One day at a time, I’m working on honesty. Fun? Not particularly, but the freedom tastes much better than any food I could eat.
I’m a slow learner. I came to OA for the first time in the mid-1970s and used the “gray sheet” as my guide to losing weight. (Yes, I said losing weight—it took a long time for me to realize that this is a disease of the body, mind, and spirit.) I did lose weight. I followed the gray sheet’s strict plan like it was an edict from God. I sped through the Steps, my Fourth Step being a narrative of all the ways I’d been wronged in my life. I didn’t share it with another member but with a priest who knew nothing about the Twelve Steps and told me I’d had a very difficult life indeed.
Was my approach a recipe for success? No, it was a disaster, leading me to more excess eating and binges. I soon dropped out of OA and continued with my brilliant plan of self-managed diets followed by periods of bingeing. For 40 years, I tried to go it mostly alone. I thought Twelve Step meetings in my other fellowship would serve double duty for me. But ten years ago, quite miserable and sitting in my other meeting, I was lonely and afraid and yearned to talk about my food insanity. I realized then that the time had come to walk back through the doors of OA.
It’s not that I hadn’t ever been back to OA in all those years. I was a “revolving-door member”: in for a while, out for a while; bingeing, starving, bingeing. So what made this time different? I’d been given the gift of desperation. So I went to meetings and chose a sponsor with whom I would work the Twelve Steps again.
And I hated it. I hated telling someone about food and my disgusting hungers. I didn’t like putting foods on a binge list; I wanted to keep my options open. I didn’t like anyone knowing what I ate and how. My sponsor made it clear to me when I was playing with fire, trying the old way. I listened to her because I was desperate.
Over coffee one day, my sponsor looked me in the eyes and said, “You never have to overeat compulsively again, you know.” I was stunned. Ever? For some reason, the idea of lifelong abstinence had never sunk in, but it sure did on that day. Since then, the Steps, Higher Power, meetings, and my sponsor (the human element had always sent me packing before) have evolved into a balanced and simple eating plan that has worked for ten years. I do not work it perfectly. Sometimes I overeat; sometimes I under-eat, but one day at a time, I’m working on honesty. Fun? Not particularly, but the freedom tastes much better than any food I could eat.
My sponsor looked me in the eyes and said, “You never have to overeat compulsively again, you know.” I was stunned. Ever?
I’m under no illusion that I’ll have another abstinent ten years if I don’t continue to grow in accountability and relationships in the program. I have begun volunteering for service, even though I’m worried I won’t do a good job. I’m also calling and texting my sponsor more often than before. Mostly, I’ve been relieved of the craving and the obsession. On the rare days when I feel wobbly, I can make a phone call (oh, the weight of that phone!) and find my “OA feet” again. There’s magic in the dreaded human element.
—A.F.S., Illinois USA
