A Story of Recovery:

Inside Solution

I walked into my first FA meeting ten years ago and saw five people in the room. There was no back row where I could hide, with my stuffed stomach and agonized nerves. I had just had a several day out-of-control-binge. The women  spoke about the fact that they loved this program and enjoyed being in  healthy, normal-sized bodies. They had that glow in their eyes. I had a normal-sized body, too, but boy did I hate it.

I still can’t recall why I came back to those small meetings that you hardly could call a group. I knew lots of larger Twelve-Step groups and thought that something must be wrong with this program, when so few people attended a meeting. On the other hand, I felt that I needed help with my suicidal food intake.

I also can’t recall what made me, after five meetings, shyly ask a member to sponsor me. Why did I not argue and debate with these women? There were definitely a lot of things around this program that I thought I would do differently, with all my Twelve-Step experience, but my skepticism and rebelliousness were inactive on that particular day. I guess I was too scared by my last binge. With lots of shame, insecurity and “yeah buts,” I followed my sponsor’s guidance—not only about the food plan, but also about the tools.

The two small meetings in my hometown that got me started with FA were closed within six months. I did not even have 90 days of abstinence, but decided to move into another city where there were three FA meetings. Everyone tried to keep me from doing it, saying that I should not make any major changes during the first year. But I had caught fire on FA and no one could hold me back.

A 15-person fellowship and three weekly meetings welcomed me, and I gloriously reached 90 days of continuous abstinence. However, I heard lots of arguing before and after the meetings, and I saw people stay away from meetings because of personality conflicts. I was devastated to see so many people leave Program or relapse and never get back. The three FA meetings  ended up closing. I had gotten attached to the FA members and could not understand why they did not want to talk to me any more on my outreach calls. My sponsor suggested I focus on the abstinent people who were still in FA.

We tried to start a meeting again. Now I was the one who started arguing. I thought things like: why did that FA member not check things with me? I got very angry, and after three-and- a-half years, I broke my abstinence.

I went to the FA convention in Boston and broke into tears when I experienced a loving and welcoming fellowship of members who accepted me without judgment, even with all my soul sickness. How much I missed that at home. Here I learned to pray for the person I resented for the sake of my abstinence.

The following years, I tried to create the fellowship I craved, but no newcomer would stay. It took me a long time to understand when my sponsor said that it would happen “in God’s time.” I realized that I had tried too hard to make it happen. I stayed abstinent and grew, even without FA meetings in my area.

But alas! There came the next booby trap when this addict tried dating. I thought that those FAs were way too prudish and rigid around this topic. I decided that I would do it differently. I would let God in and go with the flow. I did go with the flow. Within two-and-a-half years, I had four relationships and a few one-night-stands. In the beginning it was really fun. I felt like catching up on the wild teenage years I had misspent on refrigerators and a grocery shops. The relationships, however, became increasingly abusive.

Three sponsors let me go during that time. Many people patiently shared their clarity with me on my outreach calls. I listened politely, but could and would not put their wisdom into practice. What I had not found in creating an FA meeting, I tried to find in men. I ended up wanting to kill myself because my boyfriend did not love me, plunged into the next relationship to show him, and experienced the same loss of control as I had around the food years ago.

On my ninth anniversary in Program and four weeks after my fifth abstinence anniversary, I broke my abstinence again. I was shocked. I broke my abstinence because I was in a hurry, and thought: who would be late for work just because of some stupid food rules? With my behavior around men and food, I had one foot in the recovery boat and the other foot in the addiction boat.

I admitted immediately that I had broken my abstinence, and I went back to day one. Finally I let go of my urgent want for a relationship. I had hit that point of no return that it takes to find the willingness to look for an inside solution. I now have a year and a half of back-to-back abstinence again, from food addiction as well as from sex- and -love addiction. My growing pains have turned into priceless experience that I can pass on to my FA fellows who face similar difficulties. I have found a deeper understanding of the age-old truth that everything I was looking for is inside of me.