A Story of Recovery:

Tidal Wave Warning

Before coming into FA, I really thought that all I needed was a bigger bathtub. I had convinced myself of this after I had risen from the tub and a large tidal wave gushed down the drain. It was like a miniature Niagara Falls.

At that moment, I told myself, I’ve outgrown this tub. It was then that I came up with the grand idea: I’ll get a larger one, perhaps a garden tub.

I remember weighing myself shortly afterwards. I was 51 years old, 5’8 tall,” and I weighed 289 pounds, just eleven pounds short of 300. “Grossly obese,” the charts stated. As I stood in front of the mirror, I asked myself: What happened? How did I gain all this weight?

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always loved sugary foods. As a small child, I craved them, even though very few sweets were kept in our home. I did live for those days when the smell from mom’s baking met me at the door when I came home from school.

There were seven children in the family, so seldom were seconds given out of anything. My father worked and provided, but there always seemed to be just enough. I was a smart, innovative kid who found several ways to get pennies and nickels to take to the corner store, where a nickel used to buy a bag of sweets.

At school I picked my friends very carefully. Their friendship with me depended on if they could freely supply me with sweets, or if they had the money to give me to buy them myself. I befriended the girl who sold sweets at her little locker store at school. Most times, I had free reign of whatever she had to sell. I also had a friend who would take fifty-cent pieces from her home to give me so that I could buy sweets after school. At thirteen, I took a babysitting job at a nearby neighbor’s home, solely based on their huge snack cabinet, which they let me use freely. (The neighbor couple and their daughter were obese.)

During the summer months when school was out, I stayed high in the fruit trees that were on our property, eating continuously whatever was in my reach. I always ignored the warnings of the side effects of overeating fruit. I thought: It’s worth it.

At around the age of ten or eleven, we moved to another house. There were no fruit trees, so I became best friends with two overweight girls. Both of their households had food, snacks, and sugary sweets in abundance that were readily available.

At fourteen, going through puberty was really the first time I started focusing on my weight. The scale at that time read 138 pounds. I didn’t weight myself often, but I remembered once weighing 110. Then when my fixation on my weight took off, but I didn’t stop eating.

I compared myself to everyone everywhere, especially those young teens in the magazines. Twiggy was very popular at the time. I felt overweight. Pictures showed I was not, that I was very average, but in my head, I was heavy.

Through college, I ate floury, sugar-baked goods in between classes, before and after tests, and while studying for a test. School was centered around food.

In my thirties and forties, I kept my weight down, mainly by exercising, and I tried a few diets. On one diet, I ate so much of the primary food that I ended up with a stomach ulcer. I tried a high-protein diet, but that didn’t go over too well either, so I quit dieting.

When I reached 45, I struggled more with my weight. I’d fluctuate up and down the scale 10 to 20 pounds. I started on Slim-Fast and exercising, and I walked five miles  three times a week; that kept me at a pretty regular weight for a while. When I was 46 was really when the weight came on. I had surgery to repair my knee and I was unable to climb the stairs well, so I just sat in the basement and stuffed my face. That was the beginning of a 120-pound weight gain over the next five years. By the time I came to FA, I was 289 pounds.

After getting out of the tub that day, I said a prayer and asked God to help me. The very next day I ran in to a friend and she told me about FA. I weighed 289 pounds at the time. I went to the Saturday morning meeting the very next day. I got a sponsor and lost 140 pounds in about six months, but I still had a heavy mind and tried to do things my own way. I didn’t do all of the tools, and I was angry and irritable all the time. I didn’t realize that it was partly the sugar, but it was also partly me. Even with the weight off, I was still stuck with me! Before I knew it, I was back eating.

I was away from Program only two months and I couldn’t believe it, but I gained 40 pounds. Since I’ve been back in Program this time, I’m doing what is suggested: I work the tools, call my sponsor, weigh and measure my three meals, and make my calls daily. I am working the inside of myself now. Letting go, praying, talking, and sharing have really changed me. I no longer isolate. I am lighter in my body and in my head.

I thought I needed a garden tub. All I needed was the fellowship of FA.