“Uncle Matt died.” I knew when my mother called me at 7 in the morning it would not be good news. Uncle Matt is one-half of my parents’ best friends, both of whom have known me since the day I was born. He and my father met on the first day of law school and formed an incredible bond that extended to their wives, each of them becoming the sister that neither had. They raised their children together and Matt and Judy’s three sons were surrogate cousins to me. The depth of my love for this entire family is profound, and the past week has shown that to me in remarkable ways. With those three words, my world was rocked. I knew he had been very ill, with heart and kidney failure, and his short-term memory was shot. But no one expected his death so suddenly. There was no question... Continue Reading
I was preparing for a gastric bypass surgery. I passed the screenings. When I passed the psych test, I thought: they do not really know me. I had them fooled, but if they said I was ready, I thought I’d go for it. I spoke with a coworker who gently and quietly suggested I go to a Thursday FA meeting. I decided I would check out a Tuesday meeting (no one I knew would be there). I parked the car and watched people go in. Most of them were in “normal” size bodies. I remember thinking that I didn’t see anyone waddling like I did. I call it the waddle walk, sort of like how Red Foxx walked in his character, Fred Sanford, on television. That is the way I normally walked. The people going in the door seemed to be thin and walking normally. Finally I saw a few... Continue Reading
As a food addict, I had no limits on anything I did. I had no structure and preferred it that way. When I was told about what I had to do in this program, I balked. I wanted to pick and choose. My sponsors, and there were many, tried to explain that the tools of this program were gifts, if only I would give them a chance. By weighing and measuring, I was assured that my nutritional needs were being met. But what I found was that the discipline of weighing and measuring my food carried into my life, helping me to find a new freedom. It was work , preparing meals, making calls, going to meetings. I was forced to realign my life , for the better. Having made a commitment to program and to a higher power, I was finally accountable. For the first time, I felt some... Continue Reading
“Am I allowed a different type of my breakfast food?,” I asked my sponsor a couple of weeks after joining FA. (I had eaten it that morning.) “You have 50 pounds to lose,” she said. “Just have the regular kind.” She paused and said, “Why? Have you eaten it already? “No,” I said. I was surprised that the lie had slipped out of my mouth before I had time to even consider a response. That was the first time I realized it was more important to me to appear to be doing well rather than to actually be doing well. It didn’t matter how awful I felt as long as people thought, “She’s got great recovery.” I believed that would make people like me better, which would make me like myself better. So I continued on my quest to hit the magic number of 90 days of abstinence, but it... Continue Reading
Most of my life, I’ve not been athletic. The only reason I exercised was to lose weight or to counteract my most recent binge. It was all about burning calories or toning, and I didn’t really enjoy the effort or experience. When I came into FA I was 52 years old, 200 pounds, depressed, and beginning what I thought was to be a lifetime of worsening arthritis. My joints and the high arches of my feet were hurting, and I resigned myself to a steady decline. I didn’t think there was another choice until I was lead, by the grace of God, to FA. I lost my weight in 11 months and settled on 123 lbs on my 5’4″ frame. It was nothing short of a miracle that all my arthritis pain disappeared completely. I was at my goal weight for a few months when an older, overweight co-worker asked... Continue Reading
