Rediscovery and Realizations

There are so many things I am grateful for in my recovery. Here are a few: First and foremost, not doing that compulsive hand-to-mouth behavior. Early in my recovery, a large part of the “pink cloud” for me was euphoria at being released from decades of abusive eating. When qualifying, I shared that I was amazed at how many of my problems simply disappeared when I just didn’t do the behavior. I truly was on Cloud Nine!

This abstinence I experienced so happily was my gateway to a new and wonderful life based on spirituality. The single best thing about my life in recovery today is my spiritual life, my relationship with God. It was what had been so corrosively missing during my eating years. Now things are different and much, much better. For me, it hurts too much to live without God/HP/Spiritual Energy. I don’t hurt that way anymore, and I am grateful.

I’m also really present to my life today, and most especially to family and friends. At social gatherings, I’m not preoccupied—I used to always be thinking about when and where I’d get the food and, as a closet eater, where to hide it when I got it.

Fellowship in OA is a special pleasure, particularly the friendships I’ve made in the rooms. In the eating years, I didn’t have any real friends. For me, recovery has meant rediscovering the gift of friendship, which I really hadn’t had since I was a kid. Compulsion takes a terrible toll!

I found my voice in the rooms. I didn’t speak or share for decades; there are some who gently remind me of that. After I hit bottom, I realized that my recovery, my “getting better,” hinged on opening up and sharing my truth based on my life experience.

Recovery has also made long-term employment possible for me: I worked more than ten years at my previous job, and I’ve been in my current position for five. In my old life, my solution to everything had been, “Well, I’ll get another job.” Do I have to tell you it never worked?

Finally, I’m grateful to the longtimers, my teachers in the rooms, for helping me realize that recovery and life are really all about love.

— Christina R., Montvale, New Jersey USA