This year the U.S. government initiated a very successful stimulus program that allowed many Americans to trade in their old, inefficient, gas-guzzling cars for new, efficient models, under the Cash for Clunkers Program. Though I didn’t trade in an old car to FA, I do feel like I traded my old clunker in for a brand-new body, mind, and spirit. For years, I had abused my body with food, swelling to 70 pounds over my normal size, feeling hopeless and completely helpless about food. My body, mind, and spirit could only be described as a total car wreck.

My bloated body was grinding gears and straining under all the extra weight. My painful joints creaked constantly. I never drove too far or went up many hills without gasping for air. Turning over my engine in the morning was almost impossible. I fueled my body with numerous cups of high-test caffeine coffee and lots of flour and sugar products, but still ran out of gas by lunch. I had to make countless pit stops for more unhealthy fuel at every fast food restaurant along the way, just to drag myself back each night and start the same routine the very next morning.

My doctor prescribed special additives, like cholesterol medicine to adjust my valves, because I was corroding my engine from within. My body was not energy efficient or attractive, and I certainly didn’t know how to fix it. My brain was as frozen as an engine block, unable to figure out why I was driving my body in this unhealthy way, heading straight for the junkyard.

To make matters worse, my clunker wasn’t just a car, but actually a bus. I was always the stressed, angry driver, transporting a constant load of people, including my husband, my mom, in-laws, children, boss, etc. I needed to control them and would tell them what to do, how to do and criticize them if they didn’t do it perfectly. Thankfully, FA promptly took away my bus driver’s license. I have learned to keep my eyes on my side of the road.

But miraculously, in October 2008, I desperately drove to my first FA meeting. My own clunker sure looked different from that of the people in that room, who were thin and serene. At that first meeting, I met my sponsor, who is now my master mechanic, helping to transform me by instructing what me on what to eat and how to follow the simple FA program. I am forever grateful for her kindness and incredible knowledge.

Just like a good mechanic has a trained ear to listen for a car’s grinding or clicking noise, she would listen each morning to my list of worries, troubles, and food issues, and alert me to what I couldn’t hear for myself. She reflected that I might sound tired, or should really examine why I was doing something. Or, she simply suggested I try a new vegetable, like cauliflower! She was forever patient and kind, but she also firmly took away my keys when I abused my body through my self-centeredness, and brought me back to day one.

Thankfully, FA didn’t just give me one mechanic, but a whole fleet of workers, willing to help me avert the crisis of a food temptation or just offer helpful advice, which was available nearly round the clock. An East Coast member who has difficulty managing cravings late at night can call a trusted mechanic on the West Coast, and with the three-hour time delay, find they are still open for business!

It was no surprise that I never had any manual with my own clunker, but now I am learning how to following a simple set of life’s instructions. I am learning not to abuse my body with food and to lovingly take care of myself.

Within eight months, my clunker lost 70 pounds and was getting transformed into a shiny, sleek model. Surprisingly, I also had new improved features that were missing on my old clunker. My self-knowledge was upgraded with brighter halogen headlights so I could better see the road ahead and miss those all-too-familiar potholes of life. Prior to this, my accident rate had been extremely high because I crashed into roadblocks when my husband would criticize me or my son wouldn’t do something I wanted him to do. Now I recognize those roadblocks quickly, ask my Higher Power for help, and miraculously drive around them. Some roadblocks have even been completely removed!

My new clunker also has a Global Positioning System (GPS) that lets me navigate my daily journey. Instead of imputing street and town, I plug in my three weighed meals, my tools, a sponsor call, my readings, my meetings, my AWOL, and my Higher Power, and safely drive through my day. I know where my car is going, and I am always headed in the right direction. In the past, I would drive around in circles, lost in a food fog, ending up at the same dead end. Regardless of how I feel now, my emotions don’t grab the steering wheel of my new clunker. I am a happy traveler on the FA road of life.

So what am I driving now? This new body is shiny, sleek, energy efficient, and fully loaded, like a shiny red sports car. It isn’t boring, but fun, doing more activities and meeting many more people than ever before! I am not broken down on the side of the road, but really driving through life, and truly grateful to enjoy it. I feel 15 years younger, and people have noticed the new me, in size and temperament.

My sports car thankfully has very little room for luggage in the trunk, so I try not to carry yesterdays old laundry or pick up unnecessary futuristic follies. I just need to drive my car one day at a time. What I do need is to always remain safety conscious, checking my rear view mirror daily, ever mindful to put my program first. My life could and would drastically change if I take my eyes off the road and have another food crash. Who knows if I would survive it?

Can you guess how many seats are in this sports car? It’s a two seater; with room just enough for me and my Higher Power. On both good and bad days, I am learning to get out of the driver seat, throw Her the keys, and let my Higher Power take over. When I sit relaxed in the passenger seat, I am amazed at the scenery of beauty and love that flow by, things that I missed for decades when I was chained behind the wheel of my old clunker, fixated only on food.

So, if you pull behind me at one of life’s many stop signs, please read my grateful bumper sticker. It says: If you want what we have, follow this car to an FA meeting.