Step 1 at a Men's OA Tool Time Retreat in Oceanside, CA

Like I said, my name is Frank, I'm a recovered compulsory reader and I'm from Santa Clara, CA. And the reason I'm here is because they've asked me. Thank you Dave, and thank you for being here and I'm honored to, to leave this retreat. Okay, so I want to first of all start off by saying that you notice that I say I'm a recovered compulsive reader. And the reason for that is that I'm, I'm, I most recently have gone through the steps through the OA primary purpose big book study method.

And in the primary purpose group, we all stay recovered. And the reason we say recovered there is because the 1st 100 recovered Alcoholics called themselves recovered Alcoholics.

And you know, people say, oh, but you're not cured, you're not cured. Well, the, and the word recovering really means return to normal state of health. So I can be a normal state of health recovered compulsive overeater, as long as I'm not binging, you know, if I'm binging, then I'm not in a normal state of health anymore. So I still have the capacity to go become to binge, but as long as I'm not doing it, I, I,

I'm in a normal state of health now the the word recovered is used 15 times in the 1st 164 pages of the big book. And that's the part that we study in the OA primary purpose

up to the beginning. Well, including Doctor Bob's story and as also mentioned seven more times in the rest of the book,

the word recovery only occurs once and it's where a wife is talking about her husband who is recovering. And so, you know, that's why we don't identify as recovering compulsory reader. We are a recovered compulsive reader if we are not binging right now. And that's and that's what I that's why I claim that whereas cured means the disease has gone completely and we don't claim came that were cured. You know, in fact, in 1939, before a, a, a advanced alcoholism was essentially a fatal

incurable disease. Once you got to the advanced alcoholic stage, like Bill was,

your prospects for staying alive would be only if you were locked up in a hospital somewhere where you couldn't get alcohol. If you weren't locked up like that, you were going to be drinking until you died of your alcoholism. And you die of alcoholism a lot faster than you die of compulsive reading. But they're both fatal diseases. I mean, you know, we all know that about the fatality of our, of our compulsive overeating. So there and and and and always if compulsive reeding is also an incurable disease too.

I mean, just look at all the diet programs and everything, you know, people that lose their weight and then they bounce right back up again,

you know, there's no, there's no permanent cure through any, any means that I know of except for this, this, this program here. So,

and in fact that's reinforced on page 84, the big book, it says we are not cured of alcoholism. And these are the people that have been calling themselves recovered. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. So that's the way that I may make I can maintain my recovered statuses by continue to to improve my spiritual condition.

And

so, so that's what I mean. That's why I say recoverance instead of recovering.

And in the OAPP program, we have a study guide and it gives us a lot of information about the history of a A and an A A came from the Oxford Group. You know, Bill Wilson, when he first joined when, when he when he first got recovery, he joined the Oxford Group. Ebby that came to him and talked to him about his recovery in the Oxford Group was from the Oxford Group. In fact, Ebby's sponsor was Roland. He's the guy that's in the big book where they say the, the alcoholic who went to Carl Young who said that you know, you're hopeless unless you have an entire

change, an emotional rearrangement. So that's the chain from Oxford Group. Roland, Ebbe, Bill and then Bill and Bob met together. And when they, when Bob became sober, that's the birth date of, of Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, Ebby was a little jealous that he wasn't included as the founder of a a A and he ended up drinking and didn't stay recovered. So back at back when the 1st 100 recovered, they really had a six step program, which is essentially the six steps of the Oxford Group.

And I'm going to read the six steps of the officer group and then I'll tell you the corresponding AA steps that in my opinion, this is my opinion now of what the course the Oxford Group step corresponds to. So the first step was complete deflation. That's step one. I'm admitting a power server food that my life is unmanageable. And then the second step is dependence and guidance from a higher power. And to me, that corresponds to both steps 2, two and three pretty obviously, but also six and seven, because in six and seven I'm miss powerless over my character defects,

my compulsive overeating, and I need God to help me with those two. And then step 11 is where I do the pray and meditation to maintain the contact with that higher power. So Bill expanded that one step into five steps in the 12 step program. Then there's moral inventory, which is in Step 4, but it's also in step 10. We're taking continuous moral inventories when we're doing step 10

than confession, which is in Step 5, but it's also in step 10 when you make amends. And and then there's restitution, which is steps 8:00 and 9:00 and 10:00 because you make amends on the spot in 10 and then continued work with other Alcoholics. That's step 12. So that's how they correspond here. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through hopefully this morning and go through steps one through 4. And when I get the four, I have handouts of the form that we use in OAPP. So I'm telling you basically the kind of the way OAPP works this program

and you know, we don't have a list of questions to answer or anything like that. It's really strictly based on the Big Book. And the sponsor will take you through the program by having you read and highlight sections in the Big Book and then discussing those sections with your sponsor. And your sponsor will point out sections that you might want to highlight and you know, things like that to make sure that you're really getting the message that comes from the book. So that's what I hope I'm going to be able to help communicate to you here, the message that I got from studying the Big Book.

OK, so we're going to start with step one.

We admitted we were powerless over food, that our lives have become unmanageable. And this powerlessness comes from two things. It comes from an obsession of the mind and an allergy of the body. Now, when I first came into back 3030, almost 39 years ago, that word allergy, I mean, that's bullshit. You know, I don't, I don't sneeze and break out in hives when I, when I can possibly overeat. I don't have an allergy to the food. You know, that's ridiculous. But if you look up the dictionary definition of allergy, all it means is an abnormal reaction.

So if I'm a compulsive reader and if I have an app, if I have an abnormal reaction to food, once I start compulsively overeating, then I have an allergy of the body. And, and the abnormal, the abnormal reaction that I have is that when I start to compulsively overeat, binge, I start to binge. I can't stop. I mean, I, I stop literally when my stomach is going to burst is what what happens. And my stomach apparently got stretched out quite a bit from all of my bingeing. So that's the allergy of the body.

And I think the best description of the of the obsession of the mind and the allergy of the body is from is from. There is a solution on pages 22 and 23,

and it's going to start out talking about the allergy of the body. It says we know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men. We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens both in the bodily and mentally sense, a mental sense which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will confirm this. So that's the allergy of the body. It it makes it virtually impossible for him to stop

once he starts the compulsively overeat for the compulsive reader. So that's the that's the allergy of the body. And then the description of the obsession of the mind is the next paragraph.

Sorry,

these observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than his body. If you ask him why he started on that last Bender, the chances are that he will offer you any one of 100 alibis. So that's the the obsession of the mind is what is what leads to that first bite or that first drink. And once you've got it, you're, you know, you're off and running to the,

and you know, who knows when you're going to stop? So the main problem is how do you get to the point where you don't take that first drink? So the obsession of the mind, the other word for that that's used in the big book is a peculiar mental twist. The peculiar mental twist is the obsession of the mind. And what it means is that I cannot rely on my mind. My I, me alone with my mind cannot stop that obsessive thought. It's going to keep coming and coming and coming until I act on it and eat.

And

the best description of the metal mental twist is on page 24. The fact is that most Alcoholics,

for reasons yet obscure, have laughed, lost the power of choice and drink. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non existent. We are unable at certain times to bring into consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink. You know, if if before I take that first bite, if I could think about the fact that, you know, last time I did this, the last time I started binging, I didn't stop until I gained 40 lbs. You know, something

that if I could, if I could bring all that into my mind at the time that I'm making that decision, I might not be able, I might be able to stop. That would be willpower. If I could do that, people who have willpower, people who are not compulsive over eaters who haven't, haven't progressed to the state that we have progressed to probably do that kind of thing. They think, oh, I maybe I should have some such and such. And, and then they think through, well, if I do, then I, you know, I might, you know, I could, I could gain a lot of weight and oh, that's enough. I'm not going to have it, you know,

But for us compulsive readers, that doesn't even come up. We don't, it doesn't enter into our mind at all. We just

are off and running. We don't have any defense against that first drink. It goes on. It says the almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer, do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old thread threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people. And for me is I'll stop. I'll stop binging tomorrow. That was the idea. Oh, I can go ahead and eat today because I'm going to stop binging tomorrow.

There is a compete complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove. I mean, just imagine the guy who was addicted to putting his hand on a hot stove. Doesn't that sound ridiculous? And yes, that's exactly what we do every time we take that first bite and start to compulsively overeat. And then and the doctor's opinion on page XXV I, I, I,

they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. That's also that mental twist. You can't differentiate the true from the false. I think that I can take this bite and stop tomorrow. That's what I think is true and it's false. I can't do that. If I if I try to do that, I can't do it. On page eight they talk about I'm, I'm giving you here examples of, of where in the big book they talk about that peculiar mental twist and Paige net eight. They also they say

then came the insidious insanity of that first drink is that insidious insanity is the mental twist. The peeler rental twist page 33 is where they use the phrase peculiar mental twist page 35. So we shall describe some of the mental states that precede a relapse into drinking for obviously this is the crux of the problem at mental state. Then on page 35 also, it's Jim is talking and he says

I sat down at a table and ordered a sandwich and a glass of milk.

Still no thought of drinking. I ordered another sandwich and decided to have another glass of milk. So, you know, maybe he's a compulsory reader too.

Suddenly the thought crossed my mind. What if I were to put an ounce of alcohol in my milk? It couldn't hurt me on a full stomach. I ordered a whiskey and poured it into the milk. I vaguely sensed that I was not being any too smart, but felt felt reassured as I was taking it, taking the whiskey on a full stomach. So that's the peculiar mental twist there where he had no defense against putting that whiskey in his milk.

And later he says when he when he recalled that later, after he got sober again, he said the foolish idea that he could take whiskey if only he mixed it with milk. That's the peculiar rental twist, that foolish idea.

And then on page 37 it says we have sometimes reflected more than Jim did upon the consequences. But there was always the curious mental phenomenon that that parallel with our sound reasoning there inevitably ransom insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink. So insanely trivial excuse. That's the mental twist. Our sound reasoning failed to hold us in check. The insane idea one out

next day, we would ask ourselves in all earnestness and sincerity, how could it have happened

in some circumstances and this goes on here it says in some circumstances we've gone out and deliberately to get drunk, feeling ourselves justified by nervousness, anger, worry, depression, jealousy or the like. But even in In this type of beginning, we are obliged to admit that our justification for a spree was insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened. We now see that when we began to drink deliberately instead of casually, there was little serious or

thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be. You know, most of the other examples here are cases where the thought just came and I and they drank, you know, they hadn't premeditated it. But, you know, if, if my wife is yelling at me and I'll get back at her, I'm going to go eat, you know, that's where I'm premeditating. I'm actually thinking that I'm going to do it. And if I actually could seriously think about that, I would realize that my compulsive overeating isn't going to stop my wife from yelling at me. You know, it, it, there's no connection between them. It's

it's insane to think that Mike, that that's going to be the solution to any problem that I have in the world, to think that I should just go ahead and go and eat.

So, so whether we're having that first bite unconsciously, it just coming, you know, out of the blue, we just started eating or whether we actually thought about it, you know, oh, I'm pissed at my boss and, and I, you know, I can't stand this, you know, or we're in some mental emotional state where we're really pissed off or whatever and thinking that food will solve it

at both of those are both examples of that peculiar mental twist.

And then on page 37, they have another example, which is the compulsive jaywalker. I mean, it makes it pretty obvious there. I mean, nobody ever has compulsive jaywalking as a disease. There's no jaywalkers anonymous. But that's what we're doing here with the food. The food is is equally stupid as what the jaywalker is doing. And then another example is on page 41. As I cross the threshold of the dining room, the thought came to mind that it would be nice

to have a couple of cocktails within her with dinner. That was all, nothing more. Now it didn't turn out that way.

And when he finally regained, he says, as soon as I regained my ability to think, I went carefully over that evening in Washington, not only had I been off guard, I had made no fight whatsoever against the first drink. That no fight whatsoever against the first drink is the peculiar mental twist. This time I had not thought of the consequences at all.

On page 47 they say I saw that the willpower and self knowledge would not help in those strange mental blanks spots. So I can go to all kinds of self help programs to get all kinds of knowledge about myself. I can go to psychotherapy and understand all my motivations and, and you know, all that kind of work on myself, which is all good stuff to do. I'm not putting it down, but I can do all that all I want. It's not going to help me to not take that first bite. That's because the strange mental black spots, none of that knowledge comes into use there

and and willpower also is not is not useful there.

And another description of the queer mental conditions surrounding the first drink. That's the that's the the obsession of the mind, the peculiar rental swist. And on page 92, when you're talking to a newcomer, show the mental twist which leads to the first drink of the spree. So you're going to talk to the newcomer about the mental twist in yourself so he can recognize it in himself.

And then on the allergy of the body, the doctor's opinion on page 20 says the action of the alcoholic in these chronic Alcoholics is the manifestation of an allergy, that the phenomena of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. And and for me, that's the same thing here. You know, once I've once I've gotten to this compulsive. If you've ended up in OA here, you are probably a

rooter. Maybe you're not. Do you know, maybe you should go out and try some more controlled drink eating and see if you're not, See if you are or not. But if you're a compulsive reader, you're, you're at the point where you aren't going to be able to compulsively overeat and stay recovered. That's not going to happen.

These allergic types can never safely use out food in any form at all. And then on page 20X the doctor's opinion, he says. I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a phenomenon of mental control. I've had many men who had for, for example, worked a period of months on some problem or business deal which was about to be settled on a certain date favorable to them.

They took a drink a day or so prior to the date, and then the phenomena of craving at once became paramount to all other interests

so that the important appointment was not met. These men were not drinking to escape, they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control. So once we take that first bite that sets up the craving in us that is absolutely impossible for us to stop. Our mental control is not going to be able to stop us from from continuing to eat.

And so that's the, that's the phenomena of craving that that he's talking about here. And then on page XXX of the doctor's opinion,

after he discusses various kinds of Alcoholics, he talks about different kinds of Alcoholics. And he says all these and many others have one symptom in common. They cannot start drinking without developing the phenomena of craving. This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people and sets them apart as a distinct entity.

It has never been, by any treatment with which we are familiar, permanently eradicated. So that means you, there's no treatment that you can do that can allow you to overeat once and not set that phenomenon of craving going where you're going to be able to recover. The only relief we have to suggest this entire abstinence, and that's what we talk about here in OA, abstinence from our impulsive overeating and whatever form it is for you. And in OA, it's different from Alcoholics, and Alcoholics is always the same. Don't take that first drink in OA. It might be don't take that first ice cream. Don't take

that first cake. Don't first take that first compulsive bite of, you know, the binging bite where I'm just eating as much as I can, whatever it is that that's what we have to be wary of. Then on page 21 in the big book, it says, but what about the real alcoholic? You know, they talk about the different kinds of alcoholism, the the heavy drinker, you know, the, the light drinker, the social drinker, the heavy drinker. And then there's the real alcoholic.

He may start off as a moderate drinker. He may or may not become a continuous hard drinker, but at some stage of his drinking career

he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption. Once he starts to drink, that's where you're crossing over that threshold into the alcoholic, the real alcoholic and the real compulsive overeater.

So, so that's the that's the, the obsession of the mind, of the analogy of the body. Now, why do we eat? Why do we think eating is a good idea? And Doctor Pint, Doctor Ping has something to say about that on XV I I I men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. This sensation is so elusive that while they admitted his interest, they cannot after a time differentiate the truth from the false.

So it's it's because we like the effect of it. And now, you know, an alcohol, alcohol to an alcoholic has a pretty, pretty obvious effect.

I mean, maybe one drink is going to be obvious to somebody else, but they can feel it mentally in their head that that one drink made an effect on them. And then after a few drinks, it's going to be obvious to other people. They're going to start to slur their speech. They're going to get Duis. You know, it has a very strong effect on the brain. Alcohol does food has a much more subtle effect, which makes it to me, it makes it more insidious. You know, it's not you can't tell, oh, that guy just had a, a, a piece of pie. You know, you can't tell that from just talking to him or anything like that. You might be able to tell somebody had a few drinks, though. So it's it's more insidious for the for

compulsive reader, but it's the same thing. We like the effect. That's what we like. We like the effect that we get when we eat it.

And then the doctor opinion goes on. It says they are restless, irritable and discontented unless they can again experience that sense of ease and comfort at which comes at once by taking a few drinks, drinks which they see other people taking with immunity impunity. So you know, we, we, we have this restless, irritable in your content. And it doesn't have to be a strong feeling. It doesn't have to be angry at my wife. I can just have a little bit of restlessness, irritability, a little discontent,

and that'll be the reason for me to go and take that first bite, hoping that that'll fix it. It's not going to fix it, but that's what happens. We get restless, irritable and discontent and that's why we we can believe why we overeat

and it goes on and says after they have some succumbed to the desire again as so many do and the phenomena of craving develops, they pass through the well known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over. Unless the person can experience an entire psychic change, there is very little hope of recovery. OK, so so far I've been talking about the alcoholic and the peculiar rental twist and why we take that first bite. Now I'm going to talk about

unmanageability that appears in step one.

First of all, the word unmanageable only appears in step one in the 1st 164 pages. They don't describe the unmanageability any other place else in the big book,

but there are 10 mentions of unmanageability in the stories, and most of those are just basically repeating step one. And then there are two cases in the stories where they actually talk about something else. There's a guy who's talking about how

what he needed to do to, to the unmanageability was that he didn't think through what would happen if he continued to drink alcohol, what would happen to him. And that's why he what he recognized in unmanageability. And that's on page 354. On page 424, a college student is talking about his year where he was, you know, losing, failing classes, not turning in papers, things like that.

That was the unmanaged building his example there. But there are examples of unmanageability in the 1st 164 pages. One example is the bedevilments on page 52. And and I'm going to read you a whole bunch of conditions here that he calls the bedevilments and they really correspond to the promises of of step 9. If you if you look at the bedevilments and the promises, they were actually opposites each other. Every every bedevilment has a corresponding promise where everything is is going well instead of

so. On page 52 it says we were having trouble with personal relationships. We couldn't control our emotional natures. We were prey to misery and depression. We couldn't make a living. We had a feeling of uselessness. We were full of fear. We were unhappy. We couldn't seem to be a real help to other people. Was this not a basic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we could see newsreels of lunar flight? Of course it was.

So those are examples of unmanageability there. Another example is from the description of step in step three of how it works.

This is where the actor is trying to run the whole show and this is the unmanageability there. This show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think life doesn't treat him right. He decides to exert himself some more. He becomes on the occasion still more demanding or gracious as the case may be. Still the play does not suit him. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry and ignorant,

self self pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self seeker, even when trying to be kind?

Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can rest satisfaction and happiness out of the world if he only manages well? Is it not evident to all that the rest of the players that these are the things he wants and do not his actions make each make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can to get out of the show? Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony? So that's another example of unmanageability. And notice there that it comes from selfishness and self-centredness. It's me wanting to make the world be the way I want it to be. That selfish and self-centered just is never

work. We're never going to be able to get the whole world to do do what I want them to do. So that's the unmanageability of our life.

So,

and I think the step one is the most important step. I think that's the one step that I that I didn't work during my relapse and recovery period. It's where I thought that I could binge today and stop tomorrow. That is saying that I have power over alcohol, over food. I have power over food and I can go ahead and binge today and I will be able to stop tomorrow. So that's where I wasn't working step one and the, and the, and the big book agrees that step one is the most important step. On page 30 it says

the idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinking.

The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity and death. We learned that we had to be fully conceived to our innermost selves, that we were Alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people are presently maybe has to be smashed. We actually read that just at the beginning of this meeting. And then on page 33, it says if we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol.

So if I think that at some point in time I'm going to be able to go and eat those red light foods and it'll be OK, that's the illusion that must be smashed in order to recover here. Now recovered sober alcoholic can be 100% perfect and not drinking. But when we're putting food into our mouth, how do we know the dividing line between when we're being absent and when we're not? So that's where food plans come in. And the question is, what's a, what's a good food plan? Well, here's the kind of things that I that I when I'm talking to newcomers, I'm a newcomer greeter at several

things and for our inner group. And when I'm talking to newcomers, I talk about these kinds of things. I don't go into all this detail here, but what, what kind of food plan include it? Can it can include what we eat and what we don't eat? That's the red, yellow and green light foods. And the most common red light foods items are desserts or sugar items, followed by flower products, by salty, crunchy foods. And then yellow light foods. You can include maybe in your food plan with restrictions that so much allowed, but nothing more. And if you can stick to those restrictions, then they can stay as yellow light foods. If you end up binging on them because of you've included them,

they probably need to go move over to the red light food list instead of the yellow light food list. Then the green light foods are the ones that you only have to limit the quantity. You know, I could eat a quantity of anything, but but it's not, it's not going to set me up.

Then there's questions like how many times per day do we eat? Three times a day, three times a day plus a snack, five small meals with some people have to do for medical reasons, one physically hungry or no eating after dinner. And then there what times during the day to eat? How long do we have between meals? Can we cram all our three meals together in a very short period of time?

And how much do we eat? Do we weigh and measure? Do we count calories? Are we just doing moderate meals? And then there's food behaviors that that might be part of your food plan. For example, no fast food, no watching TV and snacking, no eating out of the refrigerator, no second helpings, only eating at a table, no binging, no bulimia, guilt free eating. And how perfect do we have to be? Do we have to have, can we have imperfect abstinence? You know what, what level can I be a little imperfect? When I was counting calories, for example, I always had a goal that I went for, but I

at an upper limit which I didn't want ever over go over. So I would aim, I've seriously aim for that goal. But if I went over on a given day, if I was in that warning track, it was OK, but there was an upper limit where I didn't want to go over. So that was the imperfect that I could be

no starting over. I mentioned that that's part of my food plan is no starting over because if I think, OK, I can eat all I want today and I'm going to start over tomorrow, that's that's fatal. That's fatal thinking. And then there's finally rituals around eating that we can set up. We can set up lighting a candle before eating and blowing out after or praying before eating or 123 before eating at that. I described that yesterday for for those of you that weren't here yesterday, what I've been doing for the last couple of months is working steps 1-2 and three just before I sat down to eat and, or even

thinking about having a snack. I say, you know, if I'm really powerless over food, I have no business deciding what, when or how much I eat. God, please help me. So that's to me, that's working steps 1-2 and three. And then I also text that 123 to my, to my sponsee. My sponsee and I are trading 1-2 threes back and forth. And that active texting makes me slow down enough to actually do that instead of just quickly running through that and then eating. So. So that's what I do now before I eat.

And then there's the question of is this one-size-fits-all

and the,

oh, that I, I take the time to text 123 to my sponsor, my sponsor, my actually my sponsor and I are trading 1-2 threes back and forth and taking that time to text, it makes me slow down. Otherwise I could go through, OK, 123, come on, bunch, bunch, you know, without really thinking 123. So the act of making that text message makes me slow down and really seriously take that. And it's had, it's had positive effect. There have been snacks that I haven't had because I did 123 or I've had that 123 and I had

magically I put smaller portions on my plate if if things were being passed around the table there.

So, so it's been helpful to me.

So then finally, you know, So what is this a one-size-fits-all program? And unfortunately it's not, you know, everybody has their own food plan. In fact, that's why that's why the food programs have splintered into the dozens of different groups that we have these days. You know, the OA, 90, FA and CEA, how they're all splintered basically by food plans. And so it's unfortunate. I wish that we'd all come under umbrella and just admit that we can all have our own individualized food plan that's perfect for me and it doesn't have to be perfect for you

and it won't, it won't salute me if I hear you talking about your food plan. You know, I hope that we could get to that point at some point. So that's my thing on step one. Do you want to have a, a break now where we share? We'll do one step at a time instead of doing. I was going to do all four, but I, I think it might be better to do one step at a time

before before you do that, can you just take a couple minutes to kind of expand on the 123? Yeah. OK. What would it look like? Well, OK, so basically what I do is, you know, I could actually say the 123. I've got them memorized. I can say them,

but the the idea that I have to have in my mind is that I took step one. I said that I was powerless over food. Now I hear that I am that I'm talking about here is I the Frank, the compulsive reader. Frank the compulsive reader said that he was powerless over food, that his life was unmanageable and he came to believe that a power greater himself can restore insanity. And he decided to turn his Wellness life over the care of that power, that higher power. So Frank is sitting here and Frank is going to decide

what am I going to eat? How much am I going to eat? And and you know

what, when and how much if I'm going to decide right now is the time to have a snack or how much of A snack going to have or what snack I could have. If I'm trying to make that decision as Frank that can boss over eater. What I'm saying is I have no business making that decision. Frank, the compulsory reader has no business making that decision because he admitted he was powerless over food and then and then ask God for help. So Frank can't do it. So Frank has to ask his higher self. That's because that's my higher power. I call it the higher self.

It's the it's the God within. I ask that higher self,

what should I eat? What and how much should I eat or should I eat? Should I eat, how much should I eat and what should I eat? If I'm talking about having a snack. And then sometimes the, the thought has come, go ahead and have it and I have it. Sometimes I don't need that food right now. I'm not really hungry right now. See that's, that's the God's higher self helping me there, giving me that intuitive thought that I'm not really hungry. I don't need to have a snack right now. And so that's that's when I decided not to have a snack after doing 123.

And then what's important though, is I text my sponsee 123 and sometimes I'll text 123 decided not to have a snack. So I was thinking about having a snack, but then I do 123 and it came to me not to have a snack. So I text 123 not to decide not to have a snack. Other times I just text 123 just to let him know that I did it. And it's slowing me down and making that text message, getting my phone out, getting to my sponsee's phone messages, texting 123 hitting send that slows me down

bit otherwise like I do 123 and then eat, you know, so it it that's that's what I've been doing for the last couple of months and it has been having a very positive effect on on my food plant. Yes. So you write the numbers 1 two, yes, just the numbers 123. So I don't actually it would be slower if I spelled out ONETWOTI might try that. That would take longer and that might be more effective that way,

yeah.

Any other questions about 123?