No Secret

Looking at my family photographs and reflecting on the last twelve years brings tears to my eyes. At my first OA meeting, I could barely hold my head up and say my name to pick up my twenty four-hour abstinence chip, which I still have. I was 43 years old, remarried, twice my normal body weight, and the mother of a baby girl whose birth had almost taken both our lives.

My doctor told me to go to OA, so I went because I’m good at following orders. I “kept coming back” because at the close of every OA meeting we say that. No one ever locks the doors and keeps me out. I remember someone saying recovery is like a roller coaster ride, and those rides scare me.

It is not just the weight or the food. Something magical happens at meetings if you’re willing to suit up and show up. If alcoholics and compulsive overeaters from all over the world are recovering, maybe I can sit still long enough to figure out what they have. The Big Book chapter “How It Works” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., pp. 58–71) doesn’t really tell you how it works. You can do everything it says, and you would still miss that little bit. You’d miss the magic of the God of your understanding.

Maybe I thought I would stay long enough to get the secret, but no secret exists. Finding out who you are is the way out. In that process you discover your HP and all he has in store for you.

OA has changed my life. It has filled me with memories, friendships, dreams, hopes, and ambitions beyond my imagination. It is still unfolding, and only God knows where it will lead me. I was once lost, but now I am found. Thank you, God and OA.

— S.S., Sunnyvale, California USA