Nights Free

Nighttime was always hardest for me when it came to overeating. Before OA, the only tool I had was to starve myself throughout the day. I would skip breakfast and sometimes lunch because once I started eating it was hard to stop.

When I got off from work, however, that’s when the party started. I was a junk food junkie, so that meant having enough sugary things and enough crunchy-greasy things to make it through the evening, all washed down with a couple of liters of something or other. I usually passed out and would wake in the middle of the night with mushed food still in my mouth. Gross, but true.

When I first tried to get abstinent in OA, the pattern of being good during the day remained the same. The only difference was that I would eat healthy meals instead of starving for breakfast and lunch. But come nighttime, I wanted the comfort of the food. I had a sponsor tell me to finish dinner no later than 7:00 p.m. and not to have anything after that. I remember honestly wondering what I would do with rest of the night. It seemed like an eternity. I couldn’t imagine not eating myself to sleep. I had done it since childhood. I started going to lots of meetings at night—not so much because I liked meetings, but because they were a distraction and gave me something to do with all that free time after dinner.

The first five years were rocky; I was not one of those members who was struck abstinent. But I kept coming back and I worked the Steps with several different sponsors. I was a hard case, but I have now been abstinent for eighteen years, and I am maintaining an 80-pound (36-kg) weight loss.

It hasn’t been perfect, but I usually finish my dinner by 7:00 p.m., and that’s it for the night. Although I have so many years in the program, I am still amazed and very grateful that my behavior has changed so radically. It’s not a struggle. I don’t even think about it. I came into the program as an atheist. Every time I go to bed abstinent, I know that there is a God somewhere!

— Eleanor B., Los Angeles, California USA