Powerless over Powerlessness

Surrendering Even My Powerlessness
When Honesty Means Being Willing Not To Know

Something unexpected happened as I began trying to go deeper into Step One.

I had assumed my task was fairly straightforward:

• examine my life,
• uncover the evidence that I am powerless over food,
• acknowledge that I am a compulsive overeater, and
• recognize the ways my life has become unmanageable because of it.

But after deep self-reflection—and sitting with some difficult questions—another possibility emerged:

What if I am not yet certain that the description of compulsive overeating offered by Overeaters Anonymous actually describes my experience?

That is not an especially comfortable question to ask while participating in a recovery program. Yet recovery, if it is to mean anything, must begin with honesty.

And honesty requires me to admit what I know—and what I don’t.

What I Know About My Eating

I can readily acknowledge that I have problematic eating behaviors.

I tend to eat automatically when food is available. I snack when I am bored, stressed, or angry. When I am upset, I often crave sweets. At times my relationship with food has contributed to emotional distress and has strained my relationships with other people.

I regret some of these behaviors.

I want them to change.

But there is another question I cannot avoid:

Is acknowledging problematic eating the same thing as saying that I suffer from the disease of compulsive overeating as OA understands it?

I’m no longer certain that it is.

And perhaps admitting that uncertainty is itself an act of honesty.

When the Conclusion Comes Before the Evidence

This uncertainty has helped me understand why I have felt reluctant to dig deeply into the emotional pain of my past.

Initially, I wondered whether my reluctance was simply resistance—the part of me that doesn’t want to confront the painful consequences of my behavior.

Perhaps some of it is.

But there is another possibility.

Maybe I am uncomfortable because I feel as though I am being asked to begin with a conclusion and then search my past for evidence supporting it.

If I begin with the statement, I am a compulsive overeater, and then examine my memories specifically looking for evidence of how compulsive overeating has damaged my life, I risk creating a circular argument:

I know I have the disease because my past proves it.

And I know my past proves it because I have already decided that I have the disease.

Something about that doesn’t feel like surrender. Strangely, it feels more like control—trying to make my experience conform to a conclusion I have already accepted.

So I find myself at an important turning point in Step One.

Not yet certainty. Not yet denial. But honest uncertainty.

And from that place, a clearer step begins to form:

Step One, for me, begins with admitting that I do not yet know what my problem with food truly is.

That admission is uncomfortable—but it is real.

From Uncertainty to Surrender

But Step One cannot remain only uncertainty. It has to move somewhere.

Because uncertainty alone can still be form of control—staying suspended, avoiding commitment, avoiding change.

So I have to ask a deeper question:

If I don’t fully know what my problem is, what am I willing to do anyway?

And the answer that emerges is this:

• I am willing to stop trying to force a final explanation.
• I am willing to stop demanding certainty before I act.
• I am willing to look honestly at my behavior without needing it to fit a predetermined label.
• And I am willing to change, even while I am still learning what I am changing from.

That is where uncertainty begins to turn into surrender.

Not surrender to a diagnosis.

But surrender to truth.

A Clearer Step One

So Step One becomes simpler—and more direct:

I surrender my need to fully understand or define my problem with food before I begin to change.

And even more simply:

I admit that I do not know the full truth about my relationship with food—and I am willing to let that truth be revealed.

That is not the Step One I expected.

But it may be the one I can actually live.

What I Actually Want

There are other things about which I am much more certain.

• I want a healthier and more intentional relationship with food.
• I don’t want to eat simply because food happens to be sitting in front of me.
• I don’t want boredom automatically to send me looking for something to snack on.
• I don’t want stress, anger, sadness, or disappointment to trigger an almost unconscious search for sweetness and comfort.
• I want to eat intentionally rather than automatically.
• And beneath all of that, I want something even more important.
• I want sanity.
• I want serenity.

Perhaps that desire is enough to continue exploring recovery without pretending that I already know exactly what my problem is.

Surrendering My Diagnosis

This realization has led me to reconsider what surrender might mean.

I had been thinking of surrender primarily as admitting my powerlessness over food.

But perhaps surrender goes deeper than that.

Perhaps I need to surrender even my need to declare myself powerless.

If I am truly turning my recovery over to God, then I must be willing to surrender every aspect of it—including my assumptions about what recovery is supposed to look like.

I cannot honestly say, God, I surrender everything to You—except the conclusion I have already reached about myself.

Perhaps my prayer instead needs to be:

God, show me what is true.

If I am a compulsive overeater, give me the honesty to recognize it.

If my problem is better understood in another way, give me the courage to recognize that too.

Take away my need to force myself into a particular explanation.

Teach me simply to see.

That feels more like surrender.

My Pain Doesn’t Have to Look Like Someone Else’s

There is another realization I have had to face.

I hear people describe their experiences with compulsive overeating in language of profound devastation. Their stories sometimes convey the experience of lives shattered by the disease and people brought to a point of complete desperation.

I respect those stories.

But I cannot manufacture that experience for myself.

Yes, I have regrets.

Yes, I have experienced guilt.

Yes, my eating behaviors have caused distress.

And yes, I want to change.

But when I examine my life as honestly as I can, I don’t find exactly the same story of devastation that I sometimes hear from others.

Perhaps I don’t need to.

Recovery should lead me toward truth, not toward producing the correct testimony.

I don’t need to exaggerate my past in order to qualify for help.

I don’t need to minimize my problems in order to avoid change.

And I don’t need to adopt someone else’s experience as though it were my own.

I simply need to tell the truth about mine.

A Different Kind of Step One

Perhaps, then, my Step One begins differently than I expected.

Not:

I have proven that I am powerless over food.

But:

I am willing to become completely honest about my relationship with food, wherever that honesty leads.

There is humility in admitting powerlessness.

But perhaps there is also humility in admitting uncertainty.

Maybe surrender means relinquishing not only my attempts to control food, but also my attempts to control the story I tell about food.

I don’t have to decide beforehand what I am supposed to discover.

I can examine my life honestly.

I can listen to others.

I can learn from OA and other approaches to recovery.

I can pay attention to my behaviors and their consequences.

I can remain willing to change.

And I can leave room for God to reveal the truth without demanding that the truth conform to a particular recovery narrative.

For now, perhaps that is enough.

I am not confessing that I have everything figured out.

I am confessing that I don’t.

And strangely enough, that may be one of the most genuine admissions of powerlessness I have ever made.