Drug Medical Information

OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS: FIRST BIRTHDAY

One year ago, I was facing intestinal bypass surgery and almost certain death. I had suffered congestive heart failure a few months earlier. Following my release from the hospital, where I was put on a strict diet and warned to continue losing weight, I resumed the suicide course of compulsive overeating which soon took me past the 400-pound mark.

Actually, I wanted to die; I had seriously considered taking my life. But I could not do that to my family. With the odds increasingly against a successful bypass operation, however, I saw the surgery as a clean, neat way to destroy myself without scarring my family. I was no good to them or to myself- a useless vegetable of a human being.

I had been a shut-in for six years due to severe colitis. Now, in my extreme obesity, I was becoming more and more helpless. I suffered frequent chest pains. I could not walk. There were days when I could not even brush my hair.

I didn't know it then, but my family did not expect me to live. My son feared what he might find when he got home from work each day. Before leaving the house in the morning, my husband would check me as I lay in bed to see if I was still breathing.

This was my diminishing life that day one year ago as I listened to a talk show on the local radio station. The guests were three members of Overeaters Anonymous. As they spoke, I realized that I was hearing, for the first time, an exact description of my disease.

Then and there I called the station and talked to these good people. They gave me directions and as I listener , I made a commitment of abstinence to myself and my Higher Power.

I didn't hear the entire show; the withdrawal distress was already building and I was becoming dizzy. Whenever this happened, I would immediately eat something - preferably sweets, but if they weren't available, anything would do.

But this day, I would not eat\ Anxiety pressed in on me. Far into the night, chest pains, stomach cramps and labored breathing kept me awake. I prayed for strength.

At last, a feeling of peace came over me, and with it a strong sense of the presence there in the room with me of OA and all its members. I thought I was hallucinating, but the sensation of not being alone was very pleasant and comforting. I have never been alone since that night.

When I awoke, I thanked God for my first night in OA and my brand new abstinence. With each succeeding day, it became easier to abstain from compulsive overeating. One OA member from the talk show rushed me some OA and AA literature. I was amazed and touched that someone out there cared. I had given up on myself, but these strangers in OA were not about to give up on me.

I read the literature zealously. The AA Big Book gave me great depth of understanding. I sent for OA tapes and listened endlessly, drawing strength from the wit and eloquence of these beautiful, giving people whose lives had been restored to them and who were sharing their abundant gifts in gratitude.

Seven weeks after I began abstinence I got a sponsor, a wonderful woman who has enriched my life beyond measure. She and I talked nightly; we still do, for we have become close friends. In time, I met other OAs who became my friends. They visited me at home and talked with me on the telephone.

In those early weeks, my main source of strength and encouragement was the many telephone contacts with OA members. Get-well cards and letters also poured in. Never have I met more unselfish people than these blessed overeaters. They really are special.

The weight started to come off dramatically at first. From that very first day in OA, my life took a turn for the better in all areas. Even my colitis disappeared, and it has not returned. I was gradually being healed of all that ailed me.

After eight months in the program, a beautiful, almost forgotten world opened up to me: I went out of the house on a shopping trip for the first time in six and a half years! A week later, I ventured forth again, this time for eyeglasses: I had been reading my OA and AA literature with the aid of a magnifying glass. - A few weeks later, I visited my doctor. He was thoroughly astonished and delighted by my weight loss and my greatly decreased blood pressure, which had dropped to 122 over 70. The best advice he could give me, he said, was to keep doing whatever I was doing.

I have had many "firsts" in OA. With my husband, I attended my first movie in twenty years; and I ate in a restaurant for the first time in my life.

The most beautiful "first" by far, however, took place the day I went to my first OA meeting. I, who a year earlier could not carry myself the length of one room, walked tall and straight and free of pain into the very first OA meeting of my life - just two weeks short of one year in the Fellowship.

On my first OA birthday, I weighed myself. I have lost more than 183 pounds; I now weigh 217. In the process of losing weight, I have found a new life. I have experienced the recovery on three levels - physical, emotional and spiritual - that is promised us in the Big Book.

All my life, I floundered about, nearly drowning, in the shipwreck of compulsive overeating. I am still a compulsive overeater, but today my Higher Power gives me a sturdy lifeboat and two strong oars: one of them is abstinence and the other is the OA Fellowship. I am confident that as long as I use these oars, I cannot fail.

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