My wife had prepared and weighed my salad and said, “Here ya go.” It was time for me to add my salad dressing. Earlier that day, the dinner I had committed to my sponsor included eight ounces of salad with one tablespoon of vinegar and oil for a fat. After measuring and pouring on my fat, I opened the refrigerator door and grabbed a bottled dressing and poured some on my salad, telling myself, “Nobody will know; it doesn’t matter.” My wife uses other things on her salad that I, as an abstinent person, would not; but I sprinkled some on my salad anyway and ate more by hand.

Over the years, I would do this time and time again. My dishonesty would mask itself but, being a man of integrity, it would always come back to haunt me in guilt. I would go to meetings where my fellows would speak of stringent honesty and it would just get to me. Eventually, I would have to confess to my sponsor and to the fellows in the group, “I’ve done it again, blown my abstinence.” For so long, I told myself, “This is the way it’s going to be for me. I’m not perfect, I make mistakes, I just need to accept myself.”

It’s just so crazy that, after 20 years in Overeaters Anonymous (OA), three years in 90-day OA, and now three years and three months in FA, I am finally 90 days abstinent. I’ve watched people come in and get this blessing from day one and lose half their body weight. I’ve seen them calm down and begin to smile, right before my eyes.

I’ve heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Thank you God, I have stopped that insanity cycle, for today, and I realize that I don’t have to have that little bit of extra food. I was always so fearful and immensely insecure when I had to say that I’d broken my abstinence again. Now, I can be perfect with my food commitment.

I am so grateful for the loving people in this program, who didn’t say I couldn’t come back. Instead, they told me that today is a new day, that if I humbly ask God, he will help me, and that I just needed to keep coming back until the miracle happens.