Jill S. from College Station, TX speaking in Austin, TX

Saturday, April 11, 1998. Jill S. From Navasota, Texas. I'm Jill from College Station. Right, Jill?

And, I didn't grow up in a big gray sheet community. I grew up with just one other person in in this gray sheet group. So I if I don't do things right, it's because I'm in an outpost. I just do what my sponsor tells me to do. You talked about control and I think I'll qualify around control because that was the thorn in my side with the gray sheet.

I have a really ordinary story, but I was the bench starrer all my life when the disease struck me around 13 or 14 and I managed to binge and starve my way for the next 45 years. I had a Bangladesh diet which was a substance in water and some other substances we eat on grape sheet and that would take off the weight that I put on from benching. And I managed to keep my weight down because I was also into men and so I had to keep my weight down to be able to do that addiction. And so I've managed to do that until I hit about 45 and I had a really serious drinking problem. And so in 1981, I knew that I had to do something about my drinking so I joined Overiers Anonymous which is part of my story which always gets to laugh but that's exactly what I did, because I knew I couldn't quit drinking but I could go on yet another diet and that surely solved the drinking problem.

So I came into OA and within a month my sponsor had me in AA because she recognized that that whatever I was trying to do, I couldn't do it with tequila. And so I went into AA in 1981. By the grace of God, I've been sober ever since. I just celebrated my 17th birthday in AA. So I'm a 12 step child, but I'm relatively new in Graysheet and like I say the only contact I have with Graysheet is my sponsor in College Station.

And this new group that we started in Houston with Grainne who I think has been over here and we now have one other absent person in Houston. So I'm really new at having so many gray sheeters around me. It's a very strange feeling. And so I just would like to tell you what happened to me and why it's so wonderful to be here with the Gracia community. I went into OA and got a little bit of abstinence in OA which was good for me.

I made a deal with Scott which is the way I always did the food addiction. So I would make deals with Scott. I would go back to the bargaining table with God every few years. And when I went in 1981, I told God that I would do the best I could and that would be to control my eating and I would control the number of times I ate. And so I said I think I can stop eating I'll only eat 10 times a day.

And for me at that time that was a tremendous step because I ate all the time. I mean there was no time I didn't get in the car without a stash. I didn't go to work without a stash. I didn't do anything without food. I mean I had food in my purse.

I never went through a day without something in my mouth. And so to cut down to 10 times a day was really a big thing for me and gradually the next few years I was able to cut down to 6 times a day eating. And I was so absolutely ecstatic to be able to eat it 6 times a day that I felt abstinence and I would go to meetings and I would talk about my estimates and I worked the steps and I was doing really well in OA. I became a real OA style warrior. And my sponsor at that time who's been my sponsor all my life was also doing well on Weight Watchers and she used that as her abstinence and we have very close sort of a normal way at Plunkish, but that was okay.

That was a bargain. I was glad to make with God as Plunkish was fine. And she moved away from College Station 1986 to New York and I got divorced. My oldest daughter divorced me. I moved, I lost my job.

I had hysterectomy. I did just about all the stress points that you can think of and I lost my estimate too. And so I decided that I would take the geographic cure that I know that if I moved to Galveston that I would become a for some reason. But, you know, it was like, oh, that'll do it. You know?

That that'll make me absent. So I moved to Galveston and had the job from hell and I didn't get absent. And finally, I decided that I just would not, even try to be absent anymore. I would just go to OA. And finally it struck me that that was a stupid thing to do.

Why go to OA? And so I remember the first time I went back to my stuff. I had been, you know, kind of inching around the food, but not really, not breaking my essence. And I went back to my stuff one day and I remember after a few bites, I sat there and I said, I will never ever give this up again. I must have been a fool.

Okay? You know? It was what was I thinking of? This is so wonderful. I was crazy to think that I would live the rest of my life without this.

And so I went back to food in such a big way that I can't tell you. And I got way over £200 and I got really miserable and I was fine. So it occurred to me after about 6 years of this that if I moved back to College Station, I might get estimates. So I left my job in Galveston, and I moved back to my billing in Napa side which is right near College Station. And I went back to OA and I told God that I was back and I was ready to be absent.

And God didn't do anything. God remained silent wherever God was and nothing happened. And I really began to try to get at them. I really I went back to 6 meals a day and that didn't work. And then I had gotten an OA sponsor and she told me you give up the carbohydrates.

So I could do that. I did that once for 3 weeks. And I did and it was terrible. And then one time I got down on my knees and I prayed to God please relieve me of the obsession with carbohydrates. And I got absent for 3 months and I lost a little bit of weight and I got under £200 and, which is high.

I was almost ready to plea bargain for that. But and meanwhile, I had gotten so sick that I couldn't, my knees were giving out. I used to have these dreams that the pillars of the temple are crumbling. And that my knees were going and I could barely walk because I had such I was so fat and I had the arthritis was getting through me and all this junk that fat people have to go through. And I couldn't I was getting sleep apnea and I was waking up and not breathing and I was very sick.

My blood pressure was sky high and I was really in bad. My doctor kept telling me that I was very sick and I needed to do something quick. And so at that point, I hadn't been able to control my eating anymore and I was baffled. And I got down on my knees and I said, you know, god, I just, I I I'm I'll be happy to be fat. I don't care.

Just release me of this need to eat every 5 minutes and nothing happened. And I really felt like I was being sincere. I was really, really sincere and God would not answer me. So, I prayed for that serenity and I didn't get that serenity. I just kept eating more and more and I was getting back up to near 200.

And so I realized that it was just like my alcoholism which I tried to cure myself for many years. And so I got down my knees one more time and I said, I don't care. I think maybe that I can live without food. You just tell me what to do now. I I might consider letting go of the food.

If I'll die to the food. I'll die to it. I realized that what I said to God then was the same thing I said to God in 1981 when I was willing to let go of Goose is that I know that I'll never be happy again. I know I'll never smile again. I know there will never be any joy in my life and I don't care.

Just take this away from me. I can't stand it anymore. And I went to my OA meeting a couple of days later and they said, Oh, Pat's coming back. And Pat was my old a old a sponsor and I knew that she had gotten gray sheet in New York and I shook my fist at God and I said, no. This was not what I wanted.

No. And I I said, this is you know I can't do this. This is to die from hell. Will be in hell if you make me do this. Yeah.

But I knew it was an answer to my prayer, and I knew it was a swift and speedy answer too. And because Pat and I had never lost touch, and she had told me all these 10 years that she'd been on Grace Street how happy she was and how wonderful it was. And I had thought, you know, I don't want that kind of god. It's gonna make me feel out of control. And we would sit in our OAME, you know, in our FAST and talk to us.

We wouldn't do that in trouble. And so we had a special OA meeting on what we were gonna do with that. And, I couldn't figure out what I was gonna do with Pat either because she was my old sponsor. And I knew she was thin, I knew she did great shade, and we all decided that we just weren't gonna have anything. It was that control stuff.

They were she's a control freak. But when she got there, I knew that the guy had sent her to me. And so I said, Pat, I'll help you start a great sheet meeting, but I know that I can't do that. I know that I can't do that. I'm sorry.

I'm out of control. I can't do that. And she said, fine. Now here's the great sheet, and this is what we do. And she you know how we are.

I just hate this. She pulled out that stupid great sheet, and she said, now this is what we do. And I looked at the gray sheet. It's like, oh god. This is death.

This is the end of my life. This is hideous. So I said, I'll do it one day, Pat. I I know that I cannot do this. I've seen this many times before.

I can't do this. And I said, but I will do it. She said, will you call me in the morning? And you call me at 6:30 and you give me your food and you write it down and then you go out to the grocery store and you buy the food for that day. And so I woke up the next morning which was way too early.

I mean I was so into my food and eating and so swollen and bloated and that I just didn't get up until 9 or 10 because I was so hungover every morning from carbohydrates. And to get up at 6:30 in the morning was just a headiest experience. But I did, I got up and I wrote it down and I called her called into her and I I knew that I couldn't do it. But for some reason or another, I did what she told me to do and I got to the grocery store and I bought the food for that day. And I was able to get through that day.

The next day I called her again and said I've got an hour. And I also committed food again that day. And so we had a couple of meetings and a few other people came and they were kind of spectators. We've had a lot of spectators in Great Sheets. And this one other person who had been my AA sponsor for years came to the meeting and she got it too.

And so we began to weigh and measure that exception in calling our food and my old AA sponsor did that too, but began to make exceptions that she said she couldn't do this when she ate out. And she had never gotten so hideously fat and distended as I was and she had a job that paid well and she did well in the world and she really didn't want to embarrass herself that way. She didn't want to she felt it was demeaning to weigh and measure in front of other people. And I didn't have that choice because I was working for minimum wage and I had 3 degrees and I had a job that was so hopeless, you can't imagine. And I had tried to get better jobs and when I would walk in the door people's faces would fall and I knew that I would never get a job.

You know, I was so I was just so damn. And so I didn't have the choice, but I one thing I did do is I didn't go out in public and weigh and measure. Not bad. And so I waited until I was into regular sizes. In fact, I was out of the plus sizes and I went to Luby's one day and took my scale, my cups, I weighed and measured in front of everybody and they didn't die and I didn't die and I walked out of there feeling better.

And I still thought I was a control freak. And I thought my spine was a control freak and I I thought that all people on GreatSheet were control freaks but that was okay. I was willing to do that because it was working. And I woke up about 2 months into Graysheet. One day I was having supper and I had one of our horrible vegetables, you know how we have to eat these stupid vegetables.

And I it was I had bought it fresh and I took a bite of it and I noticed somebody put sugar in it. And I went to the package, it was cauliflower, I'll be real frank with you, you know. And I went to the package, it was fresh cauliflower and it was fresh. Nobody had sugared it. And I called my sponsor and I said I feel like somebody has sugared my cauliflower.

What should I do? And she said, no. It's fresh. It's just that that food begins to taste better to us after a while. And so from that point on, all my vegetables were delicious and I couldn't wait to see my vegetables.

I mean, and I began to compare between mixed vegetables and wild vegetables and see that, oh, sometimes I I really began to look forward to my food and then the clarity hit me and I thought I was gonna go insane. I really thought I was gonna go insane. I really thought I was gonna go insane. I didn't know what to do. And for the first time since 1992, and this is 1995, I cleaned house.

I didn't have anything to do. So he said, I had these endless hours between meals. So I got out the vacuum cleaner and I cleaned my the place I lived because I literally couldn't figure out what to do and I realized that I was in deep, deep doo doo because I didn't have any way to occupy the time between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I had no resources. I had I had eaten.

That's what I did. That's who I was. That's what I did. And between meals, I ate. I mean, this is And, I was feeling wonderful and I was getting thin.

And, I just kept doing it and it was horrible. And so I did what I did when I sobered up. I started reading the big books and I started watching television. And I took lots of baths and I just did whatever it took to get to the next meal and that's how I sobered up. I remember I used to take 3 or 4 baths a day when I was sobered up, so I started doing my own great sheet.

And I started watching television. It didn't matter. I would watch whatever was on because it would get me to the next meal. And then one day, I went to the Plus shop and the lady met me at the door And she essentially told me that she didn't want my kind in there. This is for people, who were plus sizes and that they didn't have anything in my size and no need to come in.

And it was like, I can live with this. Oh, good. And then I came to Austin. All of my children live here in Austin. And I came to Austin and they decided my kids decided, let's go out and eat.

I said, I have to go to some place where they have fresh vegetables because I didn't bring backup for that. I always come with backup now. As a person who always carried binge foods in her backpack, I now carry backup and an extra scale. So I said, well, you have to go to the place where I can get fresh vegetables. And so they took me to this wonderful place that had I told the waiter right up front, I need these steamed with nothing on them.

No problem. And I need a whole bunch. And he brought me this gorgeous mound of fresh vegetables, took out my cups. I was still cupping and I now weigh everything. And I took out my stainless steel cups and my stainless steel measuring spoons and everything dropped to the floor and I swear to you everybody in that room turned and looked at me.

And I picked them up and I started weighing and measuring everybody was looking at me. What on earth is she doing? But by then, I was out of plus size size and cast out plus size. And I was no longer the fat lady doing stupid stuff with food. I was a normal sized woman almost, but still plumpished.

Okay. And, so I weighed and measured that that meal in front of my children and her, my oldest daughter's boyfriend. And that was okay. And on the way home from Austin, I realized that this is the best thing that ever happened to me. That I was free and I could be free as long as I waited to measure all of my meals.

And so gradually, I began to go to the stores and and try out the peep sizes just for the hell of it and bought clothes that were way too small for my frame. And that was okay because I was kind of playing in a field I had never been in and I realized that, one of the stories about Bill W. Who started AA was that he suffered from depression all through his sobriety but in the last year, he was the depression lifted and he died without the depression. And I feel like that because, I'm 62 years old and I have been fighting this all my life and I it's not a struggle anymore. As long as I take my scale with me, I'm free.

So when people in OA look at me and they're sitting there and they're fat, and occasionally I'll go to their meeting and they'll sit there and they're fat and look at me and it's like, no, You're the one that's in bondage. I'm the one that's free. Who's who's free and who's not? Who's in control and who's not? I I have just a very simple thing that I offer to God everyday which is my 3 way to make deals.

I do what I tell God I'm going to do everyday and then I'm free. So it's it's not so much that I'm in control. It's just that I'm being obedient to God who gave me the grace sheet for which I'll always be grateful, you know. So the control issue for me is now I'm an addict, I have a food addiction that's long standing. I've tried everything in the world and I'm free Life Member Weight Watchers about 3 or 4 times and I know from my own personal experience I've never been so free.

So when people talk about control to me, it's like, no, it's not. I'm not controlling. I'm being obedient to a discipline that's given me freedom. And my my OA sponsor talks about it being a playpen. As long as I stay in the gray sheep playpen and play with the toys I have in here, I'm free.

I can go out and play with the nurse. I can go do anything you do. I can do anything that people outside these rooms do. It's just that 3 times a day I have to become obedient just like a monk. A monk who has to do meds and compliance and vespers.

I have to do my meds and compliance and Vespers. Otherwise, I'm perfectly free and I do have this freedom between meals now that I never had but I had to get through that period of not knowing how to get through the day without between the meals. So it's just like everything else. I had to learn it and I had to be supported in my we now have a wonderful meeting in Houston at the OA Club at 1 o'clock on Sunday that I hope you all can make it there we get down there. We have a meeting in college station Saturday morning in 9 and 10 o'clock and but still we're very small, because this is not a road that many people can travel.

It's for people that have really hit bottom and it's not for everybody. If you still have alternatives, you know you can go try PlayWatcher one more time. But I had come to the end of my addiction. I couldn't see any way clear And so I was given this. It was a gift.

And I don't look gift horses in the mouth. You know, this is a gift to me and I obey what I'm told to do here. And by doing that, I'm free to to to live my life. And I do have a life. I got a raise.

And I got a I assisted that my position be redefined. I got a better definition. So I I now am able to support myself. People respect me. People watch me weigh and measure at work.

And, they've been on a diet every Monday morning and I just go weigh and measure. It's really wonderful and there they call me a control freak. Guilty as charged. Let's see. In general, I'll open up the meeting and it says share 3 or 4 minutes.

I don't have a watch, so if somebody can just do whatever needs to be done at this meeting I whatever. So shall we open it up to share if that would be good then? Anybody like to share? Thanks, Jill. Thanks, Michelle.