After spending a full sunny day at the beach, I left feeling hot and frustrated because I had spent most of it sitting on a blanket, fully dressed, unwilling to join my cousin and aunt who were playing in the ocean. I told myself that I needed to lose weight, but the thought of losing weight overwhelmed me. I wanted to lose about 40 pounds, but I didn’t know where to start.

So when my aunt told me on the car ride home that I would definitely lose weight if I just ate three weighed-and-measured meals twice a week, I was hooked.  She mapped out a food regimen that involved weighing and measuring, and I wrote notes feverishly. I tried her food plan for one meal and couldn’t make it to the next. It didn’t work. Sure, it was simple and made total sense, but I couldn’t stick to it.

I needed something more. I needed something that I could always rely on that would be there for me when I went to bed every night, and when I needed motivations to get up each morning. I needed something that would be there when I was studying, commuting to and from school, spending time with family, or just when I was by myself. I needed something that would be there, no matter what, despite how horrible I felt I was. So I grabbed boxes and bags out of dumpsters and disabled-children’s summer-camp knapsacks, from grocery store bins and dorm-mate’s rooms (including the freshman’s dorm house I supervised—I had the master key). Acknowledging that I had a problem with food, but having no tools to cope with it was too painful. My best solution was to continue to eat.

Then I joined FA. After my first day of abstinence, I knew this was the solution. Nothing could deny how good eating and that weighed-and-measured meal felt. All of my negative thinking and mental gymnastics lifted. It was a relief knowing that I didn’t ever have to over exercise, manipulate points, drink raw, green smoothies, or do any more meditation/fasting retreats. I didn’t have to keep searching for the next fix. FA had rooms full of everyday people living normal lives, free from their addiction. I wanted that, too.

While I couldn’t deny how good abstinence felt, I still wasn’t ready to jump in with both feet. After about one month, I had just barely touched the water of abstinence before I went back to sleepwalking to the kitchen and eating again. While I may not have always made the decision to get out of bed, I was awake enough to choose to have that first bite. As a result of my will, I didn’t stay abstinent the first 90 days of going to meetings.

Eventually it turned around, and the willingness came to call my sponsor before taking the bite, specifically before bed when I thought I might take the bite later. I got on my knees at night, asked for help, and started really using the tools. I had feelings that I didn’t know what to do with when I was in a rush to get to school, felt lonely by myself, and when I was getting stressed studying for exams. I was guided to my higher power every time.

After my first 90 days of back-to-back, clean abstinence, I didn’t trust that I’d be able to keep it. I had lied and manipulated so many times before. My sponsor, through repeated reminders, told me—and still does—to relax and trust. As long as I’m willing to go to any lengths to protect my abstinence, planting both feet in the water of honesty, I will continue to have a sense of peace and serenity, not to mention a right sized-body.