FA Stories of Recovery from Food Addiction
December 2021 $2.50
Gaining Clarity
December 2021
Columns Qualification: Peace in the Middle East. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 First 90 Days: Finding Humility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Frontier Focus: My Way Back. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 No Matter What: Second Thoughts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Lighten Up: Time Will Tell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Features Gift of Sponsoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 So Much Better. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Spiritual Awakening. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
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Qualification
Peace in the Middle East
I
came into Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) in May of 2008, at the ripe old age of 19. I’d known about FA for nearly six years at that point. My mother was coming up on six years of back-to-back abstinence, so it wasn’t an entirely new experience for me. I was 240 pounds (about 109 kilos) and climbing, on the verge of having to buy a new wardrobe yet again. I was down to one pair of pants I could wear, and even they had holes from my thighs rubbing together. A 40-inch waist was in my imminent future, and I finally was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I got a sponsor and started doing what I was told. I ate my weighed and measured meals, went to my meetings, made my phone calls, and lost 30 pounds (about 14 kilos) in 30 days. I felt great! Over the course of the next few years I went connection
through many major life events, and the program stuck by my side through each and every one of them. I met my wife and we got married. My wife went through a pretty severe depression. We had two beautiful daughters. My parents and my in-laws each got divorced within a year of each other. Each of these events came with a significant period of extreme emotions from all ranges of the spectrum, but I kept weighing and measuring my food, kept making my calls, kept sponsoring, and kept staying abstinent one day at a time. Then, in the summer SUSAN F., NY of 2014, my wife and I embarked on what has been the longest and most challenging journey of them all. We picked up from our comfortable lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, left our jobs, family, and friends behind, and moved across the world to settle in Israel, the land of our heritage, and a land without a single other mem1
Twelve Steps ber of FA. At the age of 26 and with six years of back-to-back abstinence under my belt, I was now faced with doing the program on my own. I was very scared. How would I keep my abstinence without meetings? How would I even begin to build up an FA fellowship here? I’m 5-feet, 7-inches tall and 155 pounds (about 70 kilos). Who is going to believe that I used to be heavy, let alone even think to ask me about FA? Well, I’ve been here a year and a half now and I can honestly say that I think my abstinence and my connection to the program is stronger than it has ever been before. I’ve discovered that there are actually a lot of people doing the program in the UK, Europe, and beyond. I’ve called people in Africa, Australia, London, Scotland, Germany, Mexico, and Sweden, to name a few. I’m sponsoring more people than I ever have in the past. There’s even a fledgling FA group in Jerusalem with a meeting on Wednesday nights, which I try to get to when possible (I don’t live very close and don’t have a car). And I’m doing service as much as I can. I know that on a macro scale, the question of peace in the Middle East is one that’s not easily answered, but in this food addict’s life, with the help of the FA program and my fellows, I can certainly answer that yes, I continue to have peace and serenity in my abstinence, one day at a time. Yehuda M., Israel 2
1. We admitted we were powerless over food – that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to food addicts and to practice these principles in all our affairs. December 2021 Adapted with permission from Alcoholics Anonymous
First 90 Days
Finding Humility
I
am 69 years old and 5-feet, 4½-inches lowship for nine years, where I worked the tall. I started Food Addicts in Recov- steps, did service, and committed ery Anonymous (FA) in April 2016, weighed and measured food to a sponsor. a little over five years ago. I came in (not Doing this kept my weight somewhat regat my top weight) at 140 pounds (about ulated, though I was still 20 pounds 63 kilos). I had been (about 9 kilos) heavin another food felier than I am now. lowship where my I am grateful beRight before I came to FA, top weight had been cause I know that though I was not at my top 170 pounds (about the other program 77 kilos). In FA, I kept my health in weight, I was indeed at have maintained a check. However, I right-sized body for never found longmy lowest, worst bottom the last four years at term abstinence. I 118 pounds (about was never truly that I pray to my Higher 53 kilos). clean with my food, Right before I and my binges bePower I never repeat. came to FA, though came increasingly I was not at my top frequent. I continweight, I was indeed at my lowest, worst ued to use food to treat fear, doubt, and bottom that I pray to my Higher Power I insecurity. I ate my three meals any time, never repeat. day or night. I created food concoctions In the winter of 2016, we planned our that sounded abstinent on paper, but I move to Israel. During this time, I experi- knew in my heart were not. I ingested diet enced a new progression of my addiction. sugar with breakfast foods. I used milk I could no longer stop bingeing on flour and sweetener in my coffee. The bottom and sugar. I was bewildered – I had been line was that my disease was in charge of participating in another food recovery fel- my food plan and program, and was thereconnection
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fore doomed to fail. Yet with all of that, I always knew that when I got to a point when I’d “had enough,” I would stop my binge and come back to my sponsor to initiate a discussion of how to strengthen my tools to get more control. But now, during those last few months before we left for Israel, I could not stop bingeing, no matter what I did. I made phone calls, asked G-d for help, talked to my sponsor. I still could not stop ingesting flour and sugar. I brought my program telephone numbers and, when we landed in Israel, made sure we had an American as well as Israeli phone number so people could reach me from the States. I looked for live meetings in my previous fellowship in Jerusalem, but they did not exist, so I used telephone meetings. I found another fellowship that had in-person meetings in Jerusalem, I took phone numbers. Nothing worked. Today I understand that until FA, although I had read about the obsession of the mind in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), I never believed or understood how that applied to my eating. I am a food addict, not a compulsive eater. I used other food programs and sophisticated diets to manage and control my eating. I was never surrendered. The belief that I could one day manage and control my eating needed to be smashed, and this 4
finally happened before I came crawling into FA with the gift of desperation. What was it like during the weeks before I found FA? So many nights, walking up and down our street with my husband, buying frozen sugar and flour items. Sitting in the summer air at café tables, a scene that I kept telling myself was beautiful, or should have been beautiful, was now bittersweet because I was out of control, even in the land of my dreams, I devoured food, trying to hold onto the first hit, the first bite, needing the next bite to block the disappointment and despair of my failure. We walked more, bought more, sat and ate more. Really, I wasn’t eating. I had stopped eating in America. Now I was throwing food into my mouth, like throwing food at animals in their cages in a zoo. Our temporary apartment was over a store that sold flour and sugar items, so going home was yet another face-off with my demons. While we explored neighborhoods for our long-term rental, or visited the Old City and Western Wall, and wherever we walked, I ate. At night, I brought home items from the grocery store, planning to spread them out over several days, but finishing everything in one sitting. I found a frozen sugar item in the freezer where we were staying that could serve a full table of people. I finished it in an hour and the next day, December 2021
bought another one, intending to replace it, and ate it as soon as I got back to the apartment. I was horrified at my own behavior but could not stop. I woke up early mornings with acid reflux in my mouth, tasting like sugar. It was disgusting. I asked my Higher Power if He brought me to Israel to die. I was pre-
diabetic (which I no longer am); no matter what medical symptom I might or might not have had, for a woman in her mid-sixties, this kind of eating was suicidal. When I found FA, I felt the seriousness immediately. My first sponsor was tough, and I needed tough. I needed to be re-
SUSANLORRAINE M., CA
connection
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buked for not having enough of a committed food in my refrigerator. I needed to be pressured into asking questions in my phone calls with her, because I liked to think I knew everything and didn’t like to ask for help. I needed to stop sharing in Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) meetings for 90 days even though I had about 20 years of sobriety. I needed to feel exposed and insecure reading in front of the room. In other words, I needed my denial to be broken. FA taught me that I had to follow suggestions about every aspect of the program; food plan, meal times, goal weight, attending weekly committed meetings (as opposed to going where and when I felt like it), not mixing food items to make concoctions, eating different food choices throughout the day (instead of relying on robotic habits that avoid mindful, spiritual participation in food preparation). I had to learn that although laughter in AA is a crucial gift of the program that creates bonds and builds trust, in food programs lightheartedness generally evidences denial about the insidiousness of food addiction. We have to eat three times a day. This is no laughing matter. My laughter in previous food recovery meetings reminds me of a passage in the Big Book, “We know our friend is like a boy whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits. 6
He fools himself. Inwardly, he would give anything to take half a dozen drinks and get away with them. He will presently try the old game again, for he isn't happy about his sobriety.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 152). I kept waiting to feel the warmth and fuzziness of previous programs and fellowships, but it never came. I humbly admit that I waited for that feeling for a long time. In FA, there is love, acceptance, and respect, but it is not warm or fuzzy. And I have no doubt that if I found myself again in a program of easy laughter and soft boundaries, my arrogance, defiance, and lust for food would jump back in. When I started FA after 30 years in other programs, for the first time I identified with the stories in the Big Book talking about not wanting to be an alcoholic, not wanting to need AA. I understood on a whole different level the lowering of pride required to work the program. Thanks to my Higher Power for saving my life through FA, I have found true laughter, acceptance, and real hope that I really do belong in this world, that G-d wants me to be exactly who I am, who He created me to be. Now after five years, I am starting, finally, to treat myself and others with true loving kindness. It has taken me a long time. Goldie H., Israel December 2021
Frontier Focus
My Way Back
I
discovered Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) back in 2005 in Santa Rosa, California. After many failed attempts at losing weight, one of my students came to lessons each week more glowing, vibrant, alive, and shrinking before my eyes. I had to ask her what she was doing. She told me about FA, gave me an FA pamphlet and encouraged me to go to a meeting. It took me six months to respond to that invitation, thinking it was just another diet program with fees attached. She assured me it was not a diet and encouraged me to, “Just go check it out.” I needed what she had, so I attended my first meeting on June 16, 2005, planning in detail what I was going to binge on right after the meeting. I also “dressed to hide” in black sweats and a black pullover top, in the middle of June in California. I hid at the back of the room and was miserable, hot, and sweaty; my usual uncomfortable self. Surrounding me were happy, smiling people, dressed in colorful outfits, the kind I wished for but would not wear because of my weight. That night I identified with the person connection
who shared her story. I got a sponsor and began working this program of transformation and discovery. I stayed abstinent for four and a half years. My 5-foot tall frame went from 163 pounds (about 74 kilos) to 114 pounds (about 52 kilos). An opportunity to change careers came up and I moved to another state, in a town with no FA meetings. I attended Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings, but I missed my FA fellowship. I stayed somewhat connected with FA fellows but began a rocky journey of repeatedly breaking my abstinence after short periods of regaining it. I gained back all my weight and was desperate to return to an area where FA had a presence. I felt alone on the FA frontier and was sick of my life. The frontier was not like the community I had in California, and after one year in this new little town, I wanted to go back to my FA people face to face. I stuck it out, but my program crumbled. I could not do this by myself anymore. Isolation is a default for me when I get desperate and I was isolating more and more. The more I isolated, the more I ate. I had to kill the feelings of self-hatred, loneli7
ness, and frustration that I had going on inside of me. During this period of self-isolation, fear, and insecurity, my husband had a heart attack and had to be flown to another town to have surgery. Six stents later and the doctor letting me know that “the ball game could have been over” for my hus-
band, he is still alive and has recovered. The night this happened, I had to drive to the hospital two hours away, and I really can’t tell you how I got there. I know my Higher Power drove me. Still living on the frontier, I managed to complete four AWOLS (A Way of Life, a study of the Twelve Steps) during my ab-
MEREDITH M., ME
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December 2021
stinent periods, but as soon as they were over, I went back into the food. Every morning, waking up with a food hangover, never finding clothes that would fit, having to buy bigger and bigger sizes, and never feeling comfortable in my own skin, I was overwhelmed and I just wanted to scream. After about six years of this anguish, I moved to a bigger town for a new job but I was still on the FA frontier with no FA meetings. I made AA friends, which really helped. Then something happened on August 10, 2020. I got a new sponsor, who I consider my guardian angel. I got my food plan and I joined my fifth AWOL. Thank you, God, I am back in Program! This time is different in many ways! I had a revelation that I am not on this journey alone, no matter where I live. My FA fellows really care about me even when I feel that I don’t deserve to be cared for or listened to. I have a renewed relationship with my Higher Power, which protects me from my negative thinking and gives me a reason for living. I practice gratitude daily, which helps me discover so many positive things about my life that I never even realized I had. I had a realization that I deserve to take care of myself mentally, spiritually, and physically, because I am worth it. I am not worthless, aimless, clueless, and stupid. I have worth connection
and purpose. I have reached a crossroads in my life where I am willing to go to any lengths to protect my abstinence and sanity. I have decided that I am willing to hand over all my insecurities, doubts, and fears, because I just know in my gut that it is time for me to start living and stop the nonsense of wanting to die. I am still on the FA frontier, but my goal, when my Higher Power says I am ready, is to start an FA meeting or gathering here in my new little town. In the meantime, I have reconnected with my FA fellows. I attend three or more FA virtual gatherings each week, make my calls to my sponsor and my FA fellows every day, enjoy three beautiful weighed and measured meals, and I have greater confidence that I can be successful in this life-changing program, even on the frontier. My weight is down to 105 pounds (about 48 kilos). I feel amazingly healthy and my connections to FA fellows is growing every day, every time I pick up the phone. FA has saved me from feeling alone, full of fear, doubt, insecurity, despair, and depression. My abstinent life is full of joy, purpose and meaning. Even on the frontier, I have gratefully found my way back to recovery and sanity, one day at a time. Linda D., Utah, US 9
Gift of Sponsoring
I
hung up the phone after my very first I couldn’t do them, or keep doing them. I just conversation with my sponsor and sat didn’t know how. But she was so incredibly for a moment. Then I turned to my hus- patient with me and explained why it was imband and said, “I don’t know how I’m going portant that I do them. She and my supportto do this.” “Do what?” he asked. “Not eat!” ive husband helped me figure out how to do I remember having this reaction after most these and many other suggestions. conversations with my Food Addicts in ReWhenever I considered not following her covery Anonymous suggestions, I simply (FA) sponsor in those Sponsoring is an opportunity had to remember first few weeks. She how I got here and made suggestions to work with others every day. why I called her every every day for what I day. I had struggled would need to do to with my weight and Through the experience stay away from the food obsession for food and recover. of sponsoring, I have learned over 30 years. If I Every day there was thought of food, I how to unconditionally love had to have it and I something new to let go of or to do and I thought about food and accept another person. sometimes felt angry, all the time. Much of but more often than the time I would be not I just felt afraid. She suggested I drive to eating something and thinking about the a meeting almost two hours away where next thing I would eat after it was gone. I people weighed and measured their food could have worn a path in the carpet walking and talked of recovery. She told me to sit qui- back and forth from the living room to the etly each day for 30 minutes. She talked kitchen. I spent most of my childhood takabout calling strangers (FA fellows) every ing food from my family, friends, and stores, day to “get to know them” and begin devel- and hiding somewhere to eat it all by myself. oping relationships. I felt a great deal of re- Until FA, I spent years hating myself. sistance and doubt. It wasn’t so much that I I went to another Twelve-Step meeting for wouldn’t do these things, it was that I feared food on and off for years, and one day I heard 10
December 2021
a woman from out of town share her story. She worked the FA program. She talked about freedom and neutrality with food. She was thin; I was not. She was clear-eyed and I looked drunk. She was content with her life and I wanted out of mine. I wanted what she had. I talked to her after her share, and she told me if I did what she did, I would get what she had. I already had the gift of desperation, but two more gifts were given to me that day; the gift of willingness and the gift of a sponsor. Scared I wouldn’t be able to follow the food plan, and a resistance to take directions from authority figures, I feared I would fail at this, too. But the food made me humble enough to be teachable. I listened to my sponsor and started following suggestions that I knew weren’t really suggestions, but things I “had” to do. It really wasn’t long before I realized that every suggestion I took made me feel better. At one point I declared, “I’d run naked down the middle of the street if my sponsor told me it would help me stay abstinent.” After six months in recovery and back-toback abstinence, I told my sponsor that I didn’t have time to sponsor anyone. I was too busy. I didn’t raise my hand at meetings, but someone asked me to be their sponsor. I think God had the word “yes” come out of my mouth. I was scared because I didn’t know everything yet, and what if my sponsee ate? I felt responsible, thinking that if I said the wrong connection
thing to her she’d eat, but if I just said the perfect thing, she would stay abstinent. I carried her problems around as if they were my own and I wanted to solve them all for her. This was too heavy a burden to bear and rightfully so. I have since learned that all I have to do is listen, share my own experience, and I can ask others for suggestions. It means I rely on the principles of FA and God, refer to the Living Abstinently pamphlet, and share what I would do. Then I turn them over to my Higher Power, and the sponsee makes their own decision. I know that sounds easy, but sponsoring is really an on-the-job training experience. As is written in the Big Book, “Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 89). Sponsoring is an opportunity to work with others every day. Through the experience of sponsoring, I have learned how to unconditionally love and accept another person. I learn how cunning, baffling, and powerful the disease of food addiction is. I get the opportunity to watch others recover. And I grow from giving away what I have so generously been given. Sponsoring is a gift and a responsibility. All I have to do is remember how broken and sick I was when I came in. Then I use that understanding and empathy to help another. Paula K., New York, US 11
So Much Better When I started online dating following another fiftieth reunion—this time for the my divorce in 2009, I opened a new email class I had moved away from in the eighth account with the username “can it be 10?” I grade (at age 13). I decided to attend. I was sure that I would find my true love in the thought it would be nice to see some of my year 2010! Fast forward to 2018. During the girlfriends from those early years. I rememintervening years, I had done some dating ber feeling grateful at both reunions that I and I even thought I had found my new could show up in a right-sized body, feeling mate in 2012. But in each case, God saved confident that I looked healthy and relame from relationships that offered less than tively youthful due to decades of recovery I deserved. in Food Addicts in At the end of 2018, Recovery AnonyGod’s plans are always I retired and moved mous (FA). At the halfway across the second reunion, I so much better than U.S. to the state where chatted briefly with a I’d grown up. I began man I’d known as a anything I can concoct. organizing a fiftieth child, and he asked reunion for my high me if we could beschool class. I had an ulterior motive! I was come social media friends. A few weeks later making sure there would be a reunion so I he asked me out. We fell in love instantacould re-connect with a certain man I knew neously, and in June 2020, one year after my to be a widower and a good person. I previous “perfect plan” had failed, we were thought he was destined to be my Mr. Right. married! Not only have I found my soulThe reunion happened in June 2019, and mate, for which I am grateful beyond words, there he was, the man of my dreams. We but I have learned yet again that God’s plans chatted a bit that night, but there were no are always so much better than anything I sparks. “Okay, God” I said to myself, “that can concoct. Only God knows what is best was a bust!” Meanwhile, the reunion was for me. My job as a recovering food addict pleasant and my classmates were very grate- is to be open and to listen when direction ful for my efforts. comes. A few months later, I got an invitation to Margaret O., Florida/Minnesota, US 12
December 2021
Spiritual Awakening
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y sponsor discovered during All of a sudden, I felt this big weight lift one of our morning calls, just off my back and shoulders. When I finaround the 90-day mark of ished my prayers, I said, “God, I turn my my program, that I was saying my prayers will and my life over to you. Not my will in bed rather than on my knees. She asked but Thine, be done. Let’s have a good day me why, and I extogether and could plained that I am you please help me I felt this big weight lift off get still too big to get up?” down on my knees. my back and shoulders. When I grabbed the matI also told her that it tress and pulled myreminds me too I finished my prayers, I said, self up using my toes much of growing to lift the back part up in church and “God, I turn my will and of my body. It wasn’t the submissive feelgraceful, but I did it. my life over to you. Not my will That lifting of the ing I used to get. She shared how weight off my back but Thine, be done. Let’s have getting down on and shoulders made our knees can be an a strong impression a good day together and could outward reflection on me. I knew it was of a desire to turn God doing for me you please help me get up?” one’s will and life what I could not do over to a Higher for myself. Power. I shared that I was also scared I I now look forward to getting on my wouldn’t be able to get up from the floor, knees each morning, because without but I decided to try. God’s help, I could not be where I am The next morning, I slithered my way to today in my program. Truly, God has this. the floor using my bed as a support, and I just have to be willing to try to do my as I got on my knees to pray, I started to part, one day at a time and one meal at a cry. I knelt for a few moments and then I time. started my prayers. Lynn (Lynda) S., New York, US
connection
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No Matter What
Second Thoughts
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hat a season of life I just wrapped up! In the seven months from Halloween to Memorial Day, my father was diagnosed and subsequently died of cancer, my mom fell and had to have extensive surgery, and after eight years of maintaining a normal weight, I elected to have excess skin removed from my midsection. During that time, I was never home more than 12 consecutive nights and some months I never saw my house. Add to that the reorganization of the business where I worked, the death of my elderly dog, and winter storm damage to my home, and it was a long seven months indeed. I had to step down from the service positions I held in my Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) meetings because I wasn’t home enough to attend regularly. I could not participate in an AWOL (A Way of Life, a study of the Twelve Steps) because my life was so unpredictable that I couldn’t show up consistently. For the first six months I was able to maintain some optimism because I felt as though my Higher Power was carrying me through one ordeal after another. I could 14
see that it was only because of my eight years of abstinence that I had the clarity, sanity, and physical capability to get through those challenging times. It was in the seventh month that the exhaustion set in. My father was declining rapidly and needed 24-hour care, and my recovery from my own surgery was going much slower than anticipated due to the demands of my parents’ medical needs. On Mother’s Day I took my stepmother to the ER for the third time in as many days. She and my father had rooms on opposite ends of the hospital. By mid-morning, I had already taken 10,000 steps going back and forth between their rooms. Because each of them was potentially contagious, I had to change into a new gown, mask, cap, slippers, and gloves every time I switched rooms. By 10 a.m. when I left, I had just one thought, F*** it! It was no more well-developed than that. I wasn’t craving a specific food; I wasn’t even hungry. I had grabbed my abstinent breakfast as we left the house. That thought was directed at FA and my commitment to abstinence for that day. It wasn’t due to exhaustion, sadness for my December 2021
father’s terminal condition, or homesickness. Nope, that first devilish, diseased thought was short and to the point. Thank God for second thoughts! My second thought was, Wow, what a slap in my dying father’s face! How could I use his deathbed as an excuse to do what I wanted? And truthfully, it wasn’t what I wanted! I didn’t want a particular food; I didn’t want to break my abstinence and I certainly didn’t want to go back to my unmanageable life or my old size 36. No, I didn’t want it, but my disease still did, and it was looking for any crack in the dam to burst right through. I went to my father’s house and let his dogs out. I rested for half an hour, made a few phone calls, disinfected the master bedroom and bathroom, and organized my father’s medical supplies. I waited until the appropriate time to eat my weighed and measured lunch, then packed my abstinent dinner and returned to the hospital, showing up for my parents the best way I knew how. My father had an Irish temper and was not known for his warm, cuddly demeanor. He was too stoic (read stubborn) to take pain meds or receive medical comfort. His only comfort was that I cared enough to leave the vacation I had planned long before all this began, a trip to Costa Rica to attend a dear fellow’s wedding. I left connection
paradise to come to his bedside, change his Depends, feed him through a tube, help the nurses change his position countless times, and sit diligently by his bed until the end. Just for the record, I can’t even tolerate medical shows on TV, so this was way out of my comfort zone, and yet I was comfortable attending to my father as he needed. Before leaving Costa Rica, I asked God to show me any amends I needed to make in case this was my last opportunity. Instead, God led me not to expect any amends from my father. To be honest, I had worked so hard to accept my past, my parents, and my journey, I couldn’t recall anything I wanted him to apologize for. Two years ago, Dad wrote me a note in a birthday card that was uncharacteristically complimentary and kind. He wrote that he was proud that I had found a solution to my weight issue and that after all these years, I still worked at maintaining my weight loss, something he himself had struggled to do. He said that he was proud of the mom I had been to my son, and the success I had in my career as a woman of this world. That note was his way of making amends to me. As strong as my disease felt in that brief, f*** it! moment, my recovery, my resolve, and my Higher Power were stronger. My father wouldn’t be alive to see the unravel15
Twelve Traditions ing my life would have taken had I followed that first thought. No doubt many would have taken my deteriorating behavior as extreme grief and been sympathetic. I might have stayed in my disease for years or returned to FA the next day, but I am grateful that I never had to find out. I was able to grieve for the loss of my father and not the loss of my abstinence. I came home with peace, surrender, acceptance and gratitude that I was able to show up and make a last living amends. I was grateful my father left this world knowing I was going to be okay; better than okay, thanks to FA. Now I am home and back at my own small (but mighty) meetings. I received a promotion as a result of the restructuring at work and the way I showed up for my employer, despite my extended use of family medical leave. The winter storm damage to my property is being repaired, and on Father’s Day my son and I celebrated a belated Mother’s Day and marked the loss of my dad, who was the only father figure in either of our lives. This has been a tough time for me, but I have learned that whatever season of life I am going through, I can lean into it, show up for it, and let my Higher Power carry me through it. And that tastes sweeter than any food that the first devilish, diseased thought may tempt me to eat. Karen W., Washington, US 16
1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on FA unity. 2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern. 3. The only requirement for FA membership is a desire to stop eating addictively. 4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or FA as a whole. 5. Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry its message to the food addict who still suffers. 6. An FA group ought never endorse, finance or lend the FA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. 7. Every FA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. 8. Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers. 9. FA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. 10. Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues, hence the FA name ought never be drawn into public controversy. 11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films. 12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. Adapted with permission from Alcoholics Anonymous December 2021
Lighten Up!
A
Time Will Tell
newcomer walked into our Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) meeting one evening. She was young and not quite sure about the program, so she didn't get a sponsor that night, but a few meetings later she said she was willing and asked me to sponsor her. I told her, "Great, call me at 7." Living on the frontier, I am unfortunately used to people calling and asking about the meeting and not showing up, coming and not getting a sponsor, or asking me to sponsor them and not calling. But I had a good feeling about this woman—she seemed really willing. I have a young baby and I arranged my morning so that I could be sitting by the phone right at 7. I waited; 7:02, 7:05, and at 7:10, it finally sunk in that I seemed to have been wrong about her being willing. I was really bummed and needed to make some calls about it. I wasn't sure if I was more upset because I really wanted a sponsee or connection
because my pride was wounded, since I had been wrong about someone whom I thought would call. Other fellows reassured me that I was doing service by showing up and that I couldn't make someone want this program more than they wanted it. I tried to forget about it as the day went on, and in the evening, went out with my husband's family. Sure enough, I saw a few missed calls when I got home. I A W started laughing as it , . N RET RGA A dawned on me—I never M clarified the time, and my new sponsee had tried calling me at 7pm instead of 7am. She probably thought that there was no way anyone in their right mind would want to be called at 7am. We spoke on the phone that evening and I clarified the call time. I also made a mental note to not be so quick to judge a newcomer. Also, in the future, I would be sure to always clarify that the call time is in the morning. Ashley A., Israel 17
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.