A Story of Recovery:

I Was Ready

I came to FA with the gift of desperation. My body was overweight and sick. I am 48 years old, and in my early forties, I was already having trouble walking up the stairs in my house. I was having joint problems and digestion problems on a daily basis. The doctors had gotten me on medications to deal with the symptoms, but I didn’t feel that I was getting to the root of the problem. I was also concerned about the side effects of the medications I was taking and what they were doing to my body. My doctor had told me I would be on medication for the rest of my life, and I didn’t feel I could accept that.

I was looking for something to help me feel better and to lose the weight that I constantly struggled with. I am 5’4,” and when I came into FA, I weighed 185 pounds. I would try diets and lose some weight, but as soon as I would start to feel a little better, I would go back to my old way of eating. Then, I would gain the weight back, and more. I was dieting my way up the scale, and I was afraid all the time, thinking that I would never lose the weight. I thought I was doomed to be fat and sick.

Then I decided to go to see a therapist. She started helping me work through some things I had going on in my family, and she was very good at listening. After hearing me discuss my weight and my issues with and around it, she asked me if I’d heard of the 12-Step Program of FA. I didn’t even know there was a such thing as food addiction. She gave me a pamphlet and suggested I go to a meeting. I lived in Denver at the time, and I was happy to see there were meetings near my house.

I went to my first meeting on a Friday afternoon. It was a small meeting of about five other people. I walked in the room, and I was greeted with kindness and feeling of being welcomed. Listening to a women on a CD recording tell her story of food addiction, I was mesmerized. I couldn’t believe that someone was actually talking out loud about what she had done with food. I had done those things too, and I hadn’t even recognized it as a problem until I heard another person say them. I had hidden bags and boxes of things I’d eaten down in the garbage so my husband wouldn’t see that I had eaten them. I had been in denial about how much I was really eating in a day. The people that were close to me only saw what I wanted them to see of what I ate. I was hiding so much more, every chance I got.

I heard things in the meeting that helped me to have an awareness right from my first meeting. I felt like I was home. I wasn’t the only one. I wasn’t a bad person. I had a disease, and I was finding the solution.

In the meeting, I heard “If you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps.” There was a beautiful woman who was thin and strong and had a light in her eyes that I was drawn to. She stood up before the break and said she was available to be a sponsor. I knew this was my chance, and I asked her to be my sponsor. She gave me her phone number and told me to call her in the morning.

When I left the meeting, I sat in my car and cried. I had found the answer that I had been searching for all those times I did Weight Watchers, or LA Weight Loss, or expensive diets in the past. It was simple: those didn’t work for me because I’m a food addict. I had my first abstinent meal that night, and I was ready. I knew I needed whatever this program was.

Today I live in Florida, and have a wonderful life. I’ve been in FA for about a year-and-a-half, and I can’t believe how much better my life is. I still have the same sponsor, and she has helped me to maintain a steady, healthy weight. I don’t have all those negative thoughts running through my head about how fat, ugly, or useless I am. I don’t have to hide all the rolls around my middle when I sit down; I feel good in my body. I get to just be me, the way my body was meant to be. Thank God for FA.