I hear so often at meetings how people can’t seem to return to that place of spiritual fitness. And in my own journey, I have asked over and over “Where was God?”
On February 11th, 2020, I weighed in at 398 pounds (180.5 kg). I thought to myself well, at least it’s not 400. That night, I took a shower and fell in the bathtub and could not lift myself to get out. After screaming like crazy, I had to be rescued by the fire department. It took four of them to pull me over to the couch on a tarp so I could crawl up and reclaim my dignity.
Earlier that week, I had received a call from an old friend from OA. We had met five years prior, when I had joined for a brief and unsuccessful spell. She had returned to OA and was using a great food plan from a food addiction center, and she had surrendered to her food plan and to God. She asked if I was ready to surrender too. (By gosh, I think she was Twelve Stepping me.) I told her “I’m not surrendering. You surrender—I’m not ready to surrender.” I didn’t even know what surrender meant at that time.
But then I did surrender. I did a full Step One. I phoned my friend up and said “Okay, I surrender. If you tell me to eat a dandelion, then I’ll eat a dandelion, but yes, I surrender. Give me a few days to clean out my cupboards and order new food, and I’ll be ready.”
Three days later on Valentine’s Day, a universal day of love, I started loving myself. I took to the rooms of OA. (And since then I have come to know surrender as “putting down the weapons and walking off the battlefield,” something I heard at a meeting.)
I jumped into recovery with both feet. I worked the addiction center food plan that my sponsor had adopted; however, I also chose to eliminate flour and sugar from this plan, and I chose to weigh and measure everything I ate. Within one year I had been through the first 164 pages of the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition), I had completed the Twelve Steps of OA, and I had lost a total of 140 pounds (63.5 kg) of weight.
In addition, I jumped into service. I found that on days when I could not show up for myself, I could show up for service. This was at a time when virtual meetings were taking off, and many members were struggling with the technology, so I hosted thirteen online meetings a week, and I served in any technical roles throughout my OA region that I could.
I was feeling amazing. I could walk again without falling, I had a freedom like none other, and I was carrying the message to those still suffering. The amazing thing is even though I had lost my career as a systems analyst due to illness, when the highly necessary technology changes came to OA, I was given a second chance to work my skills. This has been one of the many rewards of service.
For the next year, I struggled to stick to my food plan due to a medication I was given. It gave me severe chills and nausea as side effects, and on many days I could not even eat my planned meals. I lost another 45 pounds (20.5 kg) from not being able to keep food down. Where was God? I thought.
After I went off that medication, I was able to commit to my food plan again. Overall, I maintained an abstinence from compulsive eating, although I changed two foods on my plan: I stopped buying the expensive sugar-free ketchup and switched from gluten-free flour to a grain and seed flour. I maintained a 185-pound (84-kg) weight loss.
When my fifth year of recovery in OA arrived, however, I found myself suffering in silence. I had fallen victim to an outside addiction, from which I nearly lost my food recovery, my entire financial stability, and even my life. While I was furiously and compulsively throwing my money away on this other addiction, I experienced a tremendous struggle to keep my OA recovery. Oftentimes, I didn’t even save money for food, or I lived with food scarcity and made poorer, cheaper food choices such that the cheapest food won out over nutrition. Where was the Big Guy?
It was a dark time. I denied myself everything including my relationship with my Higher Power. I came as close to the edge as I could get without falling over. Where was God?
In the fall of 2024, I finally broke my silence. I reached out to my sponsor and to another loving member of this amazing fellowship, and there was hope.
Still, in November 2024, my other addictive disease finally dragged me down to a completely unmanageable life and my bottom. I had crashed and the only place to go was up. On November 3, my birthday, I was in desperation and survival mode. I was in turmoil by my own choices. My cable and internet had been cut off due to nonpayment and my rent check was declined for insufficient funds. I had gotten paid the previous day, but I was already broke. I had no money left for food or medications, and I was a week into recovery from surgery to remove my excess skin. Where was God?
It was the most complete bottom I had experienced in five years. That day I was very close to losing my life: I live on the 19th floor of a downtown high-rise, and if I said I didn’t step out there and consider ending my suffering once and for all, I would be lying. Where was the Big Guy?
But I chose instead to fight, so I took action. I started doing instead of thinking. I started swimming to the surface where I could clearly see and confront my reality. What I found saddened me and scared me, but I needed to be scared because from that I made a decision that probably saved my life. With gentle encouragement from my sponsor and the Big Guy, I took a three-month leave of absence from all service in OA so I could take an earnest and honest step to recover in another Twelve Step program. It was probably the single best decision I had made in the past year.
I took action. I started doing instead of thinking. I started swimming to the surface where I could see clearly and confront my reality.
Since then, I’ve attended meetings in that Fellowship weekly online and monthly in person. I have found that hitting bottom there probably saved my recovery from food addiction.
It has been and will continue to be a long journey back. At the suggestion of my OA sponsor, I am completing Steps Six to Nine again to seek that character change. I am not happy with the person I have become, and I believe I have the Tools and the willingness to make the changes necessary to find myself again.
I recently completed a Step Six where I wrote out my character defects of the past five years and found the work to be an amazing eye opener as well as a personal shock. Seeing the level of dishonesty that I had risen to was instantly alarming. As I was slowly destroying my life, I was lying to everyone in my life, including myself. The lies were becoming harder and harder to keep track of and depend on, and I had been slowly isolating myself from the outside world. My son decided to take a break from me, my daughter was severely disappointed in me, and the rest of my family were pulling away. I felt the loneliest I had ever felt in my five years of recovery. All because of my choices. All because I let my guard down.
I share this story because I know I am not alone out there. There are many others who suffer at the hands of their manipulative disease while trying to recover from food addiction and compulsive overeating. Whether it’s using food or some other weakness that pulls us in, our disease is not far away. While we are looking for God, the disease is over in the corner doing push-ups. But whether it’s food, alcohol, gambling, drugs, or something else that has a grip on your life, you no longer have to suffer beyond today, because I’m going to share a little secret.
I realize a lot of people may lose that connection to a higher power in this challenging time, and it’s extremely hard to find your way back. I hear so often at meetings how people can’t seem to return to that place of spiritual fitness. And in my own journey, I have asked over and over Where was God?
I have come to realize that God was right where I left him. God didn’t move, I just stopped walking with him.
I am a person that needs to see proof of a God in my recovery and working in my life so I have created a little trick to find him. An example is that one day I woke up and was looking for God. I needed God that day and I needed him to show himself to me. When I went out to my car at 5 a.m. in in the freezing cold and saw a man digging through the dumpster for cans and bottles to turn in for a refund so he could eat that night. I opened the trunk of my car and handed him two big black garbage bags full of cans and bottles that I was going to return. The man cried, and I got into my car and looked up at the sky and said “That’s what you look like today.” I got what I wanted: I was able to see God working in my life.
I am now five months free from active addiction in my second program, and I have more than enough money for healthier foods. And February 14th, 2025, was my five year anniversary recovering in Overeaters Anonymous, an accomplishment I could not have done without the Big Guy, my Higher Power. I am once again living the promises of the Big Book (pp. 83–84).
I am now working Step Seven and visualizing my Higher Power removing all of my defects of character. It is becoming easier to embrace the person I am becoming. I do not feel like I have recovered completely, but I am learning and living this amazing program. I thank the Big Guy and my friends and family every day for being patient while I make my way back.
I recently returned from a family trip to Phoenix, Arizona USA, which was an amazing bonding and rebuilding experience. My son and I have reconnected, and I could not have done this while in active addiction in my other program. I thank God every day for the second chance with my family. It is a gift that my Higher Power encouraged me to give myself, and I complied. When I look at a family picture of all of us together, taken just a week ago, I look up at the sky and say, “That’s what you look like today.”
—Diane D.
