A Balance of Self: I Work an Imperfect Program

      This morning I considered deleting my ranting post about the role of sponsorship in my life and criticism of others’ sponsor-sponsee relationships. I’m not going to delete it because I work an imperfect program.

      If I always write when things are going smooth and easy, how does that help anyone (myself included)? Sometimes I do have rants from passionate places. Sometimes I have such strong opinions that I will verbally scrap for what I think is right–and hang the lot who thinks I am wrong!
      Some people need more guidance than others. For my own program, I cannot let the decision-making process about my recovery go to another fallible human being. When I relieve myself of the decision-making process to another human being, I am making them my Higher Power. That triggers my social addiction and anorexia and I demand their perfectionism. If I impart that person with an unrealistic set of qualities, I cheat myself and I cheat them. I cannot have an equitable relationship with someone I have given full authority over my life to.
      What I gleaned from the literature and took with me is that I didn’t want to be a greysheeter because I did that when I went to a nationally-recognized diet program. That program did not work. For me, I had to think long-term. There is no endpoint to my food plan. It is a lifelong food plan intended to teach me to act as if I am a normal eater. Through my food plan, I have reduced my portion distortion. Through my food plan, I have trained my body to accept a reasonable amount of daily calories as normative. That is my program, and it has worked well for me. It works because my mind can wrap around it efficiently. I don’t always eat three meals a day. Sometimes my meals are oddly imbalanced–I might have a large breakfast or simply a latte and fruit for breakfast. I might have a late or early lunch if something is happening that makes it difficult for me to have lunch on time. I am learning to respect my hunger signals, something I never did in compulsion. My recovery looks different than others’ because it is personalized to me. I need spiritual nourishment more than food because I spent so long trying to fill that spiritual void with food. Separating the mental, physical, and spiritual programs and pursuing them individually works for my program.
      I just have the responsibility to accept that others’ programs work for others, whether or not their program works for me.
      As a sponsor, I feel I have a responsibility to be an OA member first for my sponsee. I am working an imperfect program, as I have said before. I could easily be distracted into driving another person’s life in an effort to avoid my own issues and program.
      Some people thrive in a controlled guidance situation. While I feel that I would end up abusing it in order to control someone else’s recovery instead of address my own, others can manage it fine.
      I also have strong feelings about service. I represent a group at intergroup; I open a room; I am a treasurer. I am a contact person for a group. I am considering taking on an intergroup service position if it won’t interfere with my other service. Service has kept me responsible to the people I go to those meetings with. It has kept me involved with the program, and it keeps me mindful that I am part of OA. It has helped me maintain abstinence by investing in the OA program. It has helped with humility (despite my sometimes-aggressive compulsive ego-attacks which result in journaled rants). I take service seriously, even when I hate to do it because I dislike personality conflicts.
      So, I am not deleting my rant because it reminds me of what kind of sponsor I want to be. Other sponsor-sponsee relationships aren’t mine. The fear I have for the recovery of sponsors and sponsees who have a more structured mentor-disciple relationship is based from my own self-knowledge that I would lose abstinence if put in the same situation.
      However, it is egotistical to think others will. I know some people thrive in the greysheet environment. That structure is necessary for their recovery. I cannot thrive with that much restriction. I rebel and will self-sabotage. I know this because I did rebel and self-sabotage when I was working the nationally-recognized diet program.
      So, while I am not taking it down (partly because it will let potential sponsees know what kind of sponsor I am), I am mindful that my attack on other sponsor-sponsee relationships was purely out of my compulsive self in an effort to preserve a program I believe so strongly in.
      The program has room for all of us, however. We take what we want and leave the rest. And, HP-willing, we all create a life of recovery out of it.
      My name is Jess, and I am a food addict and social addict and anorexic. I have a long road ahead of me, filled with mistakes and victories. It will be all right, however. After all, I am only human.