or energy left to do anything else." -p186
This is a helpful reminder when I don't feel like working the program. I need to remember how much I would lose if I lost my recovery. I need to remember the promises of the program. I might not die in a physical or literal sense, but I would lose so much of my vitality, that I would be useless to the world around me, and die a slow emotional and spiritual death

"We find we can live happier and more effective lives wehn we focus on doing our Higher Power's will each day, rather than on conflicts." -p189
Dale Carnegie once said that we should avoid conflicts like we do a pit full of snakes. He pointed out that they really serve no good purpose. Most of the time when we are involved in conflicts we are not taking constructive action. The Big Book says that faith without constructive unselfish action is dead.

I hate my sister and my boyfriend

Resentments, resentments, resentments. I know the Big Book says that we must be rid of them or they kill us. It also says that our troubles are of our own making, a result of our self-centred-ness. Yeah? Well perhaps that's true. But right now I still feel #*%* resentful of both those people...so much so that I'm sobbing in my bed at 3:30am in the morning. Unless I write SOMETHING I'm going to eat for sure. I can't write too much, because I don't want to violate their privacy and abuse them online. Essentially, it comes down to both of them making me feel rejected and unimportant. That desire to be important and loved by others is one of the strongest forces in my life.
Today I was watching a movie called "Too Good to Be True". Basically it's a thriller about a woman who has two men after her. In my self-centred insanity I found myself desperately wishing I was her, that I had men who loved me that much. I think now that I've lost almost 60lb, boys should be falling all over me. Wny not? because I suck! What's wrong with me that no boys even look at me except for the boyfriend that treats me like crap??? *sighs* What's wrong with me that my own twin sister doesn't answer my SMS? I don't know. Maybe I'm self-centred. I can only pray for that to change. I commit to you guys that I won't eat over this problem, at least not for the next 24 hours.

Mini Big Book.....What the????

I would really love to know if I am the only person in the world that finds it extremely ironic, to the point of being a little bit freaky, that there is a pocket-sized version of the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book?

Well there is. And since I'm a big fan of anything portable, I bought one at a meeting I attended recently whilst travelling away from home. And it's been a Godsend! I've been carrying it everywhere with me and reading it on trains, buses and in waiting rooms.I've also been listening to speakers whilst working out, doing housework, and doing pretty much anything else. I've been trying to work the program for an average of 2-3 hours per day. It's a lot, but the speakers help me to do it without losing too much time. And it's definitely worth it. I'm grateful to say that I have been abstinent now since Friday February 8th, despite some quite severe personal problems. As a reward, I've lost more than 1kg since then. I am now 27kg down from my top weight!!! Great news. Keep watching that ticker. Wiht God's help it will continue to move in the right direction.

If I had to sum up what I've been learning with all this program work I've been doing, it's this: that this program must truly have a spiritual basis for us. "Derrrr!" I hear you saying "Doesn't it say over and over again in the program literature that the spiritual is foundational?" Well yes it does, but that doesn't mean I was listening does it?

When we come to OA, we are told immediately that "This is not a diet and calories club or a weight loss program." and that we shouldn't treat it as one. I couldn't understand what they meant. I treated OA as a diet and calories club. Then, my sponsor's constant insistence that OA is not about weight, it's about changing your life, finally sunk in, and I started to examine myself on an emotional level. I thought that by unearthing my emotions, and learning about myself, I could learn how to fix myself. I started treating OA like a therapy program.

Chapter 3 of the AA Big Book, however, blasts the therapy program illusion out of the water, with the same torpedoe that blasts all hope of future physical normalcy out of the water. Here are some of my favourite quotes from that chapter (translated for the compulsive eater):






Parallel with our sound reasoning there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking compulsive action around food. Our sound reasoing failed to hold us in check. The insane idea won out." p 37

"In some circumstances we have gone out deliberately to binge or purge, feling ourselves justified...But even in this type of beginning we are obliged to admit that our justification for a binge was insanely insufficient in light of what always happened." p37


"She made a beginning...All went well for a time, but she failed to enlarge her spiritual life. To her consternation, she found herself stuffing her face again half a dozen times in rapid succession." Chapter 3 p35



"The actual or potential food addict...will be absolutely unable to stop eating compulsively on the basis of self-knowlege."



"The compulsive eater at certain times has no effective mental defence against the first bite....Neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defence. Her defence must come from a higher power. "Chapter 3 p 43

Chapter Four then says:

"Lack of power, that was our dilemma....that's exactly what this book is about. It's main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself...."

For those of you who are interested, my fourth step inventory is also going well, albeit slowly.
See you all again soon.
Love from Foodfairy- Compulsive Overeater, and powerless to manage my own life.

I want abstinence!

Hello Everyone! I’m powerless over food and I cannot manage my own life. How about you?

So...a new post, a new excuse for blog neglect. This time I’ve been tripping from one end of my country to the other, stopping in at home for a night or two to fulfil a local commitment, then setting off again. Travelling can be great fun. But it’s not wonderful for recovery. Not only does it often become difficult to find the time, privacy and internet/phone/meeting facilities for working the program, but there are a lot of triggers for overeating, including stress, change, fatigue, lack of control over what and when you eat, and so on. Overall I saw progress on this trip compared to previous trips in recovery, but failed to maintain abstinence, mainly due to a combination of stress, fatigue and program neglect, as well as just plain self-will.

Early Thursday morning I left home for an 8.5 hour train trip to visit my paternal grandmother in the town where pretty much all of my dad’s family grew up and resided for two or more generations. It’s a country town which gets pretty boring at times so I took a friend along. Being a compulsive people pleaser, living with two people outside of my “inner circle” was slightly stressful. Moreover, food has always been a huge part of my relationship with my grandmother. Just stepping through the door at her house is a trigger for me.

I almost made it through that trip abstinent. I say almost, because on my last full day there I gave in and had “just one” of my grandmother’s home-made sugary treats. I managed to be abstinent after that for about 12 hours...but the obsession that had been triggered was brewing inside me, and eventually broke through the flimsy barrier of my willpower. After everyone had gone to bed I raided the cupboards not once, but twice, and and did not regain abstinence until two days later. However, progress not perfection is my favourite OA slogan. I can definitely say that there was improvement. Apart from the length I held out, I was much firmer with my grandma about my eating requirements, and less worried about putting her out, than I have been in the past

I arrived home at about 9pm on Tuesday the 29th of January, and hurried to prepare a lesson for the next day. I felt very resentful when only 4 people turned up to the free, volunteer English class that I had cut short my time at my grandma’s to eat. After getting home from the lesson I packed my bags for another destination, got to bed around midnight, and woke up at 3:30am the next morning January 31st to head to the airport. My second destination was more than a twelve hour drive from my home, but this time I flew. I went to visit a very dear friend of mine who is now studying there. I got back from that trip at 12:30am of February 6th, snatched a few hours sleep and hurriedly prepared a shambles of a lesson for that afternoon. After getting home on the Wednesday night I collapsed into bed, and I’ve spent the last 2 days recovering.

I started my abstinence again on the morning of the interstate trip. During my time with my friend, I slipped up a teensy bit once or twice. But overall I would say I was abstinent the whole time- eating according to plan without white flour or sugar. That was a definite record for time away from home. However, getting a record for nomadic abstinence made me cocky and wilful, as did the loneliness and depression at saying goodbye to my friend again. By the time I left her I was back in the illness. As I was saying goodbye to my friend all I could think about was how I would soon have the chance to eat without any accountability at the airport. I did overeat in amount at the airport, but I still stayed away from white sugar and white flour. That was definitely my Higher Power not me at work, coz I came awfully close. Unfortunately, even that abstinence broke when I got home. I had two white rolls on arriving home, and the next day I also ate some of my number one binge food: ice cream.

The thing that really ruined my abstinence this second time was the return of self-will and cockiness. I’ve just started my fourth step. (More about that in another post), and one of the targets of resentment I found myself writing down was God (see the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous Chapter 5 for more about self will and resentments in the fourth step) . I’m so angry at him for giving me this disease and making me do all this work to overcome it, and for not taking away the cravings, and for everything else that sucks in my life. At the end of the second week away I was so exhausted from maintaining abstinence, so annoyed at all the times I’d felt deprived, that I just said “Hang it all, I deserve this binge”. That’s, of course, a stupid way to think, but we compulsive overeaters are insane after all.

My abstinence started again this Friday. May God help me to maintain it. I’m working my program hard now. I’m sick of breaking abstinence again and again. So many long-timers have years of back-to-back abstinence. I know it’s possible if I just work the steps. I am continuing to work my third and fourth step. More about that later. For now, thanks to all those of you who have bothered to read this far. I hope my story has been of help to you. And thank you to God for the more than a day of abstinence. Please continue to grant me more. I offer myself to you, as your servant creature. Please mould me and remake me so that I might serve you and do your will as you would have me. Amen.

No Hannah no!!!

Ok well today is the 17th of January, which is eight days since my last post. Thats' an improvement. I don't think anyone at all is reading me any more. Maybe I should advertise this blog a bit more.

I went on a binge yesterday, but today has been pretty much abstinenbt, except for eating my midnight snack an hour early. To be honest, I haven't really put together 2 days B2B abstinence since the big binge of Tuesday night last week. At that time I fell for the lie that I could stop bingeing any time. It's simply not true. The life of the addict is one governed by inertia. When I was learning science in primary school, there was a very snmple definition of inertia:

"Things [read addicts] like to do what they are already doing"
Addicts like to do what they are already doing. That means, if they are bingeing, that's what they want to do and it's very very hard to stop. When you've been abstinent for a period, it get's easier to remain so. If anyone is reading this blog and thinking about bingeing.
DONT DO IT!!!
Employ these guys if you have to!

Although make sure they know what they're doing...or you'll end up with something like what happened to these Aussie Mike Moores (The Chaser Team)

The great news is that for those of us who are COE's, we do have a cheer squad. All our brothers and sisters in recovery are cheering us on. Thank God for them.

Rebel girl!

It's been 9 days since my last post. So that means I'm getting close to keeping my "once a week" commitment.

I'm also going well with getting to face to face meetings. Part of that is due to the fact that there are now people at my local meeting who can offer lifts. Yesterday's meeting was really good. The sharing was very open and honest. Althoguh I feel like I wasn't 100% honest with the others about my struggles. I felt like I wanted to project an image of being more recovered than I am because the newest person there (3 meetings) is leaning on me a bit, and I like giving her advice. I feel like I can give her some advice and help, but that if she sees that I'm weak she won't want to listen to me. However I know that I need to be honest for the sake of both our recoveries, because otherwise she will develop unrealistic expectations and I will deceive myself as well as her. As my sponsor says, honesty is crucial to recovery.

It annoys me when people act like the online program isn't the "real" OA program. It's a breach of the 1st tradition to be so closed-minded to people who practice the program in a different way to you. The Recovery Group, and this blog are both governed by the 12 traditions and are based around the use of the twelve steps to stop eating compulsively, which therefore makes the online communities and tools perfectly valid parts of the OA community through which we can the program.

Weight loss is still going well- I'm down another 1.8kg since I last weighed in (no doubt largely to do with hormones...but lets not look a gift horse in the mouth!). Unfortunately, I decided that the best way to celebrate such a loss was to binge on sugary foods. I've forbidden sugar and refined flour in my food plan. And I managed to stay abstinent for about 6 days straight. Not bad I suppose, but not great. The last 36 hours have, however, been an on and off binge. And it's been a crazy binge too, the kind where you go around the house and seek out whatever's there, even if you don't really like it, just for the sake of stuffing food in your mouth. And it wasn't like I didn't know what I was doing. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I wanted to do it anyway. I feel like a rebellious teenager. I can hear myself saying to God "Why do I have to always do what you say? It's not fair. I want to eat these foods and I'm going to. I should be able to. " It's so like an immature and belligerent child. But it does seem unfair to me that I should be asked to trust God with my life when God is the one who gave me this diseas. I mean, at the very least surely he could have prevented it. If he can stop it now, why couldn't he stop it earlier? I know the answer, that the disease is here to teach me something, but I don't like what it's teaching me, that I can't control my life, that I have to submit to God. I wanna be my own boss damn it!!! Grrrr step 3 sucks!!!

Part of the problem is my boyfriend. I don't wanna break up with him, and I think that God might have other ideas. So I really don't wanna submit my life to God as I understand him, because I'm frightened of what that would entail. OUr relationship is very complicated. I just wanna give it a chance to work when he gets back from overseas. Ahhhh complicated

Ok there we go, at least I'm starting to talk about this problem. That's a start. I've been hiding it and unwilling to talk about it for a while. I guess that's what "Acting as if you have the willingness to be willing" means. It means doing what you need to become willing, even if you don't really want to be willing. He he he I reckon this is going round and round in circles a bit.