A Story of Recovery:

The Pause

I was out of control! I binged to soothe my hurt feelings and I binged to celebrate the good stuff.  Nothing ever completely satisfied me, so even my celebrations ended in frustration.

I came into Program when I was 42 years old. I weighed 271 pounds and had tantrums. I would keep my cool as best as I could in public and in my job. But, the ones I loved the most—my husband and my three precious boys, were the ones who heard the screaming fits, and saw the emotional, all-over-the place tantrums.   

Now four years later, I hope they are seeing and experiencing a different wife and a different mother, one who wears the weight of the world like a loose garment and not one who melts down like a two-year old. I hope they see what I feel—someone who is in recovery, on a beautiful journey with God, in a right-size body of 135 pounds, and finally growing up!

Today, with the help of the pause, I am able to see when I am not hungry. It is clear, because often that “hungry” feeling will hit when I receive unsettling news directly after a meal, so I know that I’m not hungry—I just ate! So what is it? It’s a feeling… a strong emotional and physical response to a disturbing incident. And, using the HALT acronym (am I hungry, angry, lonely, tired?) to help identify why my serenity is being affected has really been an effective tool. It has underlined and emphasized greatly that I am often overly tired and require more rest.

Before Program, situations and relationships that didn’t go my way would always send me to the food. I would console myself with whatever was on hand, justifying my binge behavior with, “If you had just experienced what I just experienced, you would eat over it too!” Today when those same feelings of disappointment, frustration, or fear come in, because they do still come, I experience a physical pain in my gut that, prior to Program, I used to interpret as hunger, but today I know it’s not.

My Higher Power is teaching me the extreme value of the pause. I break that word down into two parts: P-Pray, A-And, Use-use God! His way is always better than mine. When I take that magical pause, I have a moment to realize that if something is not going the way I want it to, or someone is not responding the way I want them to, that God is in control of everything, and all is still fundamentally well. What encouragement, peace, security, and serenity I have been given.