“Perhaps the best thing for me to remember is that my serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations.” Big Book, 4th ed., page 420.
The people on Maui expected the island’s alarm system to warn them about imminent danger.
Russia expected Ukraine to be easy pickings.
The people of the United States expected scientific breakthroughs to have eliminated covid 19 by now.
Expectations! We all have them, but the addict exhibits them in so many ways.
Here are a few based on the Big Book:
We expected to be able to abuse substances without consequences. In our using days, we expected to eat whatever we wanted, however much we wanted, whenever we wanted and were genuinely shocked when our lives devolved into a nightmare.
We expected things esteemed by this world-money, intelligence, self-knowledge-to be the solution.
We expected to be able to throw a few prayers out into the universe and be magically healed.
We expected to jaywalk without getting seriously banged up.
We expected that we could live long and happily in this world without being entirely honest with somebody.
We expected other people to fix us with minimal participation on our part.
We expected to find an easier, softer way than trusting God, cleaning house and helping others.
We expected that foodaholism was our ticket to oblivion and the inability to feel anything would be our nirvana.
We expected to be treated as special, unique cases to be handled with kid gloves by others when what we really needed was to be willing to extend patience, tolerance, understanding and love to ourselves. By surrendering to the solution outlined in the program of Overeaters Anonymous, we are able to extend these principles of the program to others. We are able to give instead of take.
In recovery, we watch our serenity level rise as we disregard our expectations and rights.
Keep coming back and you can legitimately expect to recover!
Jacqueline
Length in program 38 years (June 1985)
Length of imperfect but enduring abstinence 34 years (August 4, 1989)
100+ winner
Overeater