A Story of Recovery:

From Certainty to Wonder

Like so many people who come into the FA program, I had been in several weight-loss programs. Like others, I came into FA to lose weight. I was pretty successful at losing weight in those other programs, and I don’t want to put them down; they work just fine for others. However, the important thing for me is that this program helps me keep the weight off; the other programs didn’t do that for me. I have lost enough pounds to bring me to a healthy weight, which I have maintained for over a year and half.

In FA, I have gained a deeper spiritual connection to my inner self and a better connection to my emotional self. I now know that when I want to eat in my former unhealthy, addictive way, it’s because I want to avoid feeling something. Thus, when I don’t eat to avoid feeling something, I am forcing myself to confront some hidden anxiety (most of the time it’s anxiety). That works for me, unless I choose some other avoidant or addictive behavior.

I don’t suppose that this way of conducting my life as a food addict is so different from lots of other addicts, food addicts, in particular. But my story might be significantly different from many others, because I came into the program as an atheist, a dedicated, deeply believing, fundamental atheist. I was comfortable in my “faith,” my faith that there was nothing in or beyond this world, that organized religion was a construct of man, created to give him both control of and comfort within his environment and to relieve his anxiety. I am using “his” and “man” consciously; I believe that the males of my species created the religions of the world.

I never much minded other people’s faith in a God or a Him; that was their thing, but not mine. I only minded when they insisted that my way of thinking was wrong and against God’s will, and that I was going to go to hell. I can appreciate the concern of some of those people, who truly felt anxiety or pity for me. I understand that they regretted that I had no “faith to live by.” But, I was perfectly comfortable living in my way.

When I stood up at my first meeting and was asked to read the words, “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him,” I stumbled over these words. I gave the book back to the leader, saying, “I can’t read this.” And it was many months before I could.

You may ask how it was that I was able to read it later. Did I become a believer? Did I surrender to “Him?” (I raised two daughters in the belief that they need never surrender to a “him” or a “he.”)

What did begin to grow in me was an increasing wondering and awareness of the possibility of a spiritual world outside of myself, or around myself, or above myself. I asked myself, How could I be right and everybody else be wrong? I asked myself, “What could happen to you if you suspended your absolute certainty of nothingness and let in a possibility of something?

I am 83 years old. It was scary, and exciting. I grew up in an atheistic family, and I have lived many years in the comfort of my convictions. I felt very brave and impressed by my willingness to open myself up to new ideas at this point in my life. Also, just because I opened myself up to an expanded image of spirituality, it didn’t mean that I couldn’t go back to my previous “faith.”

What has happened is, once I opened myself up to spiritual exploration and let alternative ways of thinking into my consciousness, it was hard to return—and truthfully, I didn’t need or want to return. I have become comfortable in agnosticism: in not knowing—not knowing what energy is out there in the universe. Is it the energy of all of the souls that have left their bodies and joined together in some kind of ether out there? I call on that energy when I say, “Let Go and Let God.” The word God is, for me, that energy, that ethereal bundle of my spirituality.

I am now midway through an AWOL and have had the opportunity to speak about my belief system, and I have been able to hear others speak out about theirs. It is all a great huge wonder to me. Feelings that have been buried within me for so many years are coming to the surface. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to participate in the AWOL, and I am grateful for the release of stuck emotions; sometimes they threaten to overcome me, but I welcome this.

Whenever I stand up to speak at an FA meeting these days, I speak out about my atheism and agnosticism, because I know that I am not alone. I believe that others need to hear my story and permit themselves to construct their very own, individualized take on their spiritual lives.

Recovery from food addiction is absolutely possible, even for an atheist or agnostic, by using the FA program and taking from it what speaks to you, in your own language of “faith.” The AA Big Book says, “God as we understand Him.” I have translated those words into my own way of believing, and it works for me; it works for me amazingly.