Tuesday, July 26, 2022 My Story Part 4

My True Story – Part 4.

It’s been so long since I wrote Part 3, that I need to remind you where I was at the end of it. I was in college, starting to divest myself of any sort of faith and coming to an enlightened sense of who God is: namely, whoever I wanted Him or Her to be. This was quite a comfortable place to be, but in God’s mercy, He didn’t leave me there.

In the summer after my second year of college, I met a man, not much older than I was. He was worldly where I was still innocent. He was married and in the process of getting a divorce, while my experience with the opposite sex was limited and fairly chaste. He was a recovering alcoholic – 9 months sober; I didn’t drink much and certainly had never even been drunk. I think it was my innocence and lack of experience that attracted him. He got my number and called me at 10 p.m. and we talked until 5 a.m. After that, we were never far apart. My involvement with him was instrumental in bringing about estrangement with some of my best friends, who thought he was not right for me. They didn’t know him like I did – they didn’t understand!

I learned a lot about Alcoholics Anonymous while dating this man, whom I’ll call “SD.” The more SD talked about his addictive relationship with alcohol, the more I began to see it mirrored in my addictive relationship with food. I’d always been rather compulsive with food and obsessed about my weight and had a distorted body image. It’s only by God’s grace that I didn’t become bulemic. I tried once, but just couldn’t do it. SD encouraged me to check out Overeater’s Anonymous, so I did. I even read the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, written by Bill W. I was a little irritated by his references to faith in Christ (references that I believe were taken out of future editions), but in general, it made some sense to me. I joined an OA group and started working through the steps, one of which entailed acknowledging that we have no control over ourselves and must look to a Higher Power for help, however we define that Higher Power.

Now this may not seem like much of an improvement on my Desiderata god (see Part 3). I was still in the position of being able to define God however I wanted to. However, this time, I was going to a Higher Power from a position of great need. I was truly anguished over my compulsive overeating, even though I was really not overweight. It seemed that it should be very simple to resist the temptation to overeat, but in fact, the more I tried, the worse it got. I began binging food in a way that I had never done before. I started writing prayers of a sort in my journal, beseeching this Higher Power to help me. I learned the Serenity Prayer and turned to it often. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

And yet, the AA model is to label these behaviors as manifestations of a “disease,” rather than as sin. You could no more stop being an alcoholic than you could stop being a diabetic. Accordingly, I looked upon my own eating issues as a disease and sought to live clean and sober, which for us in OA meant getting a sponsor, submitting eating plans to her, and cutting out most foods with white flour and white sugar. Meetings were just like the AA model – you went around the room and introduced yourselves each time: “Hi, I’m Lynn, and I’m a compulsive overeater.” I didn’t like having a sponsor, I didn’t like submitting eating plans to someone, and I didn’t like going to the meetings. But I tried for awhile, thinking it was my only hope.

Meanwhile, my relationship with SD was experiencing its own stresses and strains. A man who’s been married isn’t going to be content with not being involved sexually. I convinced myself that this was a good thing, that I loved him, that I was ready. But I wasn’t ready, and I got pregnant. I gave SD no choice in the matter – I was not going to have a baby. He came with me to the abortion and although we tried to move on like nothing had happened, things were never the same. I wish this weren’t part of my story, but facts are stubborn things. Truth can’t be erased to ease our consciences. I sacrificed a life without a shred of guilt on my conscience at the time, but I was guilty, nonetheless.

We limped along for another year, but while I was fully committed despite our problems, SD was becoming relationally distant and I was in denial. To be fair, we were both in denial – he wanted to believe things would get better, too. He made plans to move to another city to go to college and we decided that if we were serious about trying to make things work between us, I should move there with him. I quit school, quit my job, said my goodbyes, packed up my belongings, and on January 1 of that year left the only home I’d ever known to start this new life. Eight days later, SD broke up with me and my world came crashing down.

I’ll probably delete this cliffhanger of a post in the morning…or not. Stay tuned!

My Story Part 1
My Story Part 2
My Story Part 3
My Story Part 5
My Story Part 6
My Story Part 7
My Story Part 8
My Story Part 9
My Story Part 10