A Story of Recovery:

I walked into a room of beautiful people

Turning to food was definitely my natural reaction to life. Hadn’t it always been there for me?  Surely I couldn’t survive without it. I’d always turned to food when I felt happy, sad, mad, scared, rejected, worried, or abandoned. Food got me through, but now what I had once called “my friend” seemed to have betrayed me and become my greatest enemy. I couldn’t seem to get enough food in me anymore, and it wasn’t bringing the relief it once had. The food wasn’t working anymore!  What else was there?

When I decided to come into FA, it felt like it was my last option. I was exhausted and hopeless, and I weighed more than I ever had. I had said I’d never hit 200 pounds, but my weight was headed to the mid-200s and not stopping. Surprisingly, it really wasn’t the weight that brought me in. What drove me to my first meeting was the obsession, and my inability to find the right food, or enough food, to relieve me anymore.

I walked into a room of beautiful (inside and out) people. If they hadn’t had “before” pictures to prove their results, I would not have believed they’d ever had a weight or food problem.  I heard hope and strength, yet they told stories that were just like my own experiences with food. They were living differently now. I knew I needed help learning what I was supposed to do instead of eating.

When I had been abstinent for two days, I attended a meeting where everyone was positive and friendly. Not me! I had the worst headache and trembles, as my body detoxed from all the flour and sugar I had eaten on my “last binge day.” I thought I would never make it home to go to bed. I even told someone that I wasn’t sure I was going to stick with this, because I really didn’t see the point, since I would someday be in a nursing home and surely couldn’t stick to the food plan there. Ha! I was serious. Thank God I now know that I just have to eat this way for one day. I have learned that there’s a lot of power in staying where my feet are—in the present. I work at not borrowing trouble from tomorrow, because it may not even come, and it robs me of the energy I need for today. My disease was working overtime to find an excuse to get me back to eating the way I’d always eaten.

During my first 90 days, it seemed like time had come to a standstill. Before FA, time just seemed to fly by, but all of a sudden it stopped; even the time between breakfast and lunch seemed to take forever. I never thought the 90th day would arrive, and when it did, I found out I really just kept doing the same thing on day 91 and the days to follow. There were no balloons or parades because of my “arrival” at day 90.

When I first got abstinent, I was so overwhelmed. All I could focus on were my past mistakes and the wreckage of what my food addiction had caused. I was disgusted with myself. I had to allow myself to grieve and work hard at forgiving myself and accepting I had a disease. I didn’t have to forget the past, but I certainly had to quit trying to drive forward while looking in the rear view mirror all the time. That was then, and this is now, and there is a lot of power in living in the solutions today and not in the problems of yesterday, which I cannot change. Some things in my life can’t be fixed, but they can be faced, forgiven, and even healed by God. Today I can make a difference by choosing to live just for today.

I have also learned that abstinence is not my goal. Where I once sought relief through the food, I now seek recovery. Abstinence is critical; I will not have recovery without it.  But, abstinence is the bridge I walk across to get to my goal: recovery. When I came in, I had only hoped for weight loss and freedom from the obsession of food and dieting. I had no idea what recovery was about. Two years later, and minus one hundred and eleven pounds, I have discovered there is so much more to living than food. I am peaceful, clear-headed, content, joyous, funny, and even powerful enough to discover new possibilities for my life. At age 54, I am setting out to recreate a new me, and I am having a blast discovering myself for the first time.

I am thankful to God for the gift of an abundant life.

 

This story was originally published in the Connection Magazine. Subscribe to the Connection Magazine for more stories of recovery. Or submit your own story of recovery.