When I came into FA nine years ago, all I knew was that I was fat, that I wanted to be thin and to have relief from obsession with food, my weight and dieting. When I was given a food plan and a kit of spiritual tools, I got those things almost immediately. It wasn’t long before I realized that this program works.
Being thin and free from body and food obsession is just the beginning. I stay in FA, however, because I’m getting so much more! My recent experience in an AWOL (A Way of Life) an in-depth study of the Twelve Steps, demonstrated just one of the many gifts of recovery, the gift of getting to know and accept myself.
When I started this AWOL two years ago, it seemed like everyone I knew in FA was participating in one. I had just completed my first AWOL and I had about one and one-half years of abstinence.
As I looked around the room that first night, I saw decades upon decades of abstinence, people who had been there nine years ago, when I first came into FA. I was like a deer in the headlights; everything was so confusing. I had no self-awareness besides knowing that I wanted to be thin and stop eating. One scene in particular caught my attention. Two fellows hunched over, intently comparing paint swatches for a living room wall. Incredulous! Here I was, a victim of a horrific domestic violence incident, a mixed-race woman in a White man’s world, a product of a traumatic childhood with mentally ill and alcoholic parents mired in poverty, slowly climbing my way out of that legacy. What were these women going to teach me about life? How could I share honestly? I was certain I would never relate and that this would be a waste of time. I seriously considered never going back to that AWOL.
Today I am so grateful that I stayed. It must’ve been my higher power. Something allowed me to keep showing up, week after week. I sat, I listened and I shared, too, as honestly as possible. The miracles started happening. Right around Step Eight I started dating a White man. He was to my mind as white as they come; Connecticut-raised, tennis lessons from age four, sweater vests. When we were together, I felt so Black, so ethnic and it made me uncomfortable. I didn’t even know I had been trying to hide my race, that I had been ashamed of my father’s heritage. In fact, I assumed that his side was the side that gave me the “addict genes.” I later learned that my mother’s side has just as much baggage, if not more!
Thank God for this program, because instead of eating over these realizations, I looked at them honestly and with true curiosity in my heart. When I started the AWOL, I was estranged from my father’s family and he was dead, but I reached out, I studied my family tree, I made connections. I am a voracious reader and I took a commitment to read only books by women and people of color for this year. What a wonderful learning experience it has been!
The clarity of abstinence gave me the realization about my discomfort with my race and the same clarity helped me gather so much information and experience awareness after awareness. All of which came together when I traveled to Baltimore to meet my father’s family. I walked the streets he grew up in. It was there that I realized to whom I’d make my Ninth Step amends. I was already making an amends to my deceased father!
Later, at the wise suggestion of a fellow, I sat down with his ashes and a photograph. I closed my eyes and prayed. When I opened my eyes and looked at him all I could feel, see, hear, smell, and taste was the deepest, most undying love I’ve ever known a human being could have for me! Beautiful, perfect me! I will never be the same after feeling that love.
I’ve since put dating on hold as I complete this AWOL. I had not met anyone worthy of my love and attention and I had been adjusting my standards. Anyhow, I am busy taking care of myself and living my life in recovery. Instead of being angry about what I’ve learned about my race, I am grateful! I decided to go back to school to take advantage of opportunities not afforded to so many of my people for so many years.
I have so much more growing and learning to do. I am hopeful and curious about where the next AWOL will take me. In fact, I hope to someday be looking at paint swatches for my own home, with or without a man! I know now that in this recovery, all of that and more is possible. And that the most precious gifts are the ones I am experiencing internally. Thank you God for FA!!!