I lived several years of my life in bondage to food. I felt I had no choice. I had to eat. I had to hide my eating and lie about my eating. The shame was immeasurable and always with me.
I was in bondage to other things as well. What others thought about me, trying to please whoever I was with at the moment while constantly striving and manipulating to get my own way, usually by passive aggressive means. Life was simply exhausting. My mind was like a hamster running on a wheel, it just never stopped. I was totally alone in my head and could see no way out. The idea of help from a Higher Power never even occurred to me. I needed to figure this stuff out on my own and the prison my life had become began to seem permanent. I just figured that some people get to be happy and some don’t.
And then I came to OA. And you told me I could be free. It took some time but gradually i began to let go. To let go of my defiance, my puny self reliance, and a whole lot of bad attitudes. I began to look at my life in the light of “what’s the next right thing”. I began to ask “how and what does my Higher Power want me to be and do this day?”
With each day in recovery I receive more freedom and more blessings and more abundance.
I am now free to say “I made a mistake, I’m sorry and what can I do to make it right?” No shame involved. I’m free to take anything out of my closet and know it will fit. I’m free to like myself.
I have choices. I can choose the food that’s right for me. I can choose to say NO when it my not please someone else. I’m free to ask for help. My mind is free from turmoil most of the time. All these things are miracles to me.
I can reach out my hand to another compulsive overeater and share with them the freedom thats been given to me through the God of my understanding and OA. Thank you God, OA, and all my brothers and sisters who walk this path with me.
— Pam L