Twelve Steps to Recovery: Step #1

Alcoholics Anonymous offers men and women Twelve Steps of Recovery.

Today, some of my fellow b5 bloggers and I will be talking about how the twelve steps can be relevant to our particular readers.

As far as eating disorders go, it’s not difficult to substitute “alcohol” with “an eating disorder” in the steps. The first I’d like to tackle is Step 1:

• Step 1 – We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable

If we say “powerless over our EDs”, the sentence still makes perfect sense. After all, an anorexic, bulimic or binge eater does tend to get to a “powerless” state. I know how it feels to be under ana’s grip; it’s a very lonely, unmanageable experience.

My question for you is this:

Have you admitted yet that you are a slave to your eating disorder? Have you accepted that fact? Or are you still in the mode of trying to justify what you’ve been doing to your body, your mind and your soul?

Next up, we’ll look at Step 8:

• Step 8 – Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all

(Want to see how other b5 bloggers are interpreting the Twelve Steps?  Go to Healthbolt for links to them all.)