I wanted to be “normal” in my eating. Why should it be a problem when I ate pretty much what I wanted throughout my teenage and early adult years? I may have had some heavy weight gain here and there, but never serious enough to consider my eating a problem. I just needed to back away from the table. I remember my prayer to God after I was so through with myself for not keeping the weight off. At one point, I weighed 230 pounds. I fasted (not eating anything) for one full day, prayed, and turned it over to God.

Then I attended my first FA meeting. I was ready to start that night. There was nobody available to sponsor, so the friend who brought me told me she would talk to her sponsor about sponsoring me. I got her phone number, went to the store, and began my program the next day, with the food plan that saved my life and sanity. I had come to the end of the road, and FA was the light at the end of the tunnel.

When I think of it, it does not take much effort when you are convinced you cannot get out of a hole all by yourself. You follow instructions because you know that your best thinking got you into the hole in the first place. I needed to turn over the management of my life to something greater than myself. It turned out to be God, through the program and fellowship of FA.

When my clothes started to loosen, I began to feel that I was taking care of myself again. With fewer that 90 days, having had four sponsors, I lost my footing when I thought I could do this program by myself. I took my 30-pound weight loss and went out on my own. I stayed with the meal plan while bringing in flour and sugar products.

For seven months, self-knowledge and a modified food plan would end up showing me that the FA program was not meant to be done alone. I failed miserably and wanted so much to be back in the company of people who knew that sanity and recovery rested in service and gratitude. I had neither. I saw in advance where I was about to end up…fat and crazy.

The friend who had introduced me to the program pressed me to return. I was beginning to swell, and I knew that denial had me in a headlock. I asked my Higher Power for forgiveness for not appreciating the wonderful gift He had given me by placing me in touch with such a loving and caring program.

I called and left messages with two recovering food addicts who I knew worked a strong program. Neither person took long to call back. The first member who called me back is my sponsor today. I was back in Program, surrounded by fellows and grateful for this second chance.

I was somewhat reluctant to walk back into an FA meeting because my body would tell the story of how I took my will back and began to be sick again. I was a mess, but I could not let my embarrassment cheat me out of the one thing that worked and kept working as long as I followed the tools of the program. I may have gotten some condescending looks when I walked into that Saturday morning meeting, but I also got some encouraging words of hope that I could lose the weight again and gain the sanity and spirituality to keep it.