“Who would have thought, when I entered my first OA meeting six months ago, that my life was going to change in every conceivable way? After almost forty years of yo-yo diets and spending most of my adult life on diet pills…
I was about to discover my weight problem had nothing to do with willpower. What an eye-opener that first beginner’s meeting was. There were ideas like ‘a compulsion of the brain and an allergy of the body’ and ‘a plan of action.’ Wow, my head was spinning with all this powerful, exciting information! I was trying to digest it all. OA had literature to read, sponsors to help, and Tools and Steps to work. Nonstop positive solutions could bring sanity into my life at long last.
Was I willing to go to any lengths to recover from being a food addict? You bet I was. From the very start I knew what my trigger foods were. My God gave me abstinence from my compulsion to overeat from that very first day, as he knows me better than I know myself. If I hadn’t jumped into our Fellowship with both feet from the get-go, I might not have stuck around. That was my first miracle. It was not that I lost 40-plus pounds (18-plus kg); it was that I found the willingness to surrender not only specific foods and food behaviors, but also my self-will to my God.
I have found serenity in every facet of life. My relationships with my husband and adult children have never been healthier. I no longer feel the need to run everyone’s lives. I no longer merely hear, because I’ve learned to listen. Releasing all my old resentments was definitely the turning point in my recovery. That’s when OA became a way of life.
Seven months ago, if someone gave me a prediction that I would become a person who prays daily, is spiritually connected to God, and would experience miracles in all aspects of my life, I would have thought that person was the worst fortune-teller ever. But today I am living a life beyond my wildest dreams, one day at a time.”
— Ilene H.
Source: © 2024 Overeaters Anonymous, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
©Overeaters Anonymous, Inc. All rights reserved
©2024 Experience Strength & Hope Newsletter,
All rights reserved. Proudly sponsored by OA Foot Steps VIG #09670.
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