I came into FA at age 52 and had just lost 110 pounds after doing my own diet. I still had more weight to lose (my highest weight was 256) and a certain food had me by the throat and I couldn’t stop dreaming, fantasizing, and thinking about it. The weight started to creep up again.

God led me into FA, and within three months the rest of the weight was off. I made a few mistakes here and there for a few months. I got 90 days of abstinence, lost it, got six months a couple of times, and then lost it. Then after about a year, I started to get into the food big time again. Finally, I was convinced that I needed to stop eating, and life was abstinent and good for almost nine years. Now looking back, I realize that I actually “white-knuckled it” for all of that time, and eventually I again relapsed into a year of non-stop, horrific eating out of control, putting on a pound a day. Before my year of bingeing was over, I had crept up to almost 200 pounds again. It became clear to me that food addiction is one vicious, powerful, and deadly disease.

By the grace of God, I never left this program. I always had a sponsor, although they dropped me right and left. I always was graced with the gifts of loving people in my life, who really tried to help me through my pain and misery. I was also blessed with the desire to attend many FA and AA meetings. I may have eaten on the way to and from each meeting, but I showed up. I did the tools and disciplines to the best of my ability each and every day. I was as honest as I could be to my loving, caring fellowship. Some days were one long binge, and some days I could stay abstinent. The mental torture was horrendous, the physical feelings were painful, and the spiritual vacuum was obvious. I kept praying to God to make each binge my bottom so I could crawl my way back up to the top from my deep hole of food and pain.

Seven years ago, God blessed me with some changes and with the daily abstinence I enjoy today. I began to be more laid back about life and started to turn more over to my higher power. I re-evaluated the service I was doing, went more slowly, and decided that the best thing I could do for Program was to show up at meetings, even if I was eating, so others could see what food was doing to me. I became willing to follow my food plan, even when my body craved sugar, flour, quantities, and grease.

I am now almost 72 years old, weigh 112 pounds and have a clean, precious relationship with my higher power that I could not grasp years before. Only God could have pulled me out of the horror I was in. I look back at that year that changed my life and today I am grateful for the pain and misery I went through, because God used me and my story to help myself and others.  I have a new appreciation for the swiftness with which my life can change…one bite and I lose everything I live for. I have been blessed with a new compassion and a more sane and serene life.

Many things have come up in the past few years since my “new” abstinence: caretaking a very sick husband, serious problems with children and grandchildren, and a cancer diagnosis for myself.  I don’t eat over any of this today, because of the grace of God.

I am wearing a favorite shirt of mine as I write this and on it is a logo in large letters, “Life is Good.” And so it is, as long as I don’t eat.