Keep coming back, no matter what!
I was introduced to OA back in 1987 through a treatment center that I was fortunate to have attended. Like many before me, I was overjoyed to find recovery after a lifetime of compulsive eating and all the bad things that resulted from my disease. I took to the program right away, resulting in both a massive weight loss and opportunities to give service at the group, intergroup, and even world service level. I imagined the remainder of my life would be dedicated to nothing but recovery! I even changed careers to enter the field of addiction treatment.
However, after about 15 years of working the program, I began to let go of some of the principles I had learned, and I began to struggle with food. Fortunately, I remained in the rooms—I never left OA. I reached out to a man I had met at a retreat, and by working together, I was brought back from the brink of self-destruction with food! I kept coming back, I shared about my struggles in the rooms, and I began working the Steps again. That was relapse number 1!
I eventually moved out of state in a new area where I knew some people from my OA region. I had convinced myself that I needed to make more money to be happy, so I was in search of a better fortune and moved to accept a new job. A year after I moved, however, 9/11 occurred, and those events had a negative impact on the industry I was working in. By the summer of 2002, I had lost the job and was facing emergency financial challenges! But I also made a fateful decision that year: I decided I to stop going to OA “for a while,” and concentrate on solving my financial problems. That decision lead to a ten-year relapse! Relapse number 2. Instead of remaining in the program, I just became angrier, and depressed, and as the disease progressed, I became more suicidal! I was angry at God; I was angry at my employers; and I felt my fate was sealed, and that God (if he existed at all) would do me a favor and just let me die!
The difference between the two relapses? I never left in the 90s. But in the 2000s, I did leave. And it’s only by the grace of God that I’m back in the program! I made another move in 2017 to the area I’m in now. I have a wonderful group of supportive friends, and I am again giving service at the group and intergroup level.
The moral of my tale? Keep coming back, no matter what! Never lose the capacity to find gratitude, it will always be found if we look for it!
—Edward, Kentucky USA
