A Year to Remember (31 page)
“There are people of all shapes and sizes in OA. Yes, some of them may be obese or extremely thin, but you’ll find lots of men and women at a normal weight who still have an addiction to food.”
Did I have an addiction to food? I had kept my weight within ten or so pounds for the last couple of years, but in order to do it, I had to restrict my diet to cancel out the binges. Surely that placed me in the same position as most women in this country.
“I’m not sure I’d call myself an addict,” I protested. My mom rose from the couch and gave me a hug.
“Just go to one meeting. See what it’s like. If you don’t want to go back, you don’t have to.”
I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and my body craved the comfort of a batch of chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven. How could I give up food, the one thing that makes me happy? Especially now that I had lost Adam?
Still, I had promised Adam to make changes in my life. Even though we’d never end up together, I owed it to myself to honor my promise.
“I’ll go. I’ll find a meeting from their website and go tomorrow.” I hugged my mom back and then remembered I had a cat waiting for me at home.
“Sara, I’m very proud of you. Never forget that,” my mom said as she kissed my cheek.
“Thanks, Mom.” I wiped a tear from my cheek. At least one person was proud of me. Now I just had to learn how to be proud of myself.
JULY 13, 2012
DETROIT, MICHIGAN
WEIGHT: ?
STATUS: SINGLE
At ten the next morning, I sat inside of my car in front of the church, gathering the courage to attend my first Overeaters Anonymous meeting. I didn’t want to be the first one in the meeting, but I also didn’t want to walk in late. I pretended to talk on my cell phone as I waited and watched the people entering the church. I couldn’t identify if they were churchgoers or there for the meeting. I decided that was a good sign and started to make my way to the church.
How ironic that I had to go to church for an OA meeting.
I walked into the church and made my way up the stairs, following a sign that directed me to the meeting. My palms were sweaty and I felt the beginnings of an anxiety attack. I paused in front of the door, took a deep breath, and walked into a room filled with strangers.
Fifteen men and women sat in a circle. Some sat on chairs and some sat on couches, all with a little blue book on their laps. I kept my eyes on the floor and found an empty chair. When I finally lifted my gaze to the people in the room, one pair of familiar eyes welcomed me.
Alison, my friend from the Israel trip, smiled and gave me a small wave of her hand in greeting.
She sat with a binder in front of her and I figured out she was running the meeting.
“Hi, I’m Alison and I’m a recovering anorexic, bulimic, and compulsive overeater.”
Everyone responded by saying “Hi, Alison, welcome.” They recited something called the serenity prayer and started reading from a story in the Big Book. I became confused when the story was about an alcoholic. I thought we were supposed to be talking about food, not alcohol.
As we read the story, I discovered the person in the story and I shared several characteristics. We both isolated ourselves from the world around us, while using a substance to make us feel better.
Only it didn’t. We ended up feeling worse than we had before.
But we didn’t want to stop.
Then, we couldn’t stop.
After the reading, people shared their thoughts and feelings and talked about what it was like for them. One young man spoke about stopping at the gas station every morning before work and every night after work to pick up junk food to binge. A woman in her seventies claimed a twenty year abstinence from compulsive overeating, maintaining a seventy pound weight release.
I didn’t quite comprehend everything they were saying, but I got the gist of it. These people were like me.
For the first time, I could be honest about my secret habits without anyone judging me or holding me in contempt. They understood what it was like to be a compulsive overeater.
I was a compulsive overeater.
The meeting ended with another prayer and then people asked me if I wanted a hug. I’m not a very touchy, feely person, but I would feel badly if I refused, so I let them hug me. Then Alison came over to me and gave me a hug. I couldn’t let go. I felt the tears start, and I couldn’t stop them.
She sat me on the couch and rubbed my back, letting me cry. Someone came over and handed me a box of tissue. I guess this wasn’t unusual.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “The last time you saw me I was crying and now I’m crying again. You must think I’m weak.” I blew my nose in the tissue and tried to compose myself.
She smiled and handed me another tissue. “I don’t think you’re weak. I’m glad you’re here. Welcome home,” she said, which started me on another crying jag.
“What does that mean?” I asked between sniffs.
“It means you’ve found your way to people that can understand you and support you. Kind of like a family. What did you think of the meeting?” She settled back onto the couch, indicating she wasn’t in any rush.
“I could relate. I’m definitely a compulsive overeater. I don’t know if I can do this whole Higher Power thing.”
I could do the First Step and admit I was addicted to food and that my life had become unmanageable. My life had fallen apart and the only thing I knew to do was binge to dull the pain. I had no clue how to deal with my life or make a decision for myself.
I didn’t believe in a Higher Power anymore. After all, where had my belief in God’s plan gotten me this year? I believed if I worked hard enough, God would grant me my greatest desire-to find and marry my soul mate. Instead, I’m in love with someone who clearly cannot be my soul mate. If he was, he’d want to marry me.
“A Higher Power can be God or Mother Nature or even the people in OA. You don’t have to believe in God to be in the program.”
“How can I believe in God anymore? Look at my life, Alison. All I wanted was to find my
beshert
. Instead, I have less than I had before I ever made the damned toast. I’ve lost Adam and I’ve lost Missy! What God would make me suffer this way?” It surprised me how much anger poured out as I railed against the greatness of my so-called Higher Power.
Alison took my hand in hers. “I can’t answer that for you. I can tell you this. I needed to reach rock bottom before I could admit I needed help with my food addiction. If I hadn’t, I would have continued on the same dangerous path I was on and I’d be dead right now. God works in mysterious ways, Sara. Who am I to question what He has planned for me? All I know is, if it weren’t for my Higher Power, you and I would never have met and I’d be lying six feet under.”
“What was your rock bottom, if you don’t mind me asking?” I couldn’t imagine Alison any different than the sane, rational woman sitting next to me.
“A couple of years ago, I weighed eighty pounds. Before that, I weighed three hundred. I tried dieting over and over and when it failed, I blamed myself for not having willpower. I stopped eating altogether for a while and when I couldn’t do it anymore, I’d binge. Then I’d throw it up. One day I couldn’t stop throwing up. My mom found me passed out in the bathroom covered in bloody vomit. I spent a few months in the hospital recovering and that’s when I learned about OA. I’ve been attending ever since. I’m not going to say it’s easy because it’s not. It’s a lot of work. For the first time in my life, I’m not obsessed with food. It doesn’t rule me anymore,” she declared, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.
She got off of the couch and went to a box across the room. When she came back, she gave me a packet of pamphlets and reading material.
“I want you to read these over. I can be your temporary sponsor until you get a new one. I’d like you to go to ninety meetings in ninety days. Do you think you could do that?”
I just nodded even though it sounded very overwhelming. I wanted help, didn’t I? Well now I was getting it.
“I’m also giving you the name of a nutritionist to help you come up with a safe, healthy food plan. We don’t advocate any diets or have any expectations other than abstinence.” She handed me a card with the name of a nutritionist, and I noted her office was close to my condo.
“What is abstinence?” I understood an alcoholic gave up alcohol, but it’s not like I could give up food.
“It’s different for everyone. An easy answer is no bingeing and following a food plan. You’ll get a better idea when you read the literature. I’ll lend you the
Big Book
and the
Twelve Steps and Twelve
Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous
to read. You start on Step One. Read it every day this week in this book. That’s it for your homework right now. Do you have any questions?”
I had a million, but at the moment I couldn’t think of one to ask.
“I’d like you to call me every day if you can. If you only have a minute to talk that’s okay, but I at least want you to check in with me.”
She paused, looking uncomfortable. “Can I ask you a personal question? What happened between you and Adam?”
Pain rushed through me as if she’d yanked off the scab that had formed over my wound. As both my friend and now my sponsor, I needed to rely on and talk with Alison as openly and honestly as possible.
“When I called him at the airport, a woman answered his phone. I was so upset, I told him I got engaged to Caleb and he basically hung up on me.”
Goodbye, Sara.
“Isn’t it possible it was his sister or a friend? Why did you assume he was with another woman?”
“I admit I may have jumped to conclusions initially. He never called me back to explain. If he wasn’t cheating on me, then why didn’t he call me?” I knew why, but I wanted to hear her opinion.
“Because you told him you were engaged?”
“He’d know by now I never got engaged. It was up to him to call me and he didn’t. No, it’s over. I accept it and I’m moving on.”
I could tell she didn’t believe me, because she had a slight smile she tried to keep hidden from me.
“If Adam and you hadn’t broken up, would you have come to this meeting?”
I thought about it for a moment. “I’m not sure. I knew I needed to make some changes in my life. He ... he told me he never wanted to get married, but he didn’t want to lose me. We made a deal. He was going to go to therapy and see if he could get past his aversion to marriage, and I was going to see if I could be with him without the promise of marriage. I didn’t know how I was going to do that. He also wanted me to work on making my own decisions. Will OA help me with that?”
“In a way. You’ll learn how to listen to your Higher Power for your decisions.”
I shook my head as I thought about how crazy that sounded.
“You went to Israel and fell in love with Adam, came home and broke up with Adam, and came to your first OA meeting where you ran into me, who you met in Israel. You don’t think somehow a Higher Power had worked to bring you to this meeting on this day?” Alison asked me.
Had God, fate, or destiny somehow manipulated me into coming to OA? I considered everything that had happened to me since February.
Could I accept there was somehow a purpose to all of life’s twists and turns?
No, not yet.
I wanted to believe someone watched over me and kept me safe from harm. I needed to believe by pursuing this course of action, I’d find my way to true happiness that didn’t rely on other people’s opinions of me.
“I don’t know how I got here, but I’m grateful I did,” I said as I stood to leave.
“For now, don’t worry about anything. Just take it one day at a time.”
One day at a time.
Easier said than done.
I had been abstinent since my meeting one week ago. Every day got harder rather than easier. I woke thinking about food, went to bed thinking about food, and dreamed about food. I didn’t want to give up yet, but I also didn’t see any evidence of my Higher Power’s presence in my life.
I kept hearing “as if.” If you don’t believe in a Higher Power, act as if you believe in a Higher Power. What the hell did that even mean? They also said ask for the willingness. I’ve never heard so much abstract rhetoric in my life. Now, I understood why some people claimed Twelve Step programs were a cult.
Still, it worked for a lot of people, including Alison. I’ve known several alcoholics who regained sobriety through working a Twelve Step program. Also, Dina would learn about the Twelve Steps at the treatment facility. At least, I should comprehend the Steps and principles for her sake.
I made a promise to Alison to attend ninety meetings in ninety days and I’d keep my promise. Seemed to me I honored a lot of promises to others. Would they honor their promises to me?