Powerless - Step 1

Twelve Steps. Twelve Months. I'm not going crazy with the numbers, I'm merely pointing out that this may be a sign. That 2010, if absolutely nothing else, has the potential to be the year I FINALLY finished all 12 steps. So I'm making that commitment to all 4 people who read this...really to myself.

It is not a disgrace or a weakness to admit to admit powerlessness...That is an idea that has nothing to do with the truth...For Today

I am powerless and my life has become unmanageable.

I never thought I fought against the idea that I was powerless. I am powerless. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I use, I will binge. That's the fact. No way to spin that. What I've come to realize recently is that I've been trying to exert control over my disease by saying "I'll go back to following my program tomorrow, after I spend the day using..."
That right there shows how I had not in anyway given up power. Not at all.
I am powerless over my addiction. Over every single aspect of my addiction. There is not a corner of this I have power over. There is not 1/100 of a millimeter of this disease that I can control.

If I stop "supervising" my weight loss, it will be taken care of - in God's time. I pray for the willingness to do that...For Today

Another thing that made me suddenly realize that I might be sliding back was my sudden obsession with my body and my weight. The fact that I was suddenly so worried about losing weight and how fast could I lose it. Granted, I've put on some weight in the last 8 months, but the feelings I have been having have been gone for a really long time and I'm scared that they are back. I'm scared that suddenly I feel like nothing is worth doing that won't bring me glory. That's not just really sick, diseased thinking...for me it's old thinking. Thinking I don't want to return to. I am powerless over that kind of thinking.

Many of us believed that our lives would be managble if only others around us would do as we wanted. The 12 Steps and 12 Traditions of OA

I am as powerless over my world and all the people in it as I am over the weather. I can control nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I can't control one single thing and at the very top of the things I can't control is me. I can't control my ex. I can't control my brother or my parents. I can't really control my child although that is one I struggle with every single day. But I really can't. As long as there is something I'm trying to control, then I'm going to be useless. I don't want to be useless. I want to give in and admit powerlessness. But I don't want to be useless.

God, grant me the Serenity
to accept the things
I cannot change Courage to change the
things I can, and the
Wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as the
pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this
sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make
all things right if I
surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy
in this life, and supremely
happy with Him forever in
the next.
Amen