The Freedom Fifteen

On February 6, 2018, I will celebrate fifteen years without a binge. My biological birth date is December 16, 1955, but in truth my life began some forty-eight years later. I don’t know what happened on that day, February 6, 2003, but I became empowered not to binge, and I’ve continued to be binge-free to this day. It is simply the best thing that ever happened to me.

It set me free: free from the ball-and-chain of relentless, soul-draining bingeing; free to know my Higher Power and the peace and joy he/she brings; free to find out who I am and live the life that suits me. With these gifts, it’s easy to see how I can say it’s the best thing that’s ever happened in my life.

To celebrate, I’m planning to augment my necklace. At all times, I wear the thin gold OA chip I received for one of my anniversaries on a shiny gold chain, and now I’m going to add another chip, this one engraved with the number 15. It seems a fitting tribute to the amazing leg of this journey I’ve been on since 2003.

My journey actually began in the mid-1970s, when I attended my first OA meeting while still in high school. I guess I knew there was something in OA I desperately needed because I kept coming back on and off for the next thirty years. When things got really bad “out there,” I knew the OA door was always open. It was a haven I could retreat to, and I did many times. But I never surrendered enough to get and keep a sponsor.

Finally, I hit a very bad bottom. I experienced a psychotic break in 1999 as a result of another addiction, and then at the end of 2002, I finished an extensive cancer treatment. I agreed, very reluctantly, to take a sponsor, although “take” is probably a misnomer. This angel, who rescued me from me, reached out to me, not the other way around. I shudder to think where I’d be if she hadn’t—I’d probably still be limping along, as sad and desperate as I’d been for so many of those previous years.

My bingeing didn’t stop immediately, but on that magical day, February 6, it did. My abstinence from bingeing continues to this day and, God willing, will continue through my fifteenth anniversary.

I can’t wait to buy the gold abstinence chip and have it engraved. Yet it won’t be the best gift I’ve ever given myself—that would be the fifteen years of abundant life it represents.

— Christina R., Montvale, New Jersey USA