Far Greater Peace

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.