ONE BITE FELLOWSHIP

Tool Talk

What do we mean by "Tool"? In terms of our recovery process, a tool is any action you can take that will help facilitate your recovery. What healthy, safe behaviors can help you STOP the mental obsession to act out with your addiction?

Writing & Talking Our Way Through Recovery

Throughout the seventy-plus year history of the 12 Step movement, WRITING has been widely regarded as an important tool to facility recovery. A non-12 Stepper once observed that writing was "the key to unlock the subconscious".

Being able to unlock what is deep inside our conscious mind can be important to us food addicts since as we attempt to "understand what is eating at us" that in turn activates our overeating. Discovering our triggers, COMBINED WITH working the 12 Steps to overcome them (one day at a time), is an ongoing process for most recovering addicts.

In the hands of us addicts, the tool of writing can come in many forms. Many of us have found it helpful to journal about our lives on a regular basis, write down our food intake, keep a log of our physical exercise effort, take an inventory of persons, places and institutions that "press our buttons" (e.g., trigger inappropriate acting out with food, exercise avoidance and other self-destructive behaviors) or against which we had resentments.

In my recovery program I've found it important to WRITE my food intake and write about other aspects of my life on a DAILY basis. I used to resent he need for writing, now I see it as an important "mirror" to help me see (and become honest about) what is going on in my life. In this way writing can be a powerful way to confront denial and move me from the insanity of inertia and into sane action.

But what if it isn't always convenient to write down my food intake (and it isn't since I tend to eat out quite a bit)? I'm finding it helpful to use the VOICE MEMO feature that comes with my cell phone as a "bridge" to writing down what I'm eating. I may not always have my Recovery Journal form with me, but I almost always have my cell phone on my person.

Please note that I'm NOT substituting talking for writing. I'm simply using my cell phone to record voice memos until it's convenient for me to sit down and write out my food intake and write about other important aspects of my recovery effort.

If you don't use a cell phone, let alone have a model that comes with the Voice Memo feature, other options to record your voice in a fairly portable manner include using a microcassette recorder or a personal digital recording device.