muse

I believe that God is constantly working. Sometimes I’m just too busy to notice. That’s one good thing about working the OA program. Renee and my time in study, prayer, and meditation help me look for God and his work in my life. For example, a couple of months ago I decided that I needed to stop eating my lunch in the cafeteria at work. I always took my own food, but consistently got distracted by the cake, rolls, and ranch dressing eaten by co-workers and patients. So, I let Matt, Kelly, and Terri know that I would not be joining them any more for lunch. I figured I might have to eat alone, but that it would be worth it to avoid being triggered. Somehow, Matt, Kelly, Terri, and I started eating lunch in Matt’s office. Then, the game of sorry was added. Now, that lunch hour is our sanctuary. We lock the door and enjoy the quiet and the time of separation from the patients. I enjoy the absence of trigger foods and we play game after game of sorry. So, I stepped out on a limb to protect my abstinence and sanity and God provided in a greater way than I could have ever hoped or imagined. He is good. It is nothing earth-shattering, but it is a small miracle. The program tells me to stick around until I get my miracle. I keep looking for a big miracle, a magical formula for abstinence. Instead, I get daily provisions for abstinence, strength, hope, and yes, little miracles.

I just finished a fantastic book entitled, Beautiful Boy, by David Sheff. It is about a “father’s journey through his son’s addiction.” My mother gave it to me and I devoured it in a matter of three days. I needed the wisdom from the book. Sheff helped me understand the “other” side of things. The side of the parents, the loved ones, the ones who are hurting because of the addict. I have always worked with the addict, the alcoholic. I have always been the patient, the sick one. I can’t decide which side is harder. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Perhaps they’re equally as difficult.

Sheff writes, “I am in silent war against an enemy as pernicious and omnipresent as evil. Evil? I don’t believe in evil any more than I believe in God. But at the same time I know this: only Satan himself could have designed disease that has self-deception as a symptom, so that its victims deny they are afflicted, and will not seek treatment, and will vilify those on the outside who see what’s happening.”

Well said. I personally do believe in God and I do believe in evil. I see both every day. I see both in each patient that I work with. I have to see both. I have to see both in myself. I don’t know how my parents made it through my eating disorder, the anorexia specifically. I don’t know how they watched me starve myself slowly to near death. I just don’t know. I do know that I have survived things I didn’t think I could survive. That you just do the task in front of you because you have to. I’m glad they stuck together and walked through the fire. The book helped me realize how consumed with worry they must have been. I mean, I know they were, but I didn’t understand then. I just wanted them to leave me alone and hug me at the same time. I was so angry and confused and scared. Fear is my biggest memory. Fear of everything. Fear of weight-gain. Fear of success. Fear of failure. Fear of love. Fear of loneliness. Fear of everything.

I made a new friend recently and she is anorexic. It breaks me heart. And the realization that I am powerless over her and over her recovery and healing is humbling. I can’t make her eat. I want her to. I want her to experience the freedom and joy of recovery. I want to break her chains of bondage and set her free. I want her to have what I have been given, what I have taken hold of in life. But I can’t. I am powerless. I am powerless. I am powerless. I fight my battle and she fights hers. I ask her how she’s doing and offer my resources of therapists, nutritionists, meetings, etc. But, that it all. Oh, and I love her to pieces. She is God’s child and my friend.

I would like to end this entry with my favorite paragraph from the AA book. On page 417 the author states, “And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation- some fact of my life- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.”