rI came to OA to lose weight. I didn't know it, but I also came to lose the emotional pain that drove my being overweight.
I tried to smile and kid about my weight, but it was eating me up inside. I ate to escape painful feelings. In exchange, I received a new set of painful feelings and health problems. I tried every diet and every food fad. I thought I'd be better if I were thin. I failed in every way and felt miserable and hopeless. Eventually, my pain and failure were more overwhelming than my reasons for not trying OA. I thought I didn't have to buy the mumbo-jumbo about Higher Powers and God. Maybe the program would help me lose weight; that's what I wanted. I knew I could ignore all the religious claptrap. I thought to myself, "God, I've got nowhere else to go" (Did I say God?) I came and lost weight, but I found that if I only lost weight and gained nothing, then OA would be for me just a successful diet club. As with the diet clubs, success would invariably be followed by failure-at least for me. The OA program is not about losing weight, and it is not a diet club. The program is tough to maintain, but it is the way we achieve serenity and peace. These are the goals of the program, not losing weight. Now I deal better with all the things that drove me to food. I don't hold onto resentments. I don't wallow in guilt. I don't stay angry. I move on from my mistakes. I forgive those who hurt me. I have lost weight and kept it within or close to my target range. But my real achievement and feeling of success comes not from what I lost, but from what I gained - a far greater peace than I have ever know. -Edited and reprinted from Road to Recover newsletter Westchester United Intergroup, April 2001. This story was later reprinted in LifeLine, October 2002, p. 2., Copyright Overeaters Anonymous, Inc. Comments are closed.
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