Life-Changer

She was awakened by the pain in her knee. Gingerly, she swung her legs out of bed. The distance to the floor was shorter since she had taken the legs off the bed to help her climb in more easily. Leaning on her walking stick, she went downstairs to the kitchen. She took her medication as she did faithfully every morning. Her fear of another cerebral hemorrhage prompted dedication to following her doctor’s orders.

It was on the advice of her doctor that she set off for the local sports center twice a week. She looked forward to her swim exercise class. The feeling of weightlessness in deeper water was like heaven. It made her feel lithe and slim. But she dreaded heaving her body up the ladder afterward as the full impact of her weight hit her.

To her horror she had shrunk from 5 feet 1 inch (155 cm) tall to barely 5 feet (152 cm). She avoided mirrors, unable to accept her image at 18 stone (114 kg; 252 lbs). She thought with disappointment of her lack of success with diet clubs. They had worked for a bit temporarily, but now she weighed more than when she had started with them.

Today she swallowed pills for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and depression, and inhaled products for asthma. She added handfuls of vitamins and mineral supplements. “I am aware of what I am doing,” she thought. “I know I am making a desperate bid to cling to this life, which I treasure. After all, I am only in my sixties, which is not old nowadays.”

When she opened email on her laptop, she was pleased to see a message from her son in faraway Canada. She knew that recently his work friend, now his sponsor, had invited him to Alcoholics Anonymous, and it had turned his life around. Her son said in this email, “Mum, you should get into a Twelve Step program. You should go to OA.” She puzzled over this and assumed it was a typo. Her reply was, “You know your mother doesn’t drink, don’t you? Why would I be going to AA?”

The life-changing reply came back: “No, Mum, OA—Overeaters Anonymous—and they have a meeting in the town next to you.”

That was seven months ago. For the past three months, she has enjoyed the expert and compassionate guidance of a dedicated OA sponsor who is leading her thoroughly, but gently, through the Twelve Steps. So far she has lost 2 stone 9 pounds (17 kg; 37 lbs). People are commenting, not only on how well she looks but also how happy. Her walking stick is in the cupboard, now unneeded. She has a new circle of fellows who enrich her life and, best of all, a new and developing connection with her Higher Power.

— Ailene, Exeter, Devon England