3 minute read
Last Day One
from July/August: Serenity. Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA)
by FA connection Magazine, for food addicts, by food addicts
I spent over 30 years wanting to eat my brains out yet still have a thin body. I couldn’t or wouldn’t stop eating. So many diets failed because I was never willing to stop. It took me two years and eight months to finally get 90 days of continuous abstinence in FA.
I gave my first sponsor a run for her money, challenging her at every step. I was a tough customer. No way would I have wanted to sponsor me in the beginning. Every day it was, “Why do I have to do that? That makes no sense. Whose rule is that? Why, why, why?” So many questions! So much defiance. I was a brat. How she put up with me for as long as she did was puzzling. She was so patient. She had many suggestions, such as pray about it, take it to quiet time, write about it, make phone calls, etc. Of course, I did none of those things.
As time went on and everyone else was losing weight and changing and growing in recovery, I was stuck in the quicksand of my own making. I was getting more and more angry, sometimes at FA, at God, or at my sponsor, but never myself. I blamed everyone else.
One day, I woke up and finally was sick and tired of myself, of not staying abstinent, and of eating. Everyone around me, all my program friends, were abstinent. They had what I wanted. Why couldn’t I have that, too? I spent too long in “poor me.”
That was the day I finally got abstinent. It was my last day one. It was the day I finally started working the program the way it’s supposed to be worked. I stopped doing my version and finally accepted that I didn’t know best. And guess what—it worked!
I got abstinent and stayed abstinent. I got my 90 days for the last time. I started taking suggestions even when I didn’t want to or when they made no sense to me. This is what was working for everyone else who followed the FA plan. I did what they did and I got what they had: abstinence, recovery, peace of mind, contentment, serenity.
It wasn’t always easy. There were some hard days in the beginning. But as I put days together, it got easier and easier. The results have been so worth it. I love my abstinent life today.
