Five years ago I came into FA, desperate to lose weight. I weighed 330 pounds and was ravaged by medical complications. I had sleep apnea, hypertension, fibromyalgia, renal failure, incipient heart failure, premature osteoarthritis, and pre-diabetes. At the age of 55, and after decades of obesity, my body had lost its ability to buffer any further insults. It had lost its functional reserve to the point where organs were starting to fail and show the clinical effects of longstanding food abuse. The only option open was bariatric surgery. Nothing else had worked and I thought nothing else was available or would work. I had reached rock bottom.

Some would say that it was serendipity that I heard about FA while driving home.  For me it was nothing less than a miracle, because the week before I found FA, I was on my knees crying and praying to God to give me a solution, to give me the ability to stop eating.

When I came into FA, I waddled in like a duck and sat on a chair at the back of the room with my legs apart and my arms spread out. My arms could not touch my sides because of the rolls of fat. The fat between my legs, and the fatty apron that hung over my belt and extended to my knees, were not only physically disabling and unattractive, but emotionally and mentally overwhelming. I sat and listened and related to what was said. I had a disease, not a moral failing or a lifestyle choice.

A few years earlier, my 11-year-old son, out of nowhere and for no reason, reached out from the back seat of the car, grabbed a handful of fat from my armpit while I was driving and said, “That’s Russell.” No reason given. Well, that name stuck and the other fat rolls developed lives and names of their own. Frank was the nastiest, cruelest and meanest of them all. He was the fatty apron, always in front of me, causing problems with my personal hygiene, playing with my mind, and giving me untold psychological and emotional embarrassment.

I continued to go to meetings, sit and listen, weigh and measure my food, and thank God, one day at a time. It is five years later and I have lost 170 pounds. Frank and Russell are out of my life, but I know they have not gone. I am always cautious that they are lurking in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity for me to weaken when I am tired or depressed so they can reclaim their revenge. I still bear their marks on my body to remind me of their presence—to remind me of where I have been and to be vigilant not to go there again. A disease yes, treated yes, but not cured; just arrested. That’s good enough.

Thank you God for the solution. Thank you God for joy that this Program has given me.