My name is Charlie, and I'm a compulsive overeater.
I am so grateful for meetings. I finally got my ass back to a meeting yesterday. I was warmly greeted by two good OA friends and one newcomer. I forget how desperately I need the tools of this program. Why do I keep forgetting?
I'm a compulsive overeater. I need a program of recovery. I need to use the tools. I need meetings.
I'm heading out to another meeting in a little bit. This one is a Christian recovery program based on the 12 Steps and also incorporating Christian teaching, mostly based around Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. It's called "Celebrate Recovery." I went last Friday night and really enjoyed it. Tonight I'll get into a small group. I'm excited because they have one specifically for pastors. I need that.
One of the interesting things they do is use the entire serenity prayer, as written in the 50s by Reinhold Niebuhr:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.