It seems that most of my life people have given me pointers on how to lose weight.  Will power was something they had and I obviously did not.  Well-meaning statements such as “you have such a pretty face” or “if only you would lose a few pounds” were intended to motivate me.  Instead, it increased my desire to eat.  I did not know then that by eating I was searching for comfort by trying to suppress my feelings of self-disappointment and self-loathing.  The food was only a symptom.

The first time I remember eating for comfort was when I was around five years old.  I was not hungry.  My friend food was there to console and provide the acceptance I was missing from my family.  When I was in trouble, which was often, the first place I went for solace was the refrigerator.  It did not matter what I ate or how much or if it was cold, frozen or too hot.  I just kept pushing it down until I couldn’t feel anymore – until the hurt stopped.

For over forty years, I have said I was an emotional eater.  Choose any emotion and I would eat because of it:  happy, sad, mad, glad, stressed, depressed.  In my teens, it was starvation diets and other fads.  I could lose 10-15 pounds, but always gained them again.  In my twenties, it was more fad diets, yo-yo dieting and finally bulimic behaviors of binging and purging.  This extended into my thirties with excessive use of laxatives and exercise.  I rationalized that if I ran, I could eat whatever I wanted.  Running distances increased gradually until I had to run three miles twice a day, every day.  I was finally thin and could eat whatever I wanted.  Eventually, my legs could no longer handle the extreme physical stress I was putting myself through and I had to stop running totally.  I could barely walk.  My eating habits did not – could not -- change and the weight accumulated.  In my wake were two divorces and the rubble of stormy and dysfunctional relationships.  I thought of myself as a victim – none of the difficulties or problems in my life had anything to do with me.  I thought everyone else was wrong.  The constant drone of “now – what can I eat” always followed me.

Finally, in my forties, I reached a point where I was hiding food, hiding wrappers, sneaking off to the store, and frantically eating food items in the car before I went home.  I ate until I was miserably full, but I could not stop.  I prayed that I would wake up thin and then hated myself in the morning because I was still fat.  I started a diet at breakfast only to go off of it by 9:00 a.m. and binge the rest of the day because I had failed again.  I had difficulty breathing, pain in my joints, and problems with my back.  I was so angry and full of rage.  I lashed out at those I cared about the most and said mean and hurtful things to them.  Existing every day was a chore and I was so ashamed of my appearance.

On the outside, I looked happy.  I smiled, laughed, and always dressed perfectly.  That was my mask, my façade, because on the inside I hated myself.  I did not know why I could not be normal and I knew if anyone knew the “real” me, they would not like me.

Other members of my family were in 12 Step programs.  I listened to their stories and could relate their situations to mine.  The difference?  My “drug of choice” was food.  Overeating, glorifying desserts and/or foods were a part of my daily existence.  Food was my focus of worship.  I wanted desperately to stop eating, to lose weight, to like myself.  The years of denial were taking a toll on my very sanity.

I do not remember driving to my first 12 Step meeting.  I left work and suddenly I was at a meeting.  I listened intently and heard bits and pieces with which I could identify.  Gradually, I admitted that my life had become unmanageable because of my compulsive eating behaviors.  I learned to turn my life over to God and relinquish control to Him one day at a time, sometimes one moment at a time.  Relapse was a part of my recovery at first, but once I completed the steps and found a new way of eating and dealing with life on life’s terms, God relieved me of the compulsion to overeat and gave me the blessings of abstinence.  Diet is a four-letter word for me.  In any form of dieting, I obsessed about food…what can I eat next?  When can I eat again?  Do I get snacks?  Nowadays, the Lord has given me a food plan and I only eat what my body needs for nourishment.  The excess weight is being released in God’s time and as I heal.

Working all of the steps in their intended order with a sponsor is one of the parts of a successful recovery.  My denial was so deep that when I thought I was being honest, I had actually lied and did not realize it.  I avoided writing my inventory like the plague.  I had lived through the pain before and I certainly did not want to go through it again.  However, having gone through the steps has given me serenity and peace.  My past no longer controls my behavior and I am set free.

I became a compulsive overeater in isolation, but to work the 12 steps effectively, it cannot be done alone.  My sponsor guided me through the steps because she had worked them before me and loved me when I could not.  Finally the day came when I asked the Lord for forgiveness and “gave my inventory away”, made amends for my wrongs, and cleaned up my side of the street.  God removed my compulsion to use food inappropriately and I praise Him for that.

Last year, the Lord led me away from a legalistic religion and into a personal relationship with Him.  I was saved, baptized, and joined ABT.  I consider it a blessing to be a part of the ministry of Celebrate Recovery.  The miracle of healing covered three facets in my life:  emotional, spiritual, and physical.  By the grace of God, I have had healing in all three areas which started on the inside and worked its way out by releasing weight from this body.  I no longer determine my self-esteem and self-worth by the scale or the size of my clothing or what others think of me.  When I share with others what I was like before recovery, what happened to me in recovery and how I have changed, Jesus uses me as His Instrument.  I not only share my experience, strength and hope, but unconditional love for I have walked where others who are suffering are walking.  It is only through relinquishing my will over to Jesus Christ, that my abstinence can continue as I “find strength and recovery in Him”, one day at a time.  God is doing for me what I could not do for myself.