But the weight I’ve lost hasn’t been limited to extra pounds on my body . . .
In Step One of The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition, it says, “If we could just get to the perfect weight, life would be wonderful” (p. 5). This means many of us who have joined OA started out with the belief that our weight is the cause of our chronic unhappiness. But when I first read that, I wrote in the margin of my book, “my chronic unhappiness is the cause of my obesity.” And while that was so very true for me thirteen years ago, it took coming to OA and working the Steps to uncover the driving forces behind my compulsive eating.
Before OA, I felt unworthy of love, so I tried to make people like me by doing what I thought would make them happy. I lived with the shame of believing I was a failure at controlling my eating. I would lash out at anyone who dared to contradict me. I feared that would never be able to change and improve, and somehow all those feelings had become centered around that number on the scale.
I’m now grateful for that fat because it brought me to OA with enough desperation to be willing to go to any lengths to lose the weight. And so I have, in large measure thanks to the help from my Higher Power and the confidence that comes with being abstinent.
But the weight I’ve lost hasn’t been limited to extra pounds on my body. I no longer carry the weight of trying to please everyone; I’m free of the heavy burden of feeling like I am a failure; I’ve dropped the pounds of shame and resentment that I carried for so long; I have lost the ton of guilt I carried over my angry outbursts. While I am still carrying around some hefty emotional luggage, a huge weight has been removed from my daily living, and now I do feel the “sunlight of the Spirit” (Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition, p. 66) bathing me in light and lightness.
When I focused on my size and weight I was unable to stop eating. Now, as long as I stay within my Higher Power’s will, abstinence is easy. Staying abstinent frees me from dragging around my heavy, emotional defects.
Today, my eating is for fuel and abstinent pleasure, and I can leave the results up to the one who carries the weight of my whole life in his strong arms.
—Mollie R., Idaho USA
