This holiday season, I was pulling down a small, ceramic Christmas tree from the back of my work’s credenza when I saw a small bottle of glue. It was not a typical office supply; for me, glue was a fashion necessity. One I hadn’t thought of in many years.

Before I came into recovery, I was obese. My calves were very large, and wearing socks was extremely challenging. In order to get socks up my calves, I had to buy either excessively large sizes or cut the elastic. As I walked, my socks would wiggle their way down to my toes, and I was constantly having to fiddle with them. I searched for a fix—I tried pantyhose, but the chaffing quickly ruled that out. So each morning, as normal as others brush their teeth, I would glue my socks onto my calves.

I would stock up each fall during the back-to-school sales. I had bottles of glue in my medicine cabinet, office credenza, laptop bag, and car for touch-ups throughout the day.  Each night, I would tear my socks off my legs.  It wasn’t any more painful than taking off a Band-Aid, but normal people do not purposely apply and pull off Band-Aids on a daily basis.  But by this point, the hidden humiliation of gluing on and tearing off my socks was not even a blip on my misery radar.

I was so used to going to extreme for my “fixes.”  The fix for the humiliation of knocking thinks down as I tried to squeeze out of class or meetings to use the restroom was to arrive to every meeting, class, and event early enough to pick an end spot.  The fix for the humiliation of breaking a lawn chair was to always bring my own chair.  My fix to certain car seatbelts not extended around me was to always offer (insist) on driving.  The fix to when the elevator would dip down as I loaded and scare everyone on it was to only ride on empty elevators.

All of these situations were caused because of my obsession to go to any extreme for my addict’s fix: fast food, junk food, high calorie food, and lots of quantities of food.  I would use anything to numb the humiliation and block out the realization that it was my eating “fixes” that were creating the need for all the other “fixes.”

It wasn’t until 2010 that a doctor finally handed me the solution.  I was emotionally, spiritually and physically broken enough to surrender and accept the suggestions of my sponsor.  I felt lighter shortly after I finally got my abstinence, and the serenity that came was so rewarding that I do not even recall when I finally stopped gluing my socks to my legs. Now, the act of putting on my socks is for me, like it is for most people, often a mindless process.

Like many in this program, I practice acknowledging gratitude on a daily basis. But I will admit that socks had not made my gratitude list before the day I saw that glue and experienced a flood of memories about my humiliations and “fixes” that I must never again forget. Today, I am grateful for socks that fit and solutions that work. To remind myself of that, I have placed that glue back in the credenza. May I never forget the suffering fixes I endured during my disease, and may God use it as a much needed reminder about the future I have if I continue to live in the solution.