Personal Story: Surrender to the Cambridge GreySheet

One member of the GreySheet Committee shares her experience of what makes GreySheeters Anonymous, founded in 1998 to carry the Cambridge GreySheet message, unique.

I am writing to share my experience of coming into Overeaters Anonymous (OA) and, nine months later, making a clear and intentional decision to join the Cambridge GreySheet community. When I came into OA in July 1982, GreySheet meetings were part of the Overeaters Anonymous fellowship. I started off with a GreySheet and a meeting list and proceeded to go to OA meetings in the Boston area. A choice of food plans was available at most of the meetings. The GreySheet was the first food plan that I had, so I just stuck with that.

Willingness to get a sponsor hit when I was at a regular (non-GreySheet) OA meeting. My first sponsor was okay with me choosing GreySheet. However, she said she didn't sponsor food; she sponsored emotions. I didn't quite know what to do with that, so I said "Okay." I found myself going mostly to the GreySheet meetings, which were in the city of Cambridge "across the river" (Charles River) from Boston. I liked those meetings because I found hope and strength there. Their clear message was that it was never okay to eat compulsively – no reason, no situation, no matter what. People talked about the food, saying "Focus on the food, it's the food." They described a physical allergy to foods not listed on the GreySheet. I learned that, if eaten, these foods (sugar, starch, grains, carbohydrates) set up a craving for more of the same – a craving that was insatiable and irresistible. They studied the A.A. Big Book, identified themselves as alcoholics with food, and saw GreySheet as A.A. for food. They were serious and left no wiggle room for the disease.

I wanted to have a sponsor from those meetings because I wanted to commit my food. I wanted to talk to these people who were really not eating. But they were doing things that I did not want to do and didn't think I should have to do. Many of these things were not explicitly stated on the GreySheet. For instance, nowhere on the GreySheet does it say, "weigh and measure without exception." Nowhere. But that is what those people did and that is all they sponsored.

My sponsor suggested that I go to meetings in Medford, another town near Boston. Those meetings defined abstinence as weighing and measuring from the GreySheet with exception. I did go to a Medford GreySheet meeting, but I found that I needed the clear, focused, absolute Don't Eat No Matter What, Without Exception message to break the back of my addiction.

I came to learn about how and why the Cambridge GreySheet meetings were started. Two OA members recognized that they needed a meeting where everyone was committed to a common definition of abstinence. They needed a meeting where people worked the food program with the same vigorous and positive attitude as alcoholics worked the A.A. program. A community based on No Matter What (NMW) and Without Exception was born. It was a community committed exclusively to the GreySheet food plan. The early members recognized that this disease of food addiction had no cure. They also recognized that GreySheet abstinence was a real solution. They knew that, since we were addicts, we would never become neutral around the food.

They focused on the importance of loving our GreySheet meals and eating the foods we enjoyed most on the GreySheet. They crossed off "small to medium" for fruits and vegetables and encouraged "the biggest and the best;" real food, not diet foods; not a "pat" of butter but four tablespoons of fat a day; the biggest three raw vegetables for lunch, not a "finger salad." They crossed out "two pieces" and "two slices" of protein and instead weighed four ounces. They took the protein off the bone and weighed four ounces. None of these things were written on the GreySheet. These practices became the Cambridge GreySheet in addition to the printed list of foods we eat, their amounts, and the list of foods we avoid. The Cambridge GreySheet meetings, so named because the first GreySheet meetings were held in Cambridge, defined abstinence as weighing and measuring three meals a day from the GreySheet, without exception, "with nothing in between but black coffee, tea or diet soda."

Finally, after nine months in the OA rooms, doing GreySheet "cafeteria-style," I found myself eating out of the garbage. I was scared to death. I finally had the great gift of desperation and made a fully intentional decision to join the Cambridge GreySheet community, to surrender, to do what I was told, to follow directions. I am so grateful to the people who said, "If you want what we have, do what we do." Believe me, I was not grateful when I first heard that. I thought they were nasty and mean. I am grateful that they did not water down the message, that they did not worry about my feelings or try to be nice. They were trying to save my life.

In summary, I know of four programs that use the GreySheet food plan. OA had GreySheet until they withdrew all food plans. Medford OA had GreySheet with exception. OA-HOW had GreySheet but added a grain. The Cambridge GreySheet community did the unaltered GreySheet with clear boundaries without exception, no matter what. This seemingly harder way has turned out to be the easier, softer way. It freed me from the bondage of food addiction. For almost four decades, my gifts of desperation and surrender have given me a life free from food cravings and free from guilt and shame around my food. I am able to say out loud, "I love my food!" Thank you, Cambridge GreySheet and GreySheeters Anonymous. 

KN
Abstinence date: 4.27.1983