When I finally surrendered to the FA program, I was truly beaten down. I was bingeing on mass quantities of food, and I was purging, through vomiting and laxatives. I was actually not overweight; I was probably underweight, but I thought I looked fine. My life looked pretty good: good job, faithful husband, healthy child, and nice home, but I felt crazy. I was very close to losing it all.

I had tried to work the FA program every way but the way it was passed down to me. Nothing I was doing worked. Things finally got so bad that I knew I had to just do it.

My first day of abstinence was the day I stepped into my first AWOL to study the Twelve Steps. I was willing to follow the Program, but I was not at all happy. I hated everyone in that room (and there were about 100 people), especially the leaders. I was angry that my life had come to this—that I had to do this horrid program so that I wouldn’t lose everything. I thought that life sucked.

My withdrawal from food was intense. At work I would get on my knees every hour and ask for abstinence. There was a lot of food at work, particularly sugar and baked products, and these foods were really “calling” to me.

Finally I was finally able to follow a food thought through in my mind by thinking:  If I take one bite of this, I’ll finish it off, but after that, I know I’ll eat this, this, and this, and then really hate myself.” I would then make a phone call and not eat! That was a miracle.

Before, if I thought about eating, I would have no choice but to eat, but now things were changing. The fog started to clear, and I had a bit of what FA people called “clarity.” I wanted more of it.

My physical withdrawal gradually began to subside. I learned that FA was truly my answer, and I was finally willing to go to any lengths to keep my abstinence. Hard life situations continued to occur, but I finally knew that eating wouldn’t help, but would make matters worse.  Now I truly have a program for living.