A Story of Recovery:

Sliver of Joy

I clearly remember my first day of “abstinence.” I was 370 pounds and desperate to be free from the spiritually deadening confines of my food addiction. I was getting to the point where I was ashamed even to walk outside of my house; ashamed to be seen. I had a protective wall up against the world. I didn’t really know at the time that my misery was connected to food. I still thought food was a comfort, a secret sanctuary that I could use to soothe myself through the stresses of the day. But it was a lie.

I went to an FA meeting and readily obtained a sponsor, who I had known from AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). She was a tiny woman, but was large in love and concern for me. She was fierce and straightforward, and I didn’t know how to deal with her. She had taken me to buy my scale and gave me a food plan. I never called her.

Then I went to an Intergroup meeting and a beautiful woman pulled me aside and asked if I had a sponsor. I told her that I was there to get one, and she quickly took my hand. We wove through the crowd and she found me a sponsor. This time I was determined to work the program, but my addict mind was scared.

I was so panicked the night before my call. I had written down my food, weighed and measured everything the night before, and set my alarm. But when I set my alarm, a thought came across my mind. When does this abstinence start? Does it start after I commit my food to my sponsor? Surely anything that I ate before that hour wouldn’t count. My addict mind had found a loophole. I set my alarm for 3 a.m., which gave me two hours to binge. I told myself that this would be the last time, just as I had a million times before. I could barely sleep, and when I woke up the next morning, I tore from bed and drove from my apartment straight to a 24-hour drive-through. I didn’t restrain myself, or even feel ashamed, when I unabashedly ordered a large quantity of breakfast food. After I devoured it, I went to an early morning bakery and stuffed down several large baked goods. I felt sick. I knew I couldn’t call my sponsor in my condition. I went home and purged. I made no mention of this to my sponsor.

Over the next year, I would get a few weeks of abstinence and decide I didn’t like my sponsor or I would take issue with her type of sponsoring. Then I would quit and binge. This cycle continued until I left Program completely after losing about 70 pounds. Four months later, after gaining back 60 pounds, I was truly as desperate as the dying can be. My life in food relapse had quickly unraveled. I lost my job, was on disability for stress and panic disorder, was kicked out of my apartment, and lost several dear friends.  After months of ignoring phone calls from people in Program, I answered a call from a woman who I had admired while I had been in FA. I do not know what possessed me to answer the call and to proceed to tell her how miserable I was. My higher power was doing for me what I could not do for myself. I went to a meeting a few days later.

You would think that after all this turmoil, I would be abstinent, but I was not. Again, I was having problems finding a sponsor who I did not consider to be “punitive.” I felt like I would never get abstinent and would never be able to stay abstinent. An FA fellow assured me that abstinence is like walking, and that I was like a baby. When a baby is developing, there is no way of determining how and when it will learn to walk. It just does one day. I was encouraged to move forward, no matter what.

Finally, I did something different. I started really calling people and getting to know them, and it was through this process that I found my current sponsor. She was a woman who truly had what I wanted.  She was kind, compassionate, funny, smart, honest, and most importantly, abstinent. She gave me a food plan and repeatedly assured me that I should come to her in a real way, with honesty and without shame. I had lived my whole life in shame, and it had not worked, except to keep me running back to the food.

So I told her that I could do it. I told her I smoked cigarettes, I was still promiscuous, and that I stayed up way too late, didn’t get enough sleep, and that I had food thoughts. Looking back, if I had been in her place, I don’t know if I would have had much hope for someone like me. My life was a mess. But she was gentle and non-judgmental, and she assured me that she had once been where I was.

The time seemed to fly by. I did my tools, went to meetings, showed up for my sponsor calls, and finally, miracle of all miracles, I was abstinent.  When I was able to finally stand up and be seen and heard at the meetings that I had been attending for a year and a half, I was elated. I was asked to lead meetings all over Northern and Central California. I hugged crying food addicts after my shares and made a host of new friends. I was finally getting just a sliver of the happy, joyous, and free life that the AA Big Book mentions.

I wish I could say that I kept those first 90 days and treasured them for the precious miracles they were. But I am a food addict through and through, and my addict mind and my addictive behavior found me in the food again. For that I am grateful, because in this second 90 days, I can stand in front of the room and really see my true struggle and all of my self-harming behavior. I am clearer, more connected, and more spiritual than ever.