A Story of Recovery:
Open Minded and Now Open Hearted
I’ve been in FA in England for 9 years and often speak with members from America and overseas, yet never had the opportunity to visit them or attend any of the FA conventions so I was naïve and dismissive as to what they were or how they might apply to me.
In 2018, however, I managed to save the money and finally go – I flew to New England a week before the Business Convention, visiting fellows who happily gave me places to stay, abstinent food to eat and drove me here, there and everywhere.
During that week, I qualified at two meetings and talked with many fellows, including some newcomers. It struck me how it doesn’t matter where in the world we are; the meeting format and the identification we all have with each other as food addicts is exactly the same. It gave me a warm glow inside of renewed belonging.
On the first morning of the convention, I was awed by the sheer number of people – over 570 – and how easy it was to go up to any of them and just start talking. Over the course of the weekend I cannot tell you the amount of new FA friends I made through chance-encounters in elevators, whilst eating lunch or having been invited to an impromptu 5-minute-long disco in the carpark!
The first event of the day was an FA meeting. I had never been to one with more than 20 people in it, but here was a huge hall full to the brim with hundreds of FA members. When it came to the part of the meeting where the leader asks anyone who is new or visiting to stand up, about 200 people got up from their chairs! I expected everyone to simply welcome us as a group but astonishingly, we went patiently from one person to the next, each giving their name and where they were from, before sitting down as everyone welcomed them.
This set the tone for the weekend for me – a sense that everyone, whether you have been abstinent one day, or 25 years, is loved and valued and equally important.
This enormous meeting also gave me an opportunity to identify those international fellows that I had spoken to on the phone for many years – I ran up to them afterwards and the conversations we had were akin to the type of excitable interaction one might have with a long-lost family member – huge intakes of breath, plenty of hugging and running off to a corner of the room to speak animatedly!
The whole weekend was peppered with meetings, FA business sessions, Committee Meetings and of course, the Saturday night disco! It was all new and confusing, but I came to understand how the wider programme is run – what the ‘World Service Board’ actually is, what ‘Committees’ and ‘Local Service Groups’ do, who was dealing with the FA website statistics or the treasury, what it means to be a ‘voting member’, and simply put, just how much unpaid time and effort and dedication goes into keeping our organisation going.
None of the discussions or votes were boring or not worth my time. I got to see the down-to-earth people behind the names and service positions and realised that none of it was for “someone else” to do – the opportunities to get involved at any level were available to me too.
I was amazed at being able to listen to those with 20+ years of abstinence speak at a meeting – they were all humble and gracious – and I gained a real understanding of how important the principles and practices of the programme are and how sticking to these no matter what forms the basis of long term, contented abstinence.
At the beginning of any business session we started with 5 minutes quiet time – imagine a room of over 500 Food Addicts all sat perfectly still with their eyes closed. You could have heard a pin drop and at the end I could have happily carried on.
As the convention came to a close, and the Chair of the Board gave his closing remarks (encouraging all of us to practice tolerance, acceptance and understanding toward each other – something I had found in droves that weekend), I found myself sobbing – something that doesn’t often happen to me. I was struck how all these people understand, accept, and welcome me. These spiritual tears were the same ones I shed when I walked into my very first meeting 9 years ago and for the first time realised I belonged.
The fellowship and camaraderie I experienced means I truly feel part of a global tribe of people and now I can’t wait to pick up the phone and catch up with them all each day.
My experience left me with one major message – GET INTO SERVICE! Even if it is a simple as packing away chairs at the end of a meeting. Service keeps me abstinent – giving this gift away to others is how I keep it – and it feels so uplifting to do it!
I encourage any fellow out there who is as dismissive as I was about the Business Convention to grab some open-mindedness and go and experience it. I have not regretted the time, effort or commitment – I came back feeling transformed and completely regenerated. See you next year!