Copy of Food Recovery Offices

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Food Prayer 1

The two best spiritual sources that I know of, around food, are Gandhi and the ancient Jewish texts.

 

From Gandhi I took:

“The extinction of the sexual passion is as a rule impossible without fasting.”

"Fasting is as necessary as selection and restriction in diet."

“Those who make light of dietetic restrictions and fasting are as much in error as those who stake their all on them."

 

From the ancient Jews I took:

“Declare a holy fast”
Joel 1:14

“I humbled myself with fasting”
Psalm 35:10

“But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way." “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see." At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.
Daniel 1:8-17

“The food you eat will be eight ounces a day by weight, to be consumed daily at regular intervals.
Ezekiel 4:10

 

From the Twelve-Steppers I took:

1. Most of us have been unwilling to admit we really had an eating disorder.

2. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows.

3. Therefore, it is not surprising that our eating careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could eat like other people.

4. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his eating is the great obsession of every abnormal eater.

5. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing.

6. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

7. We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we had an eating disorder.

8. This is the first step in recovery.

9. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.

10. We eating disordered are men and women who have lost the ability to control our eating.

11. We know that no real eating disordered person ever recovers control.

12. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

13. We are convinced to a man that eating disordered people of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.

And finally I threw in a grouchy old saint:

“A fat stomach never breeds fine thoughts”
Saint Jerome (347-420AD)

From these men's ideas I created a Food Plan that eradicates lust.

 

Food Prayer 2

HP,

Help me to see myself, to simply be honest around food: Do I decide to stop doing something and then go back to it?…Just be honest!

Help me see that if my life is unmanageable around a health issue that there may be some powerlessness in my life.

Specifically, help me see if is there a specific health issue that is making my life unmanageable, like:

acne,

big belly,

heavy hips,

droopy breasts,

eye bags,

rough skin,

heavy pumping of breath when I walk upstairs,

flesh ‘burning’ at the top of my inner thighs when I walk,

night sweats,

sleep apnea,

restless leg syndrome,

can’t see my genitals when I look down cause I am so fat,

rolls of fat...spare tire

set of radials,

fear of being naked,

Oprah wings,

dropped butt,

heart hurts when exerting effort,

buttons bursting,

shame when I have to weigh in at the doctors office,

shame when I get my driver’s license renewed,

shame when I have to sit in a middle seat on an airline flight,

body stinks when I sweat…

If any of these are true, help me to simply be honest that I may truly be powerless over these things.

 

Food Prayer 3

HP,

I surrendered flour and sugar ten years ago when I joined FA.

“Flour makes me stupid, and sugar makes me crazy” made sense to me.

I didn’t want be stupid or crazy.

That was relatively easy for me, after the initial withdrawal.

Quantities of food…that was a different story!

Beginning to use a digital scale to weigh and measure my food, changed my life like nothing else has, except stopping drinking and stopping masturbating.

Today, as a physical act of humility, I will weigh and measure everything I eat, except when I eat out.

 

Food Prayer 4

I use food as a drug

1. to relax me
2. to put me to sleep
3. ironically, to keep me going when I am tired
4. to calm me when I am angry
5. to fill me when I am feeling needy
6. to be with me when I am feeling lonely
7. to defend me when I feel hurt
8. to sate my sadness
9. to lessen my frustration

I use it to celebrate all holidays and occasions:

1. Fourth of July
2. Christmas
3. Thanksgiving
4. Memorial Day
5. Veteran’s Day
6. Labor Day
7. Easter
8. Martin Luther King’s Birthday
9. Mothers’ Day
10. Father’s Day
11. My AA birthday
12. My natal birthday
13. My daughter’s birthday
14. My daughter’s AA birthday
15. My daughter’s graduation
16. Granddaughter-in-laws birthday and graduation
17. My sponcee’s AA birthdays

I use it to relax me as fun, and for recreation...

 

Food Prayers 5

Overeating Consequences:

Heart hurts

muscles ache

arthritis flairs in knees and lower back

respiratory congestion (nasal passages, bronchia, lungs)

headaches

stomach protrudes

eyes bag

skin splotches

nausea

breathing is taxed

numbness

mind is thick and muddled

head, cheeks, arms, hands, thighs, calves, feet and groin all feel stretched out and achey...like I have had an allergic reaction

 

Food Prayer 6

How do I feel when I eat?

Greedy...

The best description of greed I know of is: "He is arrogant and never at rest, because he is as greedy as the grave and like death is never satisfied."

As soon as the first bite gets in my mouth I become greedy around food.

Where did I learn this?

My father, a very strong and courageous man, ‘Starved’ during the Great Depression, beginning when he was only three years old and lasting until the Second World War began, when he was 15 years old.

Attitudinally, he stayed a ‘Starved child’ all his life.

He did not have the “Spiritual wealth” that is so freely available, to all people, in 12 step. (Overeaters Anonymous was not founded until January 1960…)

God have mercy on me…and my Daddy...Amen

 

Food Prayer 7

Why do I eat too much?

“Ingestion analgesia”- the good feeling I get after eating, literally, means “Pain relief from eating”.

It's the drive to survive, pushed even harder by competition or ‘Beating the others to the food’.

That rewarding feeling, historically, ensured survival of the species.

Having such easy access to fat, salt and sugar is a recent development in human history.

The body rewards fatty, salty, sugary foods by releasing “endogenous opioids”…which help control pain.

I start off feeling not good and grumpy, then eat…and feel good

The problem, for me, is right there…I use food to change my feelings, consciously or unconciously.

Some people can just “Control it through mental discipline”.

I am not one of them…

If I am honest, after many failed attempts to control food choices and quantities.

I need the help of God, not in the form presented in church, but a more specific, more “torquey” God.

Jesus just ain’t gonna cut it, in my experience, my brotha’s and sistas’

Just sayin’

 

Food Prayer 8

Help me to celebrate that I have not, through my eating, given myself a stroke.

Stroke is the number five cause of death the US.

According to the Center for Disease Control, 795,000 Americans have strokes each year.

That's over 2000 a day, 90 an hour, or one every 40 seconds.

By the time we finish reading this prayer…an American, somewhere, will have had a stroke.

Could be your mother...

Could be your son…

Could be you...

 

Food Prayer 9

HP,

Simply, help me stay with my current food plan

Help me to serve other people in FA.

I am grateful to be thin and to have such super health.

I am grateful that I don’t have diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, cancer or that I am recovering from a stroke stemming from my food.

I am grateful I am not in the 74% of American’s who are overweight.

I am grateful I am not in the 40% who are obese.

I am grateful, I am not going to be one of the 821 people who die today because of the complications from being fat.

Help me to realize through inventory, accept by choosing to be positive, having the courage to act on the knowledge, that I am not a compulsive overeater, or a food addict…

But, rather that I have an eating disorder.

 

Food Prayer 10

HP,

Help me to use song to reach my heart

Break through my mind

Seep into the cracks, creases and crevices

Let the gift of melody entice and entangle me

Have it throw me down, hard, and leave me in tears

Do whatever you must

Use whatever force is necessary to reach my heart

Because the heart is the pathway to the soul…

And my soul…is you

Break me…until I am down on my knees, if necessary

I will not eat, no matter what…no matter what, I will not eat

No matter what, I will not eat…I will not eat, no matter what

 

Food Prayer 11

HP,

Gandhi said that “Complete control of the palate makes the vow of chastity very easy”

If that is true, then sex and food are related.

The hypothalamus, in my brain, controls food and water intake, hunger and thirst, but it also controls sexual behavior and reproduction.

What I notice in me is that when I am fully sexual, I desire more food.

Also, I notice that when I eat more food than is necessary, I want to be sexual.

When I “Pad my food” (eat more than planned), then I am using food as a drug, typically to relieve anxiety.

There are negative consequences for me when I do this…Why?

The hypothalamus receives signals from pleasure pathways that use dopamine

Once the dopamine is released in my body…I want more!

Have mercy on me Higher Power.

Have mercy on me…

 

Food Prayer 12

“We now see that we have been making unreasonable demands upon ourselves”

“…no peace was to be had unless we could find a means of reducing these demands” (AA 12x12)

What happens when I make unreasonable demands upon myself?

I feel rage!!!

When I act on it, I lash out at unsuspecting, and generally, undeserving people.

Then…I feel shame and self-hatred.

Then I eat…for the “Ingestion analgesia”- the good feeling I get after eating

Ingestion analgesia, literally, means “pain relief from eating”.

If I make unreasonable demands upon myself…I will eat over it.

I want peace today

I will stay within my limits...

 

Food Prayer 13

Is it true that “…character defects, representing instincts gone astray, have been the primary cause of our eating disorders”?

Extremes…

Am I working more than 8 hours a day?

Am I sleeping more than 8 hours a day?

How much television do I watch everyday?

How long I am on social media each day?

How much time do I ‘hangout’ with friends?

How much do I work out each day?

Is it true that “…character defects, representing instincts gone astray, have been the primary cause of our eating disorders”?

Extremes…

How much do I eat every day?

How much sugar do I intake each day?

How much caffeine do I drink every day?

How much flour do I intake each day?

How much oil do I intake each day?

How much fluid do I intake each day?

Is it true that “…character defects, representing instincts gone astray, have been the primary cause of our eating disorders”?

 

Food Prayer 14

"I could not find You, because I was wrongly seeking you outside of me.
...You are within."
Saint Augustine
I could not find you because…I was lost in the ambiguity around food.

 

Food Prayer 15

HP,

Help me accept, be positive and lighthearted…that my food is simple.

Help me to realize that if my food is not tasty, sexy, cool, fun or celebratory

…that I will look for those things in life.

If my food is grey, my life is in color.

If my food is flat, my life is multidimensional.

If my food is quiet, my life is dynamic.

Let’s face it…I have been wrong about my food all my life.

One look at my body will tell me that truth.

I want to have mercy on myself…but I want tell the truth

…to myself, at least.

 

Food Prayer 16

"We repeat to ourselves, a phrase that has appealed to us. Just saying it over and over..."
(AA 12x12 page 103)

“Don’t eat no matter what …no matter what, don’t eat”
“Don’t eat no matter what …no matter what, don’t eat”
“Don’t  eat no matter what …no matter what, don’t eat”

“Fear, doubt and insecurity”
“Fear, doubt and insecurity”
“Fear, doubt and insecurity”

“I am enough, I do enough, I have enough”
“I am enough, I do enough, I have enough”
“I am enough, I do enough, I have enough”

“Just weigh and measure your food”
“Just weigh and measure your food”
“Just weigh and measure your food”

“Nothing tastes as good as thin feels”
“Nothing tastes as good as thin feels”
“Nothing tastes as good as thin feels”

"We repeat to ourselves, a phrase that has appealed to us. Just saying it over and over..." (AA 12x12 page 103)

 

Food Prayer 17

AA aphorism: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…it might be a duck."

Higher Power, help me not be stupid.

Help me, specifically, not to be stupid around food.

If I am eating foods that:

Hurt me

Make me look bad

Cause me to lose sleep

Prevent me from exercising

Lower my self esteem

Impact my love life

…is that stupid?

AA aphorism: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…it might be a duck."

 

Food Prayer 18

If I am failing, help me find a group where I can be honest.

Is it fear of being honest?

Is it pride (worrying about what other people will think)?

Or is it my own feeling of shame?

Is that feeling of shame driven by my own lack of mercy with myself?

Why, why, Oh Lord, can I not be honest about my food…with others?

 

Food Prayer 19

When I am feeling hungry, do I need food?

I eat when I don’t want to feel needy, hurt, sad, lonely, angry, tired, frustrated, bored, etc.

So all my feelings feel are covered up with “I am hungry”.

If I were really hungry, why does a meeting, a phone call, step work or prayer take away my hungry feelings?

Because I have an eating disorder…

The solution is spiritual, here, simply defined as getting connected.

But I can’t get connected unless I am honest that I need help.

 

Food Prayer 20

My father was a twenty two year career army officer.

He then spent ten years in business between military and industry.

He was married for twenty seven years and raised two sons.

He was clear that “If there really was a God, what could possibly be more important than acknowledging that fact.”

He was equally convinced that there was no God.

As a result, he spent the “Spiritual” part of his life...managing food.

You can chose not to be religious…but you can’t choose whether or not to be spiritual.

The spiritual part of life…is like the wet part of the ocean

Help me not do that with my life…around food.

 

Food Prayer 21

When I am powerless over food I don’t say to myself ,"I am going to act out with my food” or

“I am feeling something uncomfortable and I am going to use food as a drug to change my feelings”

I lie, a bald-faced lie…to myself.

I say:

“I didn’t have enough yesterday, so this is okay”.

“I will let myself have this food, because I am not acting out sexually”.

“I do not want to be rigid!”

“This is a tertiary disease, not a primary or secondary one”.

“FA allows people to not weigh and measure in restaurants”.

“What if this family celebration were in a restaurant, instead of at this home?”

Higher Power, help me not lie to myself.

 

Food Prayer 22

HP,

Help me to glory in the love and acceptance I get when I share my actual food usage to safe people.

Help me to not try to use groups of people, to share my truth in, that would ostracize me, or shame me, if I actually were simple and honest with them.

Help me to realize that if I keep getting shamed, blamed or controlled in these groups, and I keep going back, then it is my fault…not theirs.

If “God in Community” is real, then let me remember that…that part of God will appear only if I am honest.

Help me to remember that I cannot recover without “My own conception of God”, p.12 Big Book, and that to try to do so…is nothing but arrogance

Help me to be humble…to be honest about my limits.

 

Food Prayer 23

Lord,

Have mercy on us Lord,

We are dying from our food.

B.B. King your greatest black child guitar genius murdered himself…with fat.

Hampton B. Coles (Ret.) the “ GodFather of Jam”, my friend, my most famous student, dropped dead, on stage, from congestive heart failure…from being fat.

That…even a fool could see.

But there is nothing more devious, deceptive and duplicitous that we, your children, individually, are utterly in denial around, than the effect of our food has on our relationships.

If I were the Devil, daily headed into my office, determined to destroy all life, as my stated corporate purpose, I would not use:

Nuclear weapons, Aids, Racism, or even child molestation as my secret weapon.

That is too obvious, that would be too brief...I would use food.

I would not just kill life, I would make God’s children live and suffer…as long as humanly possible…

 

Food Prayer 24

If I were to lose myself to food, this Randy Newman song would be true, for me:                      

"Was a fool with my money, and I lost every dime.

And the sun stopped shining, and it rained all the time.

It did set me back some, but I made it through.

But I'll never get over losing you."

 

Food Prayer 25

Overeating…

It got my Grandmommie

The King (Elvis)

It got my brother

Alexander The Great

It got my Uncle Donald

President Zachary Taylor

It got my Uncle Chuck

William Makepeace Thackeray

It got my Aunt Annie

English King Henry (1100-1135)

It got my Uncle Billy

Swedish King Adolf Fredrick (1751-1771)

It got my Aunt Claire

Eighteenth-century French philosopher Denis Diderot

It got my Uncle Earnie

Roman Senator Lucius Fabius Cilo

It got my Aunt Margaret Virginia

Comic Actor Marty Feldman

It got my Uncle Robbie

Sir Francis Bacon

It got my Aunt Kat

John Candy

It got my Grandmother Stewart

Karen Carpenter

It got my Aunt Ann

B.B. King and Marlon Brando

Lord, give me the wisdom, humility and courage to save myself from death from my eating disorder,

not as these poor children of yours...who were not able to save themselves

 

Food Prayer 26

Food Addiction is an intimacy disorder.

After sex, nothing is more intimate than “putting things outside of me, inside of me”…or eating.

If I am overweight then the way I relate to those “other things” (food) is disordered

If I:

Guzzle water

Bite my tongue

Begin to choke

Cough

Gag

Burp

Expel gas

Make my stomach rumble

Bite the inside of my mouth

Cause my heart to pound

Make my face sweat

Puff my cheeks out

Bite off tops with my teeth

Drop my food on the floor (even if I don’t pick it up)

Don’t use utensils

Don’t use plates

Eating food that is too cold or too hot

Eating too fast

Then I have a disordered relationship with things outside of me.

 

Food Prayer 27

HP,

The Big Book says “This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? ”

Gandhi says “Complete control of the palette made the vow of sexual abstinence very easy ”…Thereby asserting, incredibly wisely, that there is some definite connection between sex and food”

It is easy, therefore, to see that if a man is having trouble having sex in compulsive, self-destructive ways that gently looking at his food might help give him some additional power to combat the onslaught of self-destructive sexual behaviors that cause him to feel so bad afterward.

 

Food Prayer 28

The difference between a food addiction and an eating disorder is the potential for choking.

Here are some folks who didn’t know what an Eating Disorder was…and they choked to death:

• Alexander Alekhine - Russian Chess Genius
• Attila the Hun - Fierce 5th century nomadic warrior
• Tommy Dorsey -Jazz band leader
• Jimmie Foxx -The second man to hit 500 home runs  in professional baseball, after Babe Ruth
• Tennessee Williams - Wrote A Streetcar Named Desire
• Subroto Mukerjee  -Father of The Indian Air Force
• Christy Brown  Writer: had cerebral palsy and was able to type only…with the toes of one foot
• Skinnay Ennis  Jazz band leader

 

Food Prayer 29

HP,

If I am selfish and dishonest, as all food addicts are (according the Big Book),

If I am resentful or acting on fear as the Big Book says I am

If I am extreme and obsessive, which I am, in my food addiction,

then help me to realize that those six character defects are exactly what my children will learn from me…

Give me courage to change, as an act of self-love and for the love of my family.

My food scale is my altar.

Just weigh and measure your food…

 

Food Prayer 30

Matthew 3:4

“Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.”

Now this is pretty extreme, but it does appear twice in the New Testament, so it must be a noticeable feature of the guy whose example influenced Jesus to give up his work as a carpenter and try his hand at preaching.

I want to stay attentive to my food, too, like John did.

 

Food Prayer 31

"Stick with the Food Plan"

Stick means:

ongoing

continuous

sustained

persistent

steady

relentless

uninterrupted

unabating

unremitting

 

Food Prayer 32

Higher Power

If I am honest, eating too much is fun.

But if I am honest, I hate the way I feel and look very shortly thereafter.

Obviously, I need to have fun.

Please, help me find other ways to have fun.

Amen

 

Food Prayer 33

I am a stone cold food addict.

I have watched hundreds of men and women lie and lie to themselves around food for 72 years.

Good loving men: Priests, monks, blues singers, lawyers, bass players, sailors.

I have done the exact same thing.

I have lied, rationalized, excused, given a pass, looked the other way and smoothed over my actions.

Higher Power, help me not be a liar, to myself, around food.

 

Food Prayer 34

“Without discipline, we usually ended up doing what was familiar to us”.

This is particularly true, for me, with my food.

I have eaten to change my feelings since before I was one year old.

I use it as a way to calm my anxiety.

That is nothing but pure addiction.

My gauge on how much food I’m eating is simply broken, forever.

I require, for me, a digital scale that weighs and measures all the food I eat before I eat.

Otherwise, I do what is familiar.

I am an addict…

 

Food Prayers 35

In the state of California 16% of our 2-4 year olds are obese…Really? Those are our babies!!

Martin Luther King use to say “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

Gandhi would say “Be the change you want to see in the world”

Just do it...One meal, one day at a time.

 

Food Prayer 36

"The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his eating is the great obsession of every abnormal overeater. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing."

Illusion is external, a distortion of the senses.

"The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed."

Delusion is internal, mental, a fixed belief, which can be either false or fanciful.

 

Food Prayer 37

I cannot rely on my strength alone.

Fierce willpower, tremendous self-discipline, colossal effort will fail

because, honestly, I have limits and addiction is bigger than me.

I cannot rely on God’s Grace alone to heal me.

That is magical thinking, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy type of relationship.

I need structure: meetings , steps, phone calls, reading spiritual literature, posting, prayers and sponsorship.

 

Food Prayer 38

I admit to God, myself and another human being that I have obscured my soul:

Obscured means - hidden, concealed, covered, veiled, shrouded, screened, masked, cloaked, shadowed, blocked out, obliterated, eclipsed,

I have darkened my soul...with compulsive eating to manage my feelings for 72 years.

 

Food Prayers 39

What am I going to do?

Weigh and measure my food

Stick with my food plan:

Do multiple sets of 40 pushups throughout the day

Bike or run every day

Core work, karate, yoga

Count breath prayers to get in touch with my soul

A balance between exercise and food.

 

Food Prayer 40

Do I believe it is God’s will for me to follow this food plan?

It’s the best thing I’ve got, since I became 34 and the only thing that works.

It’s my best bet…

So, it doesn’t really matter. This is the will that will save me.

 

Food Prayer 41

Focus on myself.

Keep my eyes on my own plate.

Mind my own business.

Keep my side of the street clean.

 

Food Prayer 42

People come and go: wives, children, parents, friends, school, work, careers.

No one can get God on the line, all the time, every day…no one.

The only person that stays…is me.

Therefore, it is wise to act healthily, lovingly towards myself.

 

Food Prayer 43

I surrender my overweening instinct for Society as the 12X12 states.

I accept my instinct for Security, but want not to be workaholic.

There is an appropriate relationship between these two instincts.

Being abstinent with food helps me do this.

 

Food Prayers 44

In AA we have a service position called “Sweeties”.

That is the guy or gal who volunteers to bring cake, cookies, donuts or candy to the meeting.

It is designed to be a generous way to create fellowship after the meeting…(some of us can’t wait till the end).

This is a beautiful, kind, light and fun way to “carry the message” to another alcoholic, particularly to the newcomer or the poor.

But what if I am already fat as 75% of America is now…Hmmm?

 

Food Prayers 45

I must be eternally vigilant.

On going to the emergency room I was, unconsciously, fed a one liter IV.

The next day I weighed 5 pounds more.

What I was ignorant of was that the IV was 5% dextrose (corn sugar).

Which has about as much sugar as one half of a large Snickers Bar, in two pounds of water….Yuch!

 

Food Prayer 46

What's the problem with being a human?

There's not enough love…

What does real love look like?

Love is human warmth, compassionate, tender, humorous, open, wise, forgiving, self-sacrificing, boundaried , disciplined, funny, truthful, flexible, merciful, perseverant, courageous, dedicated, willing, humble, understanding, accepting limits, strong, faithful, hopeful, patient, prayerful, service-oriented, and non-violent physically, mentally, emotionally and verbally.

Why am I not that way?  Why are you not that way?

Because I am disconnected from my soul…That's all.

There are a lot of things that we humans do that can disconnect us from our souls and death is a good, clear, concrete way to begin to measure the absence of soul. So, let's say we have soulful on the one extreme and death on the other extreme…

According to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta 300,000 of us Americans die each year from food related/overeating illnesses.
That's over 800 people a day, 30 an hour, or about one every two minutes.

A more frightening fact is that 75% are overweight.

And while  those folks may not be at the extreme where we are going to die from heart attack, stroke, diabetes or cancer, they may be a lot farther down that line towards death, away from soulful, than they'd  like to be.

You mean I can't be overweight and be soulful?

Food Addicts Anonymous says food addicts are typically selfish, resentful, emotionally dishonest, negative, obsessive, extreme and self pitying (Not really very soulful qualities when you think about it).

So, that overweight stuff, which is killing one of us every two minutes in the extreme and affecting 3 out of 4 of us in America all the time (including our children), is caused by the above character defects, which in turn separates us from our soul, which in turn prevents us from getting the love we need, which in turn keeps life from being great?...Yes

God can change that...if I do my part.

 

Food Prayer 47

Getting old is cool, if you do it right

Things that make you age faster:

Caffeine

Tobacco

Alcohol

Drugs

Meat

Dairy

Flour

Sugar

 

Food Prayer 48

I have recovered from all these addictions

1. Alcohol
2. Drugs
3. Cigarettes
4. Coffee
5. Masturbation/Affairs
6. Fat
7. ACA
8. Coda
9. Narcissism
10. Alanon
11. Anon-anonism
12. Victimhood
13. Workaholism
14. Debting
15. Underearning
16. Gambling
17. Love Addiction
18. Romance Addiction
19. Relationship Addiction
20. Sexaholism
21. Artistic and Mystical Preoccupations

But none, has the denial around it that food addiction has…it is absolutely pernicious .

 

Food Prayer 49

Food abstinence gives me perspective on all my challenges, which is the Big Book’s definition of sanity.

Therefore, abstinence is the first tool of sanity.

 

Food Prayers  50

“As with the body…so with the Universe”

After many failures I surrender, completely, fully, forever...just for today.

Without abstinence, there is no recovery.

 

Food Prayer 51

Spiritual Inventory:

AA’s express belief is that we drink because we can’t live life on life’s terms.

It is also their belief that, once recovered, demarcated by the Step Nine Promises, I must do three things to recover:

1.brief daily inventory

2.daily prayer/meditation

3.serve others

Or in AA shorthand I have to live the Maintenance Steps 10 through 12.

It is AA belief that living this way prevents the return of craving.

 

Food Prayer 52

Binge Foods:

One of FA’s four parts of their definition of abstinence is “No known binge foods”

Any food or beverage containing caffeine is a binge food, for me. I can simply not control it.

 

Food Prayer 53

Abstinence Definition:

FA’s abstinence definition does not include exercise, in part out of fear of exercise bulimia.

This definition does not acknowledge the phenomenon of the Millennial’s incipient “Digital Death” from being ever sedentary.

As the expression goes “My generation’s sitting...is your generation’s smoking”.

To not acknowledge the relationships between food, exercise and health is not wise, for me.

Therefore abstinence, and the potentially ensuing health it brings includes, for me, strength, endurance, flexibility and cardiovascular exercise.

Food Prayer 54

I spoke to a man today who I sponsored in FA twelve years ago.

He liked to binge on boxes of cookies.

 “Walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.”
Confucius

HP, help me to do whatever is necessary:

Feel all my feelings

Loving myself through the God Within...encouraging and calming myself.

Going to PrayerCall throughout the day to get strength

Sponsoring others

Reading spiritual literature

Writing Prayers

Doing Step work

Having fun

Doing nothing

Doing whatever is necessary to keep all my addictions perfectly at bay

So that I stay free of all my addictions one moment at a time, one day at time, three hours at a time.

 

Food Prayer 55

There was a woman when I first got clean and sober in 1988.

I met her in AA, but soon found she was in CoDependency Anonymous , Overeaters Anonymous, Debtors Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous and Incest Survivors Anonymous.

She was doing expensive, esoteric therapy (that she really couldn’t afford), posted affirmations around her home, was practicing chastity, and ran as much as ten miles per day.

She wasn’t a genius like Gandhi or Bill Wilson but she was spiritually gifted.

Meaning she could understand things that were hard for other people to understand, she didn’t pushback on solutions...and she wanted to solve every spiritual problem she saw in herself.

Seven years later, I would meet a man in SLAA who was in OA, too, but he was also a psychotherapist and a professional monk for 10 years.

He was even more gifted and eventually developed the religious gift of “The laying on of hands” where you can heal people by touching them (which I frankly didn’t believe...until years later I saw him do it in right front of me)

These two people, Phoenix and Pablo, early and later in recovery, respectively, were real inspirations to me on what was actually possible spiritually.

They both were very open minded about spiritual matters and yet very gentle in their beliefs.

There is a 1990 Robert De Niro/Robin Williams movie called “Awakenings” about a doctor who creates a treatment for catatonics, which was miraculous...and then heartbreakingly, it stopped working.

Both these two beautiful, gifted people went “back into the food” and lost every trace of spiritual giftedness God had allocated each of them.

It is a sobering story...

 

Food Prayer 56

HP, I am not foolish enough to think I can stop food addiction by myself...so this writing is for me.

I am not foolish enough to think I can control my weight with exercise and yet I am not so foolish as to not count exercise as part of my spiritual wellness. I need a more moderate approach.

I also know that, for me, without weighing and measuring all food that I eat I can get out of control in about 90 seconds and that is very scary to me.

My scale tells me if I am doing something wrong...as DA says “God is in the numbers”.

 

Food Prayer 57

HP, I want to say that the “ingestion analgesia” that I feel when I eat too much feels not only good, but fun, while I am doing it and, if that is true, similar to the SAA program, I must replace my addictive “Inner Circle” behaviors with fun “Outer Circle” behaviors.

I love to read, play music with my friends and play with my son 

But, I have no illusions that Outer Circle can replace inventory, prayer and service.

 

Food Prayer 58

HP, there is something really scary and really hopeful around food.

I have seen food destroy the most gifted 12 stepper/psychotherapist/Catholic monk I have known in 40 years of recovery.

I have seen the most comprehensively recovered, mentally gifted and physically beautiful 12 stepper eat her way into such obesity as to not even be recognizable on the street by her friends.

I have seen my closest spiritual ally become sotted: first with food, then prescription drugs and then fall into the abyss of pornography.

I have seen the most enlightened man I know become lazy, dishonest, corrupt, depressed, bitter and isolated because of food.

But...I have also seen the possibility of food recovery opening the door to a whole new stage of wellness, not just to food addicts, but to all addicts, where all the childhood injuries and all the adolescent defects of character are diminished to the point of eradication.

Food Prayer 59

HP,

My plan is to live a very long time, to take care of my  son.

The things that are most likely to impede that are too much food and not enough exercise and, for me, caffeine, as that triggers my food.

Caffeine is, as FA describes, “A binge food”...It is my only binge food...but, it only takes one.

Help me to do what is necessary to have a long, healthy life.

Amen

 

Food Prayer 60

Food abstinence also feels like this:

“The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom.

Cherish her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you.

She will give you a garland to grace your head and present you with a glorious crown.”

 

Food Prayers 61

This is not for the people who love, nurture and value themselves as they are, as fat people.

This is not for the people who are fat and can diet and work out till they are not fat, but just don’t.

This is for the people that really don’t want to be fat, and can’t stop being fat, no matter what they do.

This subset of people, that includes me, must have a God that will help them not to be fat.

Overeaters Anonymous is helpful, but too weak structurally, for me.

Food Addicts Anonymous is strong, for me.

I need God, a lot of God, five times a day in fact, just like my sponsor did, who died two months short of 100 years old and was thin his whole life till the day he died.

Food Prayers 62

Food abstinence tools:

No flour or sugar, ever...learned that in FA

Weigh and measure all my food on a digital scale...learned that in FA

Journal everything I eat during the day...learned that in OA

Daily meetings, step work, sponsoring, reading the literature...learned that in AA

Writing literature...learned that from reading King David

 

Food Prayers 63

Big numbers:

At 34 years old and 5’10” I weighed 187.5 pounds.

An enlightened Episcopal priest recommended a then new product, Slim Fast, and I lost 60 pounds and have kept it off, using 12 step tools for 38 years.

I am proud of myself and humbly grateful to God for his unbelievable mercy, faith and patience with me, for that success.

 

Food Prayers 64

Medium sized numbers:

There is an old expression in the land of Television “The camera makes you look 10 pounds heavier”.

14 years ago, at 52 , and 5’9” (I had lost an inch of height at that point) I was shooting a lot of video for my work and requested of my sponsor to okay a 10 pound weight loss.

He did. I lost it, and my new professional weight was 132.8, which is where I start to look sleek...for an old guy.

Food Prayer 65

Small numbers:

In Debtors Anonymous there is an expression “ God is in the numbers “.

When I am at at 132.8 I find that there are three pounds, headed down to 127.8,  where my mental acuity radically improves, I need less sleep, my memory improves, my interest in art awakens, my writing output dramatically increases and my virility is off the charts.

If it is to be...it’s up to me.

Food Prayer 66

There are those that believe that that the August 9, 1945 dropping of nuclear weapons on Nagasaki Japan began an 18 year peak in American power.

There are those that believe that the 1963 Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, Watergate, The 1973 Oil Embargo and The Great Recession of 2008 are clear signs of the decline of that power.

Me...I believe what Saint Augustine said “As we are...so are the times”.

If I am fat I am going to feel bad and life is going to look bad.

“As we are...so are the times”.

 

Food Prayer 67

I want to beat old age and death, to death, at least for a while...

To do that, for me,  I have to give up coffee.

And that’s not all...I have to be at 127.8 and stay there.

And I have to do cardio in the day and strength/flexibility exercises at night.

And eat as much fesh greens as possible.

That’s all I have to do to beat death and old age, to death...for a while.

Food Prayer 68

My 15 month old son is a hambone.

He loves to be the center of attention, particularly in a crowd.

I can’t imagine where he got that from...

He likes to see himself on video and he likes to look at himself in the mirror.

He is discovering himself.

David Letterman used to say about getting old...”They just see through you”

But...with being food abstinent and working out hard, that’s not true...some folks actually do stop and take a look.

Everyone has a need for “Esteem of others”....everyone

It’s part of being psychologically healthy.

So yeah, for different reasons...My son and I are both hambones.

 

Food Prayer 69

Sometimes Humility is saying, “ I don’t know what God’s will is.”

Sometimes it’s saying “ I know what God’s will is, I don’t want to do it, but I’m doing it anyway. “

Sometimes it is saying, “ I don’t know what God’s will is, but I am going to take my best guess...even if I make a fool of myself.”

But my favorite form of Humility comes from the AA 12x12 which says “ The acme of humility is being able to laugh at yourself “.

Who uses a word like acme, anyway?

Food Prayer 70

Mentally unpeaceful stuff I am willing to let go of:

What my college roommate thinks of me,

My daughter’s lack of contact with me,

The shallowness of my brother and I’s relationship,

My mistakes, foolishnesses, tomfoolery, disasters and just plain bad ideas in the past around relationships.

I am willing to forgive all that, if I am willing to stay abstinent around food, one day at a time, three hours at a time...

Piece of cake...so to speak.

Food Prayer 71

In the midst of Revolution:

Generally, I treat other people the way I treat myself.

It’s important when I am taking inventory of myself, and not liking what I see, and becoming willing to change that I do not look at other people in that same way.

Otherwise, I become an intolerable, shrinking, old shrew that no one wants to be around.

And who wants to be around Disney’s Maleficent?

Food Prayer 72

“What if it is God’s will to be beautiful?”

I don’t mean Tom Cruise or Helen of Troy type beauty. That is genetic celebrity.

I mean the beauty that exudes from someone who treasures their body through food and exercise.

There is a beauty that appears from that type of self-love that appears in no other way.

And if “Taking care of myself through enlightened self-interest” is God’s will, then it is the beauty of God that is shining through me.

Don’t tell L’Oréal that...before you short the stock

Food Prayer 73

HP,

It doesn’t take long for me to be out of withdrawal and, ever, ever so slightly, the feeling of boredom may begin to appear.

But where did I get the idea that it wasn’t-okay to feel bored, or more accurately, to just not feel excited?

As a professional performer for half a century, if something was boring it was the “Kiss of death”.

I think it may be okay to not feel excited...

I sure don’t want the distended stomach, night sweats, headaches, congestion, nausea, enflamed nasal and bronchial passages, pasty skin, heart pain, disturbed breathing, sexual aversion-cause-I’m-fat, achey bones, oversleeping and torpid, turgid thinking of overeating.

I’ll take pure and unexcited abstinence...any day.

Food Prayers 74

When I am squeaky clean on my food I notice I become very serious, blackly, forebodingly, chokingly, gravely, writhingly, viciously, aridly serious.

I need to do have what Workaholics Anonymous refers to as “Unstructured activities without goals”.

That is just a fancy way to say...fun!

 

Food Prayers 75

Why is thin so attractive to potential dating partners?

I live in a young neighborhood where straight men are in short supply and straight women are hunting for scarce, eligible, unattached males.

It is an extremely competitive marketplace where looks, age, income, neighborhood, status and dress all play an integral role in the women’s decisions.

But, as regards food, what I notice is that fat on a man’s body sends out a message to potential mates and that message is “I can’t handle life on life’s terms and when life gets challenging...I turn to food”.

That’s a message that no woman, or man, wants to hear.

It’s not that thin is beautiful...it’s because thin says “ You can count on me not to fold under pressure”.

 

Food Prayers 76

My second AA sponsor used to say “ I am a liar, cheat and thief....when it comes to alcohol”.

He was sharing in the first person but it was obvious that he wanted me to see that in myself, as well.

I could see how I was that way to other people when it came to alcohol, but I never really got that piece...I mean way down deep in my soul.

But, now I can see how I was a “liar, cheat and thief”, to myself...around food.

A really simple way to see if that is true about me is to take off my clothes, stand in front of the mirror and , with all the rigorous honesty that I have, look at myself and ask “Am I fat?”

Am I lying?

 

Food Prayers 77

“If there was a Devil he seemed the Boss Universal”
Big Book p.11

Dear Boss Universal,

As a faithful employee of yours I want to report that I have successfully convinced your potential victims that they can be faithful followers in their respective religions,  and eat to the point where they have heartaches, strokes, diabetes and cancer and that this particular death is sinless...and therefore does not affect the probability of their direct transmission straight to heaven and into the arms of their beloved Savior.

We got ‘em Boss.

According to the World Health Organization every 11 seconds we kill another one with the food.

In two years and two months alone we will pass what Hitler did during the entire Holocaust.

Boss...If you like my work, could we talk about that corner office I asked you about last time?

 

Food Prayers 78

My son loves to touch things...but as soon as he does, he loves to put them in his mouth.

This includes rocks, guitar picks, wet wipes, dry tissues, hair combs, rolls of tape, phone chargers, grocery bags, portable vacuum cleaners and UPS crates.

He is infinitely interested and never dissatisfied with the results.

He is content with his lot in life.

He is a funny baby.

 

Food Prayers 79

When I am feeling frustrated while on long, COVID-19 duration,  holds for internet, phone, or electric customer service...I am not walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

Even if it does feel like a Russian breadline in the 1950’s...it is not.

And the truth is I can feel the frustration because I am sober around food...

Thank God I am abstinent...

 

Food Prayers 80

HP,

Thank you for guiding me when I wanted to lose weight.

Thank you for sending me someone to help me to lose it.

Thank you for the willingness to do what I needed to do.

Thank you for the thin body you have allowed me to live in the last nearly decades...it has been a comfortable place to live.

Food Prayers 81

In the highest peak of the Second Wave of the Covid 19 Pandemic, the week of November 21, 2020 there were 10,815 deaths in the US according to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.

That same week there were 10,192 deaths caused directly from being overweight.

Covid 19 is winning at the race to death...but not by much.

 

Food Prayers 82

I never wanted to accept myself when I joined recovery 46 years ago...I wanted to change.

Now that I have changed all that I want I accept myself.

It is impossible to treat people better than I treat myself, so now, I accept other people...because I accept me.

It makes me a whole lot easier to get along with...

 

Food Prayers 83

I drive myself crazy...I really do, and it’s only me. It’s no one else’s fault.

I do this with an attitude of merciless self-demandingness.

My first waking thought is always “ I got to...”

This brutal self-treatment kindles a desire to get out of my life and the only way out left is food...and that is not an option, for me.

There is another way out, a spiritual way, from Workaholics Anonymous.

That is to look at the spaces in my life as “Unstructured events...without goals”.

And the funniest thing happens...I’m not hungry anymore.

Food Prayers 84

As Saint Augustine lay dying the Vandals were besieging his beloved city of Hippo in Africa.

Here was a man who had, after his conversion, fought all of his life to protect his faith of choice and yet here he was about to have his home land burned to the ground, which the Vandals did in fact finally do.

And yet, he was calm...because he meditated on King David’s Seven Penitential Psalms which he had his friends post on his walls.

Lord, help me to remember that fine example of a man.

 

Food Prayers 85

HP,

Patrick Cranes says that “Addiction is the disease that migrates”.

11 years ago my disease moved from sex addiction to food.

I struggled mightily to conquer the disease and I have... just for today, one day at a time, three hours at a time.

But it must have been painful for you to watch me struggle and fail and struggle so many times until I could finally succeed.

Thank you for helping me when you did and thank you for not helping me, when you could have, but didn’t...because I needed to learn to help myself.

Your patience and love are immeasurable.

Food Prayers 86

HP,

Thank you for helping me not drink coffee and for staying at the same weight every day, all day.

What a relief. There is space in my life.

I can now run 5 miles every other day.

Add praying five times a day...and I am as happy as a hound dog in the sunshine.

 

Food Prayers 87

It is crucial, as I get healthier physically, that I neither demand or expect, anyone else doing the same.

As Al-anon says “I mind my own business“.

 

Food Prayers 88

HP,

I am grateful not only for helping me not to drink, masturbate or to be fat, one day at a time, three hours at a time, but also for helping me to stop being the unfathomable jerk that I was when I came in to recovery.

I had six “Deadly Character Defects” when I came in:

I was a selfish, dishonest, resentful, fearful, obsessive and extreme man who could not understand that these six things, internally, lead to being fat, externally.

I was selfish, just like the Big Book says on page 62.

I didn’t care if being drunk, cheating on my wife or being fat affected other people like my wife, kids, friends or employees.

I was in denial, or if I did admit it, I became narcissistic, and if my actions harmed anyone else, I would silently (and euphemistically) mumble “Screw them”.

I was also dishonest, as the Big Book says on page 58.

I lied to myself mostly denying I was alcoholic, or that I was fat.

I also lied to my wife and my friends about cheating with other women and I absolutely would not tell anyone about masturbation...that was going to my grave with me.

Thank God that I don’t have to lie anymore, to myself or others. As I lied to myself, my waistline would expand...just like Pinocchio’s nose.

I was resentful (page 64 Big Book) of my parents, the US government’s involvement in Vietnam, and much more particularly, I was resentful at any girl that wouldn’t have sex with me, when I wanted, how I wanted, as often as wanted, believing that women had all the real power, and that they were holding out on me...Jesus, what an idiot.

I was afraid (page 67 Big Book) of being rejected and of being a failure, or just being too weird to fit into society in any meaningful and satisfying way.

I really wanted everyone to love me, as all codependents do, but I was afraid to the point of being nearly neurotic that everyone would hate me.

I was obsessive in all my pursuits, although I could hide it easily as self-discipline...but what my workaholism really accomplished was that it perfectly severed me from any capacity I had to feel.

I was also extreme. All or nothing, black and white. No compromise, nothing in the middle, no balance or moderation...Imagine being on a long trip in a small car with someone like that!

God, I love not drinking, not masturbating and being thin, but thank you for helping me improve a bit as a man.

As my second AA sponsor used to say “Try to have some character...instead of being one”.

 

Food Prayers 89

How sober can I get? I mean if I stay abstinent?

Well, I can learn, over the years, to get all these needs met:

•Safety

•Love and belonging

•Esteem of others/Self-esteem

•Spirituality through connectedness, originally with God, then others, and finally, lastingly and constantly, with myself...through meditation and service

•Contentment through realization of my highest, realistically attainable goal

•Creativity through creating beauty for the joy of it

•Peace of mind through knowing my soul

The first three needs are espoused by Abraham Maslow, spirituality and creativity are inchoately postulated by him.

Contentment and Peace of mind are found Anonymously.

But let’s say you do get all that. What then?

Well, if I am peacefully in touch with my own soul, and if Gandhi is correct that the soul is immortal....then maybe, just maybe, one of the possibilities is for my soul to connect to God.

Wow!...Now that is not as far flung as you might think.

Yoga does not mean sitting in class on a mat, listening to music, while nursing a Starbuck’s Mocha Cookie Crunch Frappuccino and scanning the room looking for a potential hot date.

Yoga comes from the Sanskrit meaning “To yoke”. Specifically, to yoke the God within you to the God outside of you.

After stopping acting out, and learning to get all my needs met, this is just one of the myriad possibilities.

 

Food Prayer 90