In the Bag

When I first started FA, I had the usual questions and most of them started with the word “why.” Why do I have to go to three meetings a week? Why three calls a day? Why, why, why? One of my later questions had to do with the Fourth Step. It says in Alcoholics Anonymous that none of us likes searching out and illuminating our character defects, but unless we are willing to do it, we won’t be able to quit drinking (or, in FA, bingeing).

I joined an AWOL and eventually learned why we do the Fourth Step. Now I understand that my character defects can block me off from my Higher Power and keep me from everything that’s good in life. My emotional baggage will also eventually lead me back to the food if I don’t deal with it properly. Before FA, I was unaware of my defects and didn’t realize that my personality flaws were causing me unnecessary stress and driving me to do things I didn’t want to do, like binge.

I have a theory that we all have a bag of "stuff" that drives us, and if we want to live a full and happy life, we need to know what’s in our bag so that when these things pop up, we can see them and choose to do something about them.

Through working Step Four, I learned what was in my bag of character defects. Now that I am in recovery, I know that there is a way to deal with the stresses of life and my character defects so that they go back in the bag and leave me alone.

One of the things in my bag is a tendency to "awfulize" and "catastrophize." This goes along with negative thinking, another thing in my bag. If the phone rings, I just know someone died. If I hear a siren, I just know something bad happened to a loved one or friend. If I have a task to do, I am sure it will take a long time and be harder than I thought.

A few years back, I decided to do a land- scaping project, so I bought six boxwood hedges, several bags of good soil, and decorative bark, and I was going to take out a weed-infested area of my yard and plant the hedges. I knew that there was a lot of gravel under the top layer of dirt and that the native soil was very hard, so I anticipated hours and hours of gravel hauling and digging and chipping away the soil to be able to dig the holes for the hedges. It was an unappealing task, so I decided to put it off—for several years! The hedges all died in their pots and the bags of dirt hole to see how long it took. I asked my Higher Power for the courage just to try it, and I marched right over there, stuck the shovel into the ground, and was amazed at how easily it went in. In fact, the gravel that I knew was under there was all but gone and the dirt was soft and easy to dig out. I had six holes dug in under an hour.

I went to the nursery, bought more dirt and bark and six more boxwoods, and went home and planted them. All this took only a few hours. I was so grateful to turned to cement after several years of harsh weather.

I had just completed another Fourth Step and discovered my defect of making things worse than they are. One day, I was thinking about that landscaping project and wondering if maybe I had made too much of the task. I decided to go stick a shovel in the ground and try to dig one know that things aren’t always how they appear to me, and that I often imagine things are worse than they really are.

In another example, after losing all my weight in FA, I discovered that I liked outdoor exercise. A friend cajoled me into doing a triathlon with her (at age 54, mind you). I initially told her that I’ve never been the athletic type, and politely declined. She shamed me into giving it a try. Part of the training involved running. I’ve never been a runner, but I started small and continued until I could run three miles easily. We have a beautiful state park nearby where I did most of my training. There was a steep hill that I could never make it up running, so I just stopped and walked it every time. One day I had the thought, What if I really can make it up the hill but only think I can’t? I asked God to be my legs and get me up the hill if He wanted me to do it. I made it up that hill easily and was out of breath, but still upright! I’ve made it up that hill ever since.

My character defect of catastrophizing also makes it possible for me to sit in a chair and stress myself out thinking of all the things I have to do today, tomorrow, next week, next year, and I exhaust myself without even getting out of the chair.

Program has taught me to stay in the moment, ask for guidance and help, and simply do the next indicated thing as I go through my day. I’ve learned that it’s okay to plan, but I can only do one thing at a time. One of my favorite mantras, especially when I get overwhelmed with all I have to do, is "God gives me all the time I need to do everything I need to do." It’s amazing the difference thinking that thought makes. I end my day without stress and exhaustion, with my serenity (and abstinence) intact.

In the beginning, I thought I’d never have time to do all the tools of FA every day, but I learned that if I do all the tools, I get to be abstinent and serene and have more time and energy to devote to life. I’m no longer spending 24/7/365 thinking about food or eating or beating myself up for having binged. I spend less time shopping and dressing because all my clothes fit all the time.

I no longer fear the Fourth Step because now I want to know what’s in my bag so I can recognize my defects when they pop up. My abstinence and serenity are worth whatever it takes to keep them.