My father and another man had drowned seven months before I was born.  My mother was diabetic and frequently hospitalized in a diabetic coma.  She took shots daily in order to function. I was a premature baby and somewhat sickly.  As a child, I suffered from chickenpox, whooping cough, ear infections, and hives.  I have two older sisters and a brother by a different father.  No one hugged me as a child.  I was to be neither seen nor heard.  When mother came home with gifts, I got more books than toys.  Being the youngest, I was protected from the world by my siblings, although my brother was a little rough with me at times, calling me names and hitting me.  I withdrew into my secret world of books.  Raised by a single mother and siblings, I managed.

I wish I could say I thrived.  But early on, I felt “less than.”  Mainly, my problem was that I believed I wasn’t smart enough, and my life mirrored that belief.  I was intimidated by other kids.  I got poor grades and was shown little love.

I see now that I found solace in the sweets.  I indulged in copious amounts of sweets, thinking nothing of it. That’s what kids do, I reasoned.

One time when I was in elementary school, I decided to go for it, and I made the honor roll.  For once I saw myself at the top of my class.  I have no memory that my mother ever saw that report card.  I have no memory of anyone except my brother ever noticing that I had changed anything in my life.  So I went right back to the bottom of the class.  I lived in my own self-made purgatory.

In my teens, I was a slim, black man.  I was never inhibited by sweets.  Even though diabetes was pronounced in my family, I felt I didn’t have it, so I could eat anything.  At 16, I somehow had the feeling that I could go either way—thin or fat.  I knew I had the ability to abstain or indulge.

At that point, alcohol intervened in my life.  I was a black-out drinker right from the start, which led to many sorrowful incidents.  I was court-ordered to AA. I got clean in AA at age 27, and I joined the church at the same time.  I stuck with the winners in AA and in church.  I read both “big books” —the Bible and Alcoholics Anonymous. I dug my way out of the chasm of liquor.

After 15 years clean and sober and 15 years as a church member, I should have been happy. Instead, I was depressed. I remember sitting on one of the most beautiful beaches thinking, “What will they say when they find my body in the morning?” I thought that people who knew me would say “He had all those years clean, and this was how he ended.” I realized I couldn’t leave that memory for people.

I was forced to look at myself.  So I literally looked down at my stomach and I saw fat.  I knew of a Twelve Step program for food, so I went. At the first meeting, people were sitting in a circle. I didn’t find the meeting very helpful for me.  I knew different AA meetings had a different feel to them, so I went to another meeting on the list. I had nowhere else to go.

When I walked into the next meeting, I thought I was in the wrong place.  This meeting was different from that first one.  The chairs were set up classroom style, and there were about 30 or more women in the room. Everyone I saw was thin and beautiful. At the break, a lady came to me and I told her I had 15 years in AA.  In the nicest words possible, she told me to sit down and shut up. I immediately knew I was in the right place. In AA, if I had told them I had 15 years, they might have given me the keys to the building. But I knew that here, I needed to listen and learn because I had nothing to teach.

That was the beginning of true recovery! I never would have thought my life could become so magical. My life has been restored.  Before, I wished the world would change. What I learned in FA is that it was me that needed to change. I had no idea that simply changing the way I ate would ultimately lead to changing my entire life from the inside out.

To my complete surprise, the clarity of abstinence showed me that without the “food fog” to hamper my efforts, I was smarter than I had ever realized. I read a lot these days, and not for isolation, but for the joy, beauty and love of learning.  Depression and suicidal thoughts are a thing of the past. When I go to the beach now, I am in a perfect-sized body and feel like I’m inside a great cathedral.  I feel the presence of God in the sky and ocean. I’m completely comfortable in all I do and everywhere I go. I never feel “less than.” I now feel “part of.” I owe a lot to my fellows in Program. Their unceasing love has nursed me all the way back to health—mentally, physically and spiritually.