All of the primary methods our disease uses against us preys mainly on our immaturity. There’s a reason we read about looking for “the easier, softer way” in “How It Works” – because in most compulsive eaters’ immature brains is someone looking for the easy way out. This is not a trait solely consigned to compulsive eaters alone. There’s a billion dollar industry out there peddling an almost infinite number of “easier, softer ways” to problem eaters. The reality is that if any of those ways really worked, it would eliminate the competition and become the way to battle problem eating. To lift a line from the Big Book: “science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn’t done so yet.”

I remember one time reminding a sponsee of the sentence in “More About Alcoholism” that says (in food terms): “It is the great desire of every [compulsive eater] to somehow eat like a normal person.” To which he said, “no… we really don’t want to eat like normal eaters. We want to eat the way we want to eat and have no adverse effects.” I thought about it and he was absolutely right. Normal eaters will take one bite of a piece of cake and say “oh… that’s too rich.” What? I don’t understand the phrase “too rich” in any possible definition of the word “rich.”

Narcissism, ego and self-centeredness are three of my larger – and less desirable – character liabilities. Like many people I know in program, I was raised by immature parents who were themselves narcissists. In terms of maturity, I did not have good role models to show me how I should comport myself as a mature adult as I grew up. Additionally, as narcissists, they passed that trait down to me as well. Often children of narcissists tend to become narcissists themselves – there are a number of very good books written about this.

One of the things I had to admit about myself – mostly through various inventories – was just how much I lived in the “whirlpool of self.” I also call it the “prison of self,” which is a more accurate description. Every event that intersected my life was somehow personally connected to me or my life – or so I believed. As a result, I took so many things so personally, amplifying those problems exponentially. When someone cut me off in traffic, I was doubly angry about the act, because I somehow saw it as a personal affront. No… it really wasn’t personal. The guy was just clueless. As a friend said to me once: “Never attribute to maliciousness that which can more likely be attributed to cluelessness.”

The other thing about such affronts is that they came from an aggrandized view of myself in the world. “Don’t they know who I am?” – that phrase would be the sub-conscious thought feeding the anger. This was another part of my warped brain: I’m special. The rules don’t apply to me. I have good reasons for breaking the rules. Everyone else has to play by those rules or I get angry, mind you, but I am the special case...