Drug Medical Information

OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS: THE CROSS-COUNTRY SKIER

From early childhood to the time of my marriage I teeter-tottered up and down the scale. The marriage was unhappy and it ended after five years.

Although my life became happier in the time that followed, in less than two years my weight rose to nearly 200 pounds. A doctor's diet brought it down, but I soon gained it back. I was angry, frustrated and depressed.

About this time I saw an announcement for OA on television. I thought, "I'll have to look into that sometime."

My roommate, who is legally blind, asked me to go cross-country skiing as the driver for a group of blind and partially sighted people. When we got to the ski area we were all fitted for skis and poles. None of us had ever skied before. We were standing in a row waiting to begin, listening to some general orientation from the instructor.

I began to lose my balance. I attempted to maneuver my poles to regain my balance but I fell and in doing so broke a pole. Few of the people around me could see me lying there, disabled as anyone, in a sense. But I felt utterly humiliated.

The rest of the day was a comedy of errors, with the instructor repeatedly saying, "The secret of crosscountry skiing is in managing your weight." I became an overnight expert in getting up on skis, since all I seemed to be able to do once I was up was to fall down again.

Many people would consider this experience a "high bottom," and I feel fortunate that it was no worse. When I got home I telephoned the OA hotline and found a meeting to go to.

My Higher Power had been sort of left behind in my life. I was, and am, an atheist. But I certainly do not believe I am the highest power in the universe. I was able to write a description of my Higher Power as "the forces at work in the universe, the interaction of lives within the sphere of one's own existence; chance, luck and the unfolding of every day according to how it will be."

On Easter Saturday I had the first of what were to become many spiritual experiences. The friendship plant my sponsor gave me had been dying by inches. All week it languished and I with it. I loved that plant and would have done whatever was necessary to save it. It was my stepping-up plant and had been for me a symbol of my new way of life.

Someone said it needed water. I had been warned that many people kill their plants by overwatering them and I had carefully tried to avoid that. Still, I gave the plant about a cup of water and put it and myself to bed. It was lying limp on the soil, its leaves curled up.

I awoke the next morning, the day before Easter, and glanced toward the window. The plant was standing on tiptoe, leaves uncurled, looking healthy and sturdy. Resurrection! A symbol of the sources of my new life: the person who is my sponsor, the person whom I sponsor, Overeaters Anonymous and the Higher Power.

I think by that day I had taken step three, but it was reaffirmed when I turned that poor dying plant over, having done what I could and leaving the rest up to the life force that is a manifestation of my Higher Power.

A year ago I weighed 180 pounds, wore a size 40 swimsuit and was full of negative thinking. I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and frequently drank a six-pack of beer or three to four highballs at a sitting. I consumed unmeasured quantities of carbohydrates at will. I slept frequently and long - eleven or twelve hours on a weekend night followed the next day by a two-hour nap. I used four-letter words and other profane language frequently. It seemed to fit my chip-on-the-shoulder attitude.

Today I weigh 128 pounds and wear a size 14 misses swimsuit. This is the weight and size I was twenty years ago at the age of twenty. I do not smoke or drink alcoholic beverages, and I swear infrequently and mildly compared to the "drunken sailor" who used to talk out of my mouth. It just doesn't seem to fit my current lifestyle.

I am a vegetarian. This caused some problems for my sponsors, but I learned that OA is big enough for everyone.

I sleep seven hours out of every twenty-four as my doctor recommended. I get a lot of outdoor activity. This winter, if we can afford it, my roommate and I are going to get cross-country skis. I no longer have to worry about not being able to manage my weight - on or off skis.

As for the spiritual aspect of the program - which for me is the practice of the twelve steps - there is a quotation from the AA book, Came to Believe, which I would like to share:

"I know that spiritual growth is a great, wide, beautiful thing and that I have only stepped up to the open door."

For me, that door is OA. I only hope it will open for compulsive overeaters everywhere.

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