While in relapse, I never left the OA rooms because I had a service job that did not require any period of abstinence. I also knew the program worked, and that gave me hope.
I came into OA in 1984 at the suggestion of a friend who was also my “commercial pay-and-weigh” buddy. She had no idea that a few days before she called, I had come very close to attempting suicide because of my weight, over 210 pounds (95 kg) for my 5-foot-3-inch (160-cm) body, and my intense self-loathing because of what I looked like. While I could relate to what I heard and saw at my first OA meeting (the speaker passed around his “before OA” pictures), I can still remember thinking that one of them must have been crazy because they identified as a “grateful compulsive overeater.” I remember thinking, “How can you be grateful to have this affliction?!” Forty years later, I’ve grown to understand exactly where that person was coming from.
Because of my disease of compulsive eating, I was introduced to a program that enabled me to not only lose 86 pounds (39 kg) but to also develop a relationship with a God of my understanding, when at one time I was angry and hated God. I am also so full of gratitude for the many sponsors in my life, especially the first three.
I gravitated to my first sponsor because she was so pretty and thin (that was everything I wanted at the time) and she knew so much about OA. She was the one who instilled in me the importance of doing service. She had me volunteer to do various jobs at the meeting, like make the coffee for the 15-minute break. She also invited me to intergroup, and I started participating after three months in program. Her biggest gift to me was teaching me to never put anyone on a pedestal, which is what I had done with her. I learned this lesson when she left OA in my tenth month without a word to anyone.
My second sponsor helped me learn to really trust someone else. With her, I finally felt comfortable sharing my feelings, which was something that was just never done in my family. Unfortunately, this sponsor also left program at the end of my second year because of serious, time-consuming family issues.
This brings me to sponsor number three. I asked her to be my sponsor because she was always so serene and seemed to have a deep spirituality about her. She was the one who took me through the Twelve Steps using the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition) and the accompanying AA Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. (In the 80s, there was little OA literature and no OA Twelve and Twelve like there is now.) By working the Steps, I was able to:
- let go of resentments and hurts
- develop a concept of a Higher Power that had all the love, understanding, support, and caring that I so needed
- identify my faults and with God’s help, work toward removing them
- make amends to people I had harmed so that I no longer had to avoid them or feel uncomfortable in their company
- recognize the need for doing service both in and out of OA
- learn the valuable practice of “acting as if” when presented with a concept that has worked for others but was still questionable in my mind
This last item enabled me to “act as if” I loved my mother, who for most of my life, I felt no emotion toward. But one day, I realized that I was actually feeling love toward this woman.
I am ever so grateful for going through the Step process. I have since done it several times using The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition and The Twelve Step Workbook of Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition. I am grateful for the 16 years of back-to-back abstinence that I have enjoyed and all the wonderful members of our Fellowship that I’ve met through giving service at the local, region, and world service level.
Life in 1995 seemed to be just perfect . . . until it wasn’t! At the end of that year, my husband, whom I loved dearly and who was not only my partner of 26 years but my best friend, committed suicide. Luckily, my abstinence and program were strong, and I had the support of so many OA friends. I thought I was fine . . . until I wasn’t.
In 2000, I was trying to fit in with a social group (outside of OA) so that maybe I could find a guy to socialize with. As a result, I stopped going to my usual three or four meetings a week and only went to one. I stayed out late several nights a week, which meant several mornings I slept in instead of getting up to read my OA literature, write in my journal, and meditate. I dropped some of my sponsees in the process as well. Looking back, I realize that what I was trying to do was “to be normal,” which could never happen. I am a compulsive overeater and nothing will ever change that. And if you haven’t guessed it by now, I relapsed.
Looking back, I realize that what I was trying to do was “to be normal,” which could never happen. I am a compulsive overeater and nothing will ever change that.
I was in relapse for a period of 16 years, but I never left the OA rooms because I had a service job at one of my meetings that did not require any period of abstinence. I also knew the program worked, and that gave me hope. During this period, I was not always compulsively eating. Sometimes I would put several months of abstinence together—and one time I had as much as a year—but then I would take that first compulsive bite, and I was back into the food with a vengeance. I never gave up, though, nor did my sponsor give up on me. I also never felt judged by my fellow OA members, although I felt shame all the time. I do see how during all this time, I developed a much closer relationship with God.
I never gave up . . . nor did my sponsor give up on me.
Then the miracle happened for me. At the end of February 2016, I had a bad case of the flu. For several days I could hardly keep water down, never mind food. When I woke up on March 1, 2016, and started to say the Third-Step Prayer, God put this thought into my head: ”I have been abstinent for the last few days and am abstinent today. This is a gift from God which I can keep or throw away by eating compulsively.” I decided that day to keep the gift. Every day since then, I thank God for another day to be abstinent and tell him that I am keeping the gift.
Today, I say I am a grateful compulsive overeater. I am grateful for all of my experience and time in OA, even for my period of relapse. While relapse does not have to happen, I believe that my experience has enabled me to have more empathy and love for my fellow OA members who are in relapse. I also believe that my experience shows the importance of never leaving the rooms because one never knows when the miracle of abstinence will once again happen. I wish I could say I had 40 years of abstinence, but for whatever reason, that was not to be my journey, and I have acceptance about it. I have long ago learned not to look at another’s plate and not to compare my recovery to someone else’s. I just know that I owe such a debt of gratitude to this wonderful Fellowship and especially to our beloved founder Rozanne S. I also know that my journey in OA will continue until I take that last breath, whenever that might be.
—Lee R., Massachusetts USA
