I found a sponsor and began working the Steps again, this time giving special attention to the character defects of pride and anger.
I came back to OA in my mid 60s after a 30-year relapse with compulsive eating. Who would have thought that someone could start this recovery journey as a senior citizen?! I became abstinent about 4 1/2 years ago and have lost over 100 pounds (45 kg), and my life now is so much smoother.
I say I came back to OA because in the 1980s, I was referred to a treatment center where I first heard about the disease of compulsive eating and the Twelve Steps. I was in treatment with people who were mostly younger than me and mostly bulimic or anorexic (though I have come to learn that I can restrict with the best of them if I pay attention to the scale instead of my program). I came back home, having been set up with a local meeting, and I started attending. I found a sponsor, did my first Fourth and Fifth Steps, and cringed as my sponsor read my inventory. I was terrified, but she was a gentle soul. As she read, I watched her face. She alternately smiled and sighed, and occasionally teared up. Even though her life looked very different from mine, her story was my story.
Then I lost a lot of weight, “a dog food bag’s worth,” as one of my friends described it. I also started having professional success, which was so important to me because it felt like objective confirmation that I was a worthwhile individual. When my sponsor moved away, and there was no one else in the group who really had what I wanted, I jumped to the thought that I had “graduated” from OA. I’d already gotten what I needed in the way of recovery, and between therapy and a new level of honesty, I thought I’d be just fine.
Except I wasn’t. Over the subsequent years, even though I managed to obtain additional professional success, have friends, and be financially independent enough to own my own home, more and more body weight came creeping back. A new job promotion proved troublesome, and that’s when the problems really began. I had become a supervisor for the first time in my life and started realizing that people wouldn’t always do what I thought they should. I just knew the Twelve Steps had gifted me the power of perfect insight, and these people just didn’t know what they needed to do. So I became angry and resentful and starting eating over my anger and resentment, and then, I started to have health problems.
Even though the weight was coming back on, even though I was spending most nights with a bag of candy rather than with people, even after I received a diabetes diagnosis, I continued to think I was a success story. After all, I could swim a mile a day, I was respected at work and in the community, and I was a published author. My diabetes was manageable; I was proud I’d been able to stay off insulin. But when I look back on that time, I am reminded of that old saying I hear in the rooms: “Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die.” Resentment ate at me literally. My weight ballooned to over 300 pounds (137 kg), and I began to have more health problems. A scare about my kidneys brought me back to an OA non-real-time meeting. It was a way for me to enter back truly anonymously, without so much shame. I found a sponsor and began working the Steps again, this time giving special attention to the character defects of pride and anger.
I could no longer pretend that everything was fine, but my Higher Power had quite the sense of humor: it turned out that my kidney scare was about a particular medication and not my diabetes or excess weight. Thankfully, though, I already believed in the Twelve Step manner of living, so I came back to OA. This was as the pandemic was starting, and the virtual meetings saved me. They were available all the time and one night when I needed a meeting, the first one that came up on the list was based over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away from where I live. I’ve never left that meeting.
That first meeting when I returned to OA was a “God moment” for me, and I’ve had many more God moments since. The shame of being morbidly obese and the need for perfection have both diminished. My rage has all but disappeared, and the Serenity Prayer has become my mantra. I have reconnected with family and friends, have felt the healing power of Step Nine, and with the help of my sponsor, I am learning to live in the present and to ask for help when I need it.
My rage has all but disappeared, and the Serenity Prayer has become my mantra . . . I have felt the healing power of Step Nine.
I recently visited my doctor, and when I gave him some literature, he asked if I was still going to OA. I didn’t hesitate; I told him I would always go to OA. I know now that I will never graduate.
I repeatedly thank my Higher Power for keeping me alive until I was able to find my way back. It truly is never too late to receive the gift of abstinence.
—Nancy, Texas USA
