Self-Test for Compulsive Overeating

[MajestyJo]

Self Test for Compulsive Overeating

This series of questions may help you determine if you are a compulsive overeater. Many members of Overeaters Anonymous have found that they have answered yes to many of these questions.
Do you eat when you're not hungry?
Do you go on eating binges for no apparent reason?
Do you have feelings of guilt and remorse after overeating?
Do you give too much time and thought to food?
Do you look forward with pleasure and anticipation to the time when you can eat alone?
Do you plan these secret binges ahead of time?
Do you eat sensibly before others and make up for it alone?
Do you hide your food?
Have you tried to diet for a week (or longer), only to fall short
of your goal?
Do you resent others telling you to "use a little willpower" to
stop overeating?
Despite evidence to the contrary, have you continued to
assert that you can diet "on your own" whenever you wish?
Do you crave to eat at a definite time, day or night, other than
meal time?
Do you eat to escape from worries or trouble?
Have you ever been treated for obesity or a food-related condition?
Does your eating behavior make you or others unhappy?
Is your weight affecting your health?
Do you feel lethargic or daze like?
Do you crave specific types of food products, such as wheat, milk, flour, rice?
Do you have withdrawal symptoms from not eating certain foods?
Have you ever blacked out or passed out from overeating?
Have you experienced episodes of schizophrenia?

Overeaters Anonymous is a Fellowship of individuals who, through
shared experience and mutual support, are recovering from
compulsive overeating.

We welcome everyone who wants to stop eating compulsively.
There are no dues or fees for members; we are self-supporting
through our own contributions, neither soliciting nor accepting
outside donations. OA is not affiliated with any public or private
organization, political movement, ideology or religious doctrine;
we take no position on outside issues.

Our primary purpose is to abstain from compulsive overeating
and to carry this message of recovery to those who still suffer.

Link to O.A. site.... www.oa.org/

[MajestyJo]

Do know of a lady in my group who goes to open AA meetings. Many members are like me, qualify for AA and Al-Anon too. I have one reason to be in AA and 3-33 reasons to be in Al-Anon. Twelve Steps are Twelve Steps wherever you go. For me, it is about not using anything. I tried substitution for years and it didn't work. A drug is a drug. Sobriety doesn't work if you are using something else to take away the pain and the feelings.

I have had to apply the 12 Steps to my chronic pain, my eating disorder, my alcoholism, my codependent relationships, my computer addiction, my addictions to starting new web sites, and my pill addiction. I had to turn it all over to God. I am powerless over people, places and things. Anything that stand between me and God and who He would have me be in today, is an addiction when I become compulsive and obsessive about it.

It is a family disease and we don't realize that our family is dysfunctional because it is normal for us. For me, food is a mental thing. When I think fat, I don't want to eat; or I think what the heck I am fat, what does it matter and eat things I shouldn't; or I go into the I don't care mode and think myself not worthy of self-care. It is often the thinking behind the eating. Looking for comfort, looking for solace where I feel I can't get it anywhere else.

Perhaps you look to your sister and mother for solace and comfort, but don't expect it from your brother. When they don't give you what you think you 'need' from them, then you feel rejected, hurt, angry and resentful. The thing is, the program teaches us, not to go outside of ourselves for that comfort and solace. It all needs to come from within. We need to be complete and whole within ourselves, not looking for some person, place or thing to make us feel better.

Some of those old comfort foods, like mac & cheese, shepherd's pie, fries and gravy, and for me garlic mashed potatoes and gravy that goes with everything, are just not healthy for us let alone the fact that they are fattening. Anything white turns to sugar, so my much loved potatoes can be harmful to me as a diabetic. As they say, I can have it is what I put on them that makes the difference. For me, potatoes are not potatoes unless they have butter or gravy. There is generally butter in the potatoes when I mash them, then I want the potatoes so I can have the gravy. For me, it generally looks like gravy with potatoes instead of potatoes with gravy.

I found it is all in my thinking and my attitude, which I have to turn over daily to my Higher Power.