A Wellspring of Hope
Newsletter of The Recovery Group
February 2000
Volume 2, Issue 2
ser*en*dip*i*ty ~ (noun) First appeared 1754:
the faculty or phenomenon of finding
valuable or agreeable things not sought for.
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FEATURED ARTICLES
From Our Editor
From Our Founder
From Our Administrator
From Our Meeting Coordinators
From Our Loop Coordinators
From Our Recovery Group Members
From the Literature
The Recovery Group IRC Meetings
AOL Meetings - A&R Forum
Announcements
From Overeaters Anonymous
Recovery Group Contacts
The Serenity Prayer
FROM OUR EDITOR
Dear friends in recovery,
Welcome to the February 2000 edition of Serendipity! The message from our
trusted servants in this month's edition is the phenomenal growth of the
Recovery Group and the corresponding need for more members to perform
service to the group. Our founder, Mari, pays special tribute to one
trusted servant, Gary, a/k/a Niteowl, who gives countless hours to the
Recovery Group website. John, Administrator of the Recovery Group, adds
his plea to members to volunteer for the many trusted servant positions
available right now. And Anne, Meetings CoCoordinator and CoEditor of
Serendipity, emphasizes the need for more meeting leaders to cover the
burgeoning meetings schedule. One of the primary tenets of the anonymous
programs is that we cannot maintain our recovery unless we give it away.
One way of doing this is through service to the group. I encourage
everyone to consider giving a couple of hours a week to this worthy
venture.
We have also included loop profiles of Italian Journey to Recovery and Big Book and
Recovery in this edition. Loreta, coordinator for Italian Journey to Recovery, writes
about the progress made with Italian Journey to Recovery and the initial success of the
Italian language meetings. And Maureen, coordinator of Big Book and
Recovery, tells us about the mission of the loop and invites all of us to
join in the study of the Big Book, which is the foundation of our program.
In a new feature this month, two of our members share their ESH with us.
Jenna, a member of JTR, and Frank, a member of Spanish and Recovery, both eloquently
trace their very different journeys to recovery through Overeaters Anonymous.
Literature for this month is the Second Step Prayer and an article called "Sanity Exchange,"
which is reprinted from the August 1998 Lifeline of OA. The newsletter concludes
with a list of the weekly Recovery Group meetings, announcements, OA
information, and contact list.
As Mari notes in her article, February is a month in which we honor love.
Serendipity has experienced love in the growing number of articles you are
contributing. I thank you for your wonderful support, and assure you that
all of the articles will be used in this or upcoming editions. I also
encourage all of you to give your love to the Recovery Group, and to your
own recovery, by volunteering for a trusted servant position. You won't
regret it!
Love in recovery,
Suzanne,
Editor
SERENDIPITY
FROM OUR FOUNDER
Dear Loopies,
February is the month of love. And my words to you this month are about a
special kind of love. The kind of love Trusted Servants give to people
from around the world whom they've never met. And about the love these
people give back in return. I want to tell you about one of our Trusted
Servants ... one who epitomizes the word, Servant. And who was born to be
called Trusted.
There came a time when I became overwhelmed with all there was to do in
maintaining the Recovery Group. When God planted the seed in my heart
that He wanted a place for people all over the world to gather and work
the steps and help each other recover, He never told me He was going to
include a website in that project. I embraced what was offered to me far
more as a gift than a job. I could type, I had learned how to do a few
things on a computer, I had empathy for other people who suffered as I had
suffered and I deeply loved OA, the Steps, the Big Book, the Traditions
and everything that made my recovery program work. But a website???
I began the site with Journey to Recovery and each time we started a new
loop that meant a new page or two on the site. I didn't know a website
from the front page of a newspaper and never questioned how one got from
here to there ... but if we had loops and studies then I guess God meant
for us to find people who needed us and short of publishing books and
staying on the telephone all day, a website seemed the best way to do that.
And so we did. And the loops grew in number and so did the members. The
studies had to be put up each month and the loops grew more intricate and
the pages grew. And grew and grew. I Peter Principled out. I had
learned more than I ever dreamed I could possibly learn about something technical
and I knew that hiring someone was out because we don't use money in our
group. We use us. I prayed, I read, I tried to learn ... I became overwhelmed.
One morning after spending half the night trying to figure out how to
center a rose and how to make letters stay in the middle of the page
instead of flying off to the left, I ended up in tears. Dedicated loop
members who understood the technical aspects of web work had come and gone
and while they were here we worked hard. But it was on again and off
again and websites and loops don't function just when someone happens to
be here. Websites don't tell thousands of visitors that "we're down for
the day, folks, because Mari doesn't know how to get a rose centered" ...
they show that rose laying on its side down at the bottom of a page with
the copyright sign instead of perkily introducing the page in the middle of the top.
The post simply said HELP!!!!!! It went to the loops and along with it
went the kind of prayers one gets down on her knees for. And very soon
after my plea for help hit the loops, I began my routine afternoon of
reading the mail and saw a familiar owl. It looked sort of like this . . .
% %
(@)(@)
() V ()
((( )))
(((( ))))
((( )))
--#---#--
NITEOWL
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The writer asked if we needed help. Do you know HTML? Yes. Do you know
how to get writing from my computer and put it so that people all over the
world can read it? Yes. Do you know what to do if a rose ends up
sideways at the bottom of a page next to the copyright when it's supposed
to be in the middle of the top? Yes. You're hired!!! The hours are
long, the work is insane, the loops are growing faster than I can count
them but the pay is extraordinary ~ our currency is miracles. "I'll take it," he said.
And so he did. His name is Gary, aka The NiteOwl, and he is one of God's
greatest gifts to the Recovery Group. Gary puts up with more day in and
day out than any man I have ever met and somehow someway knows what I want
and transforms plain ordinary English words into < > and gibberish and //
# HTML words and suddenly I get an e-mail with his famous one word "done"
and I go to the page and there it is . . . what I could only envision in
my mind right there for tens of thousands of people to see.
Gary is an OA member from Florida. He earns his living producing websites
for people but is also a consummate photographer and musician. He has a
beautiful family and why he does what he does and gives so much of himself
to us, I will never know ... but this small tribute can't begin to say
what this dedicated Trusted Servant has meant to me and to our group. The
thousands of letters that flow back and forth between Gary's computer and
mine have produced the 150 page website known simply as Recovery. I know
of no other Trusted Servant who has given the time, the dedication, the
dependability and the love that this man has.
And in this month dedicated to love ... and on the pages called
Serendipity which have just about driven him to the point of insanity this
week ... I wish to express the gratitude ... the love ... and the
admiration we all feel to one very special loopie named Gary ... aka, The NiteOwl.
@-}-}-}------
Love in recovery,
Mari
The Recovery Group
FROM OUR ADMINISTRATOR
I have been to some meetings lately in our own room. They were well
attended, and lively. Meeting leaders make it, you know. But some of them
have had no leader show up. Fortunately, someone always has volunteered, once me.
I subscribe to 57 of our loops at the present moment. Most of these are
in digest, and I do not read all of them every day, but I read here and
there, to see how things are. The healthiest loops by and large have
active trusted servants. This is not true in every case, some very
dedicated souls labor against heavy odds, but it is largely true. Some
loops are in need of more trusted servants, and overall, we have fewer
Trusted Servants than there are positions. Often, a trusted servant with
insufficient help becomes discouraged, and some fall behind, and some even resign, burned out.
We have meetings coordinators, who struggle constantly to find meeting
leaders. We need more trusted servants on the loops. This says to me
that we need to hear from you the loop members. Jane Borthwick in a poem
written in 1859 says: "No arm so weak but may do service here." If you
have five or ten minutes a day that you can give in service on a loop, or
an hour during the week to a meeting, please let me know. I will find you a place.
Service is certainly good program. The greatest service, it is said, is
our own abstinence. After that, helping others. Your Recovery Group needs
you, and we have no draft. Please write to me at jomarst1@aol.com
and make my day.
Love in service,
John
Recovery Group Administrator
FROM OUR MEETING COORDINATORS
Dear Friends,
January 2000 has been a booming month for the Recovery Group Online
Meetings with record numbers of people joining us in the #Recovery channel
to share their experience, strength and hope and to enjoy the fellowship
of the program. In January, for the first time ever, we have seen up to
38 people regularly attending our 9.30 PM meetings which is definitely the
most popular meeting on our meeting schedule. We hope that the increasing
numbers is not just due to loopies making New Years resolutions and that
these bumper crowds will continue!
January also saw many of the Specialty and Little Loops join The Recovery
Group and we have welcomed many of these loopies to our online meetings. I
would personally like to welcome all the Specialty and Little Loops to
come and join us in #Recovery to experience the power of our online
meetings and to join us in a Recovery Talk session where the true meaning
of the fellowship is experienced.
With record numbers attending online meetings, we are always in need of
additional meeting leaders and substitute meeting leaders to ensure that
the meetings go ahead as planned - if you regularly attend online
meetings, if you are a member of one of the Recovery Group loops and you
wish to provide service by leading meetings, please contact us at
RecoveryMeetings@yahoo.com.
See you in the meetings!
Love in recovery
Anne
Meetings CoCoordinator
The Recovery Group
FROM OUR LOOP COORDINATORS
Italian Journey to Recovery
Ciao everyone!
I'm Loreta, coordinator of Italian JTR, the Journey to Recovery loop in Italian.
It seems only yesterday that, while surfing the net, I came across these
loops and entered the world of OA. There were no face-to-face OA meetings in
Fermo, the small medieval town in Italy where I live, so for quite a while
the only contact I had with OA was through the loops and the OA literature.
Then, one day, while reading the loop post, I found out that the Italian
National OA Convention was to be held in a town that I could get to by
train and off I went. During the convention, a speaker asked if there
were people who knew something about the Internet and, if so, could they
stay behind to be part of a new committee which would examine how the
Internet could help compulsive overeaters.
I put up my hand and found myself with about 5 other people whom I had
never met before. It was the first time I was with other compulsive
overeaters and I felt very shy. They all had a lot of experience in OA
while I knew so little. When I told them about our Recovery loops, they
were all astonished. Of course, there was the language problem but thank
goodness problems don't exist for our wonderful trusted servants and our
founder Mari!
Little by little, the Italian JTR loop was born. It's been over a year now
and it's exciting to see that on my last check, there were 62 members.
This is even more exciting if we consider that here in Italy, not so many
people have computers as compared to the States. And up until now, no one
has ever signed off, and that's another marvelous result. The members
are using the loop more and more as an instrument for their recovery. In
the beginning they were a bit shy but now things are going really well.
More and more people are sharing. Often a topic comes up in a share and
then others share on it too, so that it becomes a sort of thread for
discussion, and this helps everybody.
Another important step was taken just before Christmas when we started our
first on line meeting in Italian. I had great fun teaching our Italian
loop members how to get to and use a chat line. Remember, none of them had ever
used one before! But when we were finally there together on that first
Sunday evening (our meeting is on Sunday 3.30pm Eastern Time), everything went smoothly.
The only problem with our meetings is that most of the loop members have a
computer only in the office, not at home. So we ended up last Sunday with 2
of the people in the meeting having 1 other loop member each at their
houses. In this way, we managed to get more people to the meeting
although they do not have a computer. How's that for problem solving?!!!
We are already discussing starting another meeting and also we will be
organising our web page in the near future. We think this is an excellent
result for computer illiterate compulsive overeaters, don't you?
Big Book and Recovery
The Big Book and Recovery (BB&R) Loop is a discussion/study group which
has as its mission to provide an additional area of recovery and support
to COEs who appreciate the AABB (Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book), lovingly
known as the Big Book. For OA members who want to thoroughly explore the
Big Book from beginning to end and to all loop members we would be happy
to have you join us....
The mission of the Big Book and Recovery Loop is:
1. To read the Big Book section by section, through the eyes of a COE. For
instance, the word alcoholic will be changed to the words Compulsive
Overeater ... the word alcohol to food.
2. To gain from the experience, strength, and hope (ESH) of the AA
founders...ESH that is used today, in our existing fellowships.
3. To explore the evolution of the Big Book's spiritual foundation that was
developed and used by the founders..... and by people in recovery today.
4. To learn the answers to questions such as what are spiritual tools;
how does this apply to my addiction; how do I work these Big Book ideas
into my recovery journey.
This month has been an active one on the Big Book and Recovery loop.
Thumper has done a wonderful job posting daily quotes and questions for
the loop.
It is not too late to sign up and experience the BB&R's ESH. Visit our
website at
http://recovery.hiwaay.net/special/bbrecovery.html or signup at ONElist -
http://www.onelist.com/community/BigBookAndRecovery.
Love, Maureen
FROM OUR RECOVERY GROUP MEMBERS
Dear Friends,
I sit here on the morning of my 51st belly button birthday and think how
grateful I am for Overeaters Anonymous and the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions
and the tools and the folks in program, etc. Without this program, I know
that I would be dead.
HP and this program gave me a new life -- a life better than ever. I came
into this program (for real) in February of 1991. At that time, I was in
the process of gaining weight that I had lost in Weight Watchers.
Although WW had given me a great gift in teaching me how to eat and deal
with my physical problem of compulsive overeating, my emotional and
spiritual recovery was zilch. I was trying very hard in WW. Giving back
my stars on my ribbon, trying to embarrass myself into being "good." And
of course it wasn't working.
So a friend invited me to an OA meeting. She never showed, but someone
else (now a VERY dear friend) who was a newcomer oozed me in the door and
I have been going back now for nearly 9 years.
Not abstinent all of that time. When first getting started, I had major
problems with the spiritual part of the program. Didn't believe in God.
Actually scoffed (internally) at others who did. Well, after 3 months of
following a food plan (a diet because I couldn't work the steps past Step 1
because I kept running into the God thing), something so horrible happened in
my life that I had no alternative but to turn to God. Then I could turn
my will and my life over to God and I was abstinent for 5 1/2 years. With
a weight release of over 200 pounds. The gifts I received were enormous.
I was off my blood pressure medicine. I could walk and breath at the same
time. I looked great for my age. I loved folks and was willing to
receive love. I had discovered acceptance.
Then came the relapse. I am still trying to figure out why those 180+
pounds came back so quickly (1 year of relapse). I have identified many
reasons, primary being, I think, loss of faith. I don't think I ever
went back to totally BP (before program) feelings in any area of recovery,
but the avalanche had started and death was fast approaching. I was in Hell!
In the area of physical recovery, the outside evidence of abstinence was
totally lacking. Back up to a size 3 or 4X depending. But I was doing 3
meals with no sugar and no alcohol and no breaded fried food. Just too
much food -- and a paucity of exercise because of health reasons that just
compounded exponentially as I gained weight.
In the area of spiritual recovery, I still believed in God, but had no
faith as far as my personal life went. I had great fear in the "Thy will,
not mine" philosophy. Something traumatic happened and continued to
happen with my job and I guess I held HP responsible. Everyone kept
saying, "This too shall pass," but I placed no credence in that statement.
I did, however, believe in God, just not that he would play an active
part in my life.
Emotionally, the fear started creeping back into my life. And that tainted everything else.
The fire was dead in my eyes. The program was almost dead in my life.
However, I never stopped going to meetings and that, perhaps, was my
saving grace. I went to meetings. That got progressively hard as my
weight climbed and that weight aggravated and caused disabilities. I
thank God for the folks in Beaumont who offered me rides and called me while I was dying.
Without them, I might have given up. They wouldn't let me. And I didn't.
I wanted my miracle back. And then it came. I consider that I came back
from relapse on December 18, 1997. How and why is another story. Suffice
it to say that I had to take the first 3 steps over again -- with VIGOR!
Since that time, I have released 157 of my relapse pounds. And God is
once again at my side. I have absolute acceptance of the fact that I
would be dead, not celebrating this birthday, if it weren't for God and
this program. To them, I give thanks.
Today, I am especially grateful for the following gifts:
- My abstinence -- currently a weight releasing abstinence -- may I guard it and cherish it on a daily basis.
- A good relationship with HP -- may I continue to work on improving it and may I continue to remember that HP is the source of my gifts.
- I am more loving and forgiving, of myself and others. I recognize that we are all human beings. I truly recognize that "acceptance is the key."
- I have once again given up my blood pressure medication.
- When my disability is not acting up, I can walk without pain and actually breathe.
- I look pretty normal when I'm doing that walking.
- I had the courage to continue to go to meetings when I was drowning in denial.
- I had the courage to go back to my home meetings when I returned to Fort Worth.
That was hard for me before I did it, but I realized there was no need for fear after the fact.
Everyone loved me no matter that I had "plumped up."
- I don't need seat belt extenders on planes.
- I am truly happy most of the time and when I'm not, this program has
given me a way to deal with my problems without eating over them.
- For today, I am free of the bondage of food. I have been placed in a place of neutrality.
- I have made many wonderful friends -- both in person and online.
- I have a wonderful new computer (not yet named) who allows me to work on
my recovery with others from around the world.
- There are many face-to-face meetings in the area so I can harvest many hugs.
- God
- Overeaters Anonymous
- YOU
Basically, what it all boils down to is "I am grateful to be alive. I am alive because of OA."
For today, I have a program and that program is endowing me with gifts. I humbly accept them.
Love and hugs,
Jenna
A compulsive overeater and food addict living and recovering in Arlington, TX
How I Got to OA
When I came to OA I was a wreck of a man and of a human being. I weighed
in excess of 450 pounds, I don't know how much more because I couldn't
find a scale to weigh myself. The last scale was in a hospital and it only
went up to 450. I had gone from a 56 inch waist after that to a 60.
I was living in the North Georgia mountains at the time. My nearest
neighbors were about a mile away. I didn't see them very often and when I
did I wouldn't speak to them. I lived in a camper that fit on the back of
a pickup truck. I had it sitting on blocks so I wouldn't fall through the floor.
I was living like a hermit. I had cut myself off from all human contact
that wasn't absolutely necessary. No contact with my family, no friends,
nothing. I realize now that I had gone up there to die. Either drink
myself to death or eat myself to death, whichever came first! I didn't
really care.
I went down to Atlanta only to work to get the money to support my simple
life style. I would earn a few hundred dollars and then retreat once more
to the mountains. I was usually able to last five or six months before I
had to once more visit civilization. Some life style, right?
It was my custom to stay as drunk as I could for as long as I could. When
I got so physically sick that I had to sober up, then I would eat vast
amounts of food, much more than I ordinarily ate.
I had chickens that I kept around the place. My usual breakfast consisted
of a dozen eggs, a pound of sausage, five or six pieces of toast with
butter and jelly, and lots and lots of coffee! That isn't counting all the
food I ate during the morning until lunch. Lunch consisted of four or five
sandwiches, a large bag or two of Doritos or Fritos, a couple of cans of
soda pop, and whatever else there was that was sweet. I snacked all
afternoon and for dinner it wasn't unusual for me to have a cut up
chicken, or half a dozen pork chops, or a couple of steaks, some potatoes,
and some kind of vegetable for dinner. I snacked through the night until I
fell asleep, then at sun up I would start all over again.
I raised a lot of my own vegetables, and traded for a lot of the meat with
people who had weekend cottages around where I lived. I would check their
places if they brought me a bunch of frozen steaks or pork chops. It
worked out for both of us.
I had a family who wouldn't have anything to do with me. I was a very
angry and violent man. I would get into fights with people and hurt them.
Sometimes I wound up in jail. I felt ashamed of my conduct and would swear
to do better. Preachers would come to see me and pray for and with me. I
would be good for a while then I would hear the siren song in my head once
more, and off I'd go again. Or I would be so ashamed that I had to drink
to drown out the guilt and shame. After a time I found that if I ate
enough I could drown out those voices for a while. Between the eating and
the drinking I had no time for my wife and my three daughters. My wife put
up with it for as long as she could (26 years), and then she left.
Of course it was all God's fault! I never could tell you exactly why, but it was!
One morning I was throwing up, on my knees leaning against a pine tree.
The thought came to me that I was almost dead. Did I want to finish myself
off or did I want to live?
I had a choice to make. I chose life. I went to the nearest phone and
called AA. I went to the meetings for a while and then got a sponsor.
After I sobered up, the eating became even worse. I was finally alone with
nothing but food. I think food has always been the first addiction in my
life. Alcohol just got me in more trouble! I was still in very bad shape
physically, mentally, and spiritually when I got here.
One day I was complaining about being so fat that my sponsor lost his
temper. He told me to do something about it or shut up! I told him about
the diets that I had tried and failed at. He told me to forget the blasted
diets. I needed to go to that bunch of people who used the steps to lose
weight. I asked him what the name of it was. "I don't know, AA For Fat
People I guess." He was talking of course about OA. That's how I got into
the program. I really was looking for "AA For Fat People"!!
After 12 years in the wrong program, I can honestly say that it was the
right one for me. I have lost over 200 lbs in those years. I no longer
am feeling as useless as I did before, and I have found a HP that has
given me a way of life I never knew existed. I've heard it said that
abstinence is a gift. I agree with that but must add, for this particular
OA, I've had to work bloody hard to get it and to keep it! Folks, it did
not come easy!
Frank E.
FROM THE LITERATURE
SECOND STEP PRAYER
I pray for an open mind
so I may come to believe in
a Power greater than myself.
I pray for humility and the continued
opportunity to increase my faith.
SANITY EXCHANGE
Whenever I'm tempted to overeat, I take out a checklist I drew up to see
how willing I am to trade what I have for what I'd probably get. Here it is.
In exchange for taking that first compulsive bite, I agree to take a
chance that I will:
- Chase food endlessly right up to bedtime.
- Feel ugly, act ugly, look ugly.
- Gain weight that will be twice as hard to remove later.
- Feel heavy, old, sluggish and short of breath all day and night.
- Carry the monkey on my back every single minute of this day.
- Feel silently defensive, or even hostile, toward every person I meet.
- Realize, too late, that no food, no amount of food, ever solved single a
problem for me.
- Think with self-loathing of my friends in OA who are working hard to
make it through this day, who really care about me and the decision I made
here today.
- Waste this precious day; trash my miracle, my gift of abstinence.
- Wrap myself in a guilt quilt and have a self-pity party.
- Quit working the program, avoid phone calls, skip meetings.
- Risk a full-blown relapse and the loss of all that I've been given in
this program.
I call this my "Free to Choose" list. It works like nothing else ever has.
- G.H., Loomis, California USA, Lifeline, August 1998, reprinted and
modified from Lifeline, December 1986
