September

The last step, the 12^th Step is to “Carry on the message of Overeater Anonymous ” which means sponsoring another women in her eating disorder recovery. The struggle in sponsoring is that as people who struggle with addictions we have a hard time establishing boundaries. That’s why it’s important to establish a healthy Sponsor/Sponsee relationship in the beginning by asking your Sponsee to show you their level of commitment. A lot of sponsors say, “If a Sponsee can’t take simple direction in the beginning, they aren’t ready to be sponsored.” Here are some ideas of homework assignments for your sponsee’s to see if they can take your simple direction and do these assignments. These assignments also help you to gather information about your sponsee so you can be a better Sponsor.

What do you want from a Sponsor?

Ask your Sponsee to make a list of 10 things they want from a Sponsor, for example:

1.1.  Return’s my phone calls within 24 hours

2.2.  Eats meals with me

3.3. Hangs out with me

4.4. Works steps with me

5.5.   …..

Once they have created this list you can go over it with them. You can say, “I am a very busy person, I can’t promise to return your call in 24 hours, but I can do 48 hours.” Or, “I would love to hang out with you, but I like to keep my Sponsor/Sponsee relationships professional, I have found I can’t be ‘friends’ with my Sponsees because it makes things confusing.” This list helps to keep everyone on the same page as far as expectations from one another.

Big Book, The Doctor’s Opinion

In the Big Book there is a chapter called the “The Doctor’s Opinion” which states why alcoholism is truly an addiction. In Overeaters Anonymous we too believe that Overeating is an addiction. Having our sponsee’s read this chapter and truly grasp that their eating disorder is a disease helps them surrender their disease to their higher power as well as help with their willingness to work with a sponsor and take direction.

Want Ad for God

In the 12 Steps we discover a “God of our own understanding.” Many of us have grown up with judging, critical, mean and demanding God. In the 12 Steps we are encouraged to imagine a God that we would like to have a relationship with. A God we could feel safe sharing our hopes, dreams, fears, successes and struggles with.

Having our Sponsees create this “Want Ad” as if they lost their God and needed to find him/her/it, what would the characteristics they would be known by? Have your Sponsee created this Want Ad and share it with you. This Want Ad will help you as you work with your Sponsee when they struggle with their life’s direction. You can ask them, “What would your God say to that?”

Check-in

How often would you like your Sponsee to check-in with you? My sponsor asks that I call her at least 5 days a week and tell her how I am feeling, 5 things I am grateful for and 1 thing I am doing for someone else’s recovery today.  Some Sponsor’s ask that their Sponsee’s check-in like this so the Sponsee can learn to commit to something and know that their life is accountable to someone else. Checking-in also helps a Sponsor knows what’s going on in the Sponsee’s life and can help manage life and issues as they come up, not just when something huge comes up. If check-ins aren’t regular Sponsee’s can slip back into old patterns. Check-ins are good things!

Steps

This is the main reason why people get Sponsors, to walk them through the 12 Steps of Overeaters Anonymous or Anorexics & Bulimics Anonymous. Meeting at a coffee shop or in the privacy of someone’s home the Sponsor and Sponsee are able to discuss these steps and how to apply them to the sponsee’s life.  

Abstinence

Eventually the Sponsor and Sponsee should establish what the Sponsee’s abstinence looks like. Does the sponsee want to eat 3 meals and 3 snacks a day? 3 meals a day? Or is a wide abstinence of no binging and no starving? Everyone is free to choose an abstinence that works for them and their recovery, but both the Sponsor and Sponsee need to be on the same page of what that abstinence is so that the Sponsor can keep the Sponsee accountable for it.

Abstinence Date

There is a saying that goes, “You pick a date and you stick to it!” A Sponsor needs to know when their Sponsees Abstinence Date is so they can keep the Sponsee accountable to that date, cheer them on in accumulating more days of abstinence and also work appropriately with the Sponsee. A Sponsor works differently with a Sponsee who has 6 months of abstinence verses one who have 6 years of abstinence.

Whether you apply some or all of these tools to your Sponsoring program, I hope you know what a service you are doing to eating disorder recovery. Thank you for dedicating your time to the recovery of others and helping to restore our society to the healthy, prosperous, beautiful place it was intended to be.

Happy Recovery,

Irvina 

The women of The Victorian and Sober Living by The Sea got the opportunity to do a Street Art Workshop with Rewrite Beautiful this past Saturday. The goal of the workshop was to creatively change how the women see beauty in themselves.  The workshop was kicked off with Rewrite Beautiful, Creative Director and Founder (and former Victorian Support Staff) Irvina Kanarek (me!) who shared what Rewrite Beautiful’s mission is and why prevention is so important to her. (*From my experience working at The Victorian and seeing the gruesome toll eating disorders take on people I want to be apart of prevention.)

Then  Janna, a woman in eating disorder recovery shared her own story and what the Rewrite Beautiful mission means to her. The meeting was then transitioned into a creative workshop. Sunny, an Art Professor at the Art Institute of San Bernardino led the women through a creative experience called, Mind Mapping. 

Here the women learned how one thought can rapidly turn into another. The mind mapping was then transitioned to 3, 3 x 6 foot wooden panels where the women explored their thoughts and emotions around: Beauty, Recovery and Victory. I guess we could call this “Beauty Mapping”. 

Each time someone wrote out their opinions on Beauty, Recovery and Victory they ended with a foot print to symbolize the journey we are all on trying to attain these things. The next person who built on the previous persons though added another foot print to the existing foot print making one pair of heart shaped foot prints symbolizing the journey we all embark on together.

After the mapping the women read aloud what the others had written about the subjects. Their statements were powerful and a sense of struggle, pain, seeking and at times triumph was felt.

Then the panels were flipped around allowing the women to creatively draw, paint and spray paint any visions they received from the workshop.

The workshop ended with each women being given a Rewrite Beautiful bracelet with our vision printed on it: “Creative + Kind + Strong = Beautiful”. The hope is that these women remember that their participation in this workshop was beautiful actions on their part. They took the time to be creative, kind and strong in order to change their mindset on beauty and hopefully their opinions about themselves will rub off on their friends and family.

Thank you to all of the Rewrite Beautiful  volunteers for visiting The Victorian and Sober Living by the Sea! You rocked it! 

The below meetings are the latest and greatest eating disorder recovery meetings in Orange County. We have attended them all and can vouch they are awesome! Check them out!

Monday – 7 PM to 8 PM

@ The Victorian – 509 29^th Street, Newport Beach, CA 92663

This meeting focuses on Anorexics and Bulimic recovery. A speaker shares her experience, strength and hope for 15 minutes and then the meeting is open for response and sharing.

Contact Elyse R. for more info: (714) 316 - 3073

Tuesday – 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM

 @ The Grange - 2144 Thurin Ave Costa Mesa, CA 92627

This meeting is open to everyone struggling with food. A step or tradition from the The 12 Steps & 12 Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous is read and then the meeting is open for response and sharing.

Contact CT T. for more info: (949) 294-1496

Thursday – 7 AM  to 8 AM

@ The Costa Mesa Alano Club- 2040 Placentia Avenue, Costa Mesa, CA 92627

Open to everyone struggling with food issues. This one hour meeting includes 5 minutes of meditation and then the meeting is open for sharing .

Contact Sarah L. for more info: (310) 388-7716

Saturday – 9 AM to 10 AM

@ The Costa Mesa Alano Club – 2040 Placentia Avenue, Costa Mesa, CA 92627

This meeting is open to everyone struggling with food. A reading from the book, For Today of Overeaters Anonymous is read and then the meeting is open for response and sharing.

Contact CT T. for more info: (949) 294-1496

These meetings truly are where the eating disorder recovery is at! I hope to see you all there soon!

Happy Recovery!

Irvina