I walked into the room of my very first FA meeting on a Sunday evening, feeling cocky, arrogant, pig headed, angry, and self-absorbed. At the same time, I also felt shy, extremely frightened, terribly disturbed, isolated, and withdrawn. This confusing way of being, having so many conflicting emotions running the show at one time, was standard for me. That was before FA and especially before going through an AWOL.

I would wake each morning bewildered and confused about what to do for that day, not sure of which way to turn. I had trouble determining what it was I had to do next. Sometimes on really bad days, I would question how I could even make it through the day. I would have long drawn-out arguments inside my head (not out loud, for if someone had ever witnessed these arguments, they would have locked me away). These interior head arguments made it impossible to make any kind of sane rational decisions. I was lost!

My life was all messed up due to a lack of calm and rational thinking. I had trouble holding down jobs, and relationships fell by the wayside under very strained and sometimes brutal circumstances. My family life was distant and stressed. My brothers and sisters and I kept a distance from each other and found it hard to talk about our childhood past. There were many days when my isolating moods would turn the nights into screaming matches between me and my wife. A divorce was inevitable. My own children had trouble knowing what to expect from their dad. Being a food addict and wanting to isolate, staying to myself and hiding from the reality of the world, caused so many problems in all my relationships. I felt desperate, alone, and isolated. I had no idea how to make my life work.

At that first FA meeting, I witnessed people giving testimonies with an open, heart-felt honesty. Their comments were filled with raw emotion, true open integrity, and pure selfless candor. As the reading of each of the tools of recovery was completed, they kept ringing loud and clear in my head with a level of a truth and offered simple guidance that I did not understand at that time. All I knew was that I wanted that truth and also needed that guidance. I wanted to hang out with people who worked daily to achieve the level of commitment and growth that the tools spoke to. I was attracted to what I heard and what I saw that night. I was not sure what I felt yet, but I did understand that I really wanted to grow spiritually, and that I needed to get outside of myself.

So I learned to live one day at a time. I opened myself up to daily guidance, asked questions, and was willing to work all of the tools of the program each and every day. Most importantly, I weighed and measured my food and learned that if it is not weighed or measured, it did not go into my mouth. Twenty-two pounds melted off my physical being in the first 30 days. By the end of the first 90 days, I weighed in with a loss of 52.5 lbs!

I had no scale to measure the melting losses on the emotional and spiritual sides of my being, only the realization that I was now reading more at meetings, stood more often in front of each group at my three committed meetings, and was able to admit to myself and to the group that I was a food addict.

I have been transformed in FA. When I stand before a group and show a picture of myself, it is very visible that with a weight loss of 97 pounds, I am a transformed person. However, all the other transformations are of the internal type. I have had a subtle change of being less angry with everything. I used to get so mad at the drop of a hat and lash out at anyone in the way. I am achieving a calm awareness when in a stressful life situation, such as a family death or the birth of my granddaughter. I have a clearer mind when addressing any group of people at work. Even at play, where I used to compete to be the top of the heap, today I play to have fun and enjoy in the moment I am in right now. Thank you falls very short of how truly grateful I am.