Back in 2005, I had reached my rock bottom. I was the heaviest I had ever been. I had been diagnosed as obese and was suffering from aches and pains in my back and legs. I was pre-diabetic. I had heartburn all the time, but most of all I was so depressed and distressed about my weight. My self-image was at an all-time low. I had a good marriage and four children who were happy and successful. We were blessed with several grandchildren and I was managing my own business ….yet….. I could not stop eating.  
 
I had this huge hole in my soul…. A void I could not fill. To overcome this I tried to control everything and everyone around me. All in all I was a very unpleasant person to be around: controlling, angry, bossy, and manipulative. I found fault with everything and everyone except myself. How could I be so successful in controlling so many aspects of my life yet when it came to eating, I had no control?
 
A friend of mine told me about OA and said to me, “I don’t know how it works but it does”. I was desperate and had tried everything else. You name it, I had tried it. They worked for about three weeks then I failed hopelessly.  My friend took me to my very first meeting on 21 November 2005 – nearly 15 years ago. I stayed and she left the fellowship.
 
When I read Step One: 
 
“We admitted we were powerless over food – that our lives had become unmanageable.”  I knew that this described me exactly.  
 
At first I just went to OA meetings and listened and heard other people’s stories and realised that….. here were people just like me, who behaved in this same crazy way around food. I just kept coming back to meetings, listening and not participating. Eventually, the message got through to me and I became willing to find a sponsor who helped me to identify which were my trigger foods. They called them RED foods. If I took just one bite, it caused me to want to eat more and more. For me… they were food items that contained sugar, white flour and were crunchy, salty and fatty.
 
“Change my behaviour around food”
 
 My sponsor helped me to start working the Twelve Steps. 
 When I worked the steps, I realised that I had to be willing to change my behaviour around food and also build on the spiritual and emotional side of my life. Here the slogan “act as if” comes to mind. I did this one day at a time and have maintained approximately 23 kg weight loss for nearly 12 years now. It is a lifelong journey. I have to work at my programme daily.
 
“Service is slimming”
 
Today I give back to OA by sponsoring. I do service at the meetings and Intergroup level. I also represented our Gauteng OA Intergroup at the OA Region 9 Convention and Assembly in Athens Greece in 2014 and Paris France in 2015. I also represented OA Gauteng Intergroup at the OA World Service Business Conference 2017 and 2018 in Albuquerque New Mexico USA. What a gift OA has been. 
 
I no longer have that sense of hopelessness; no longer do I rely on my own willpower. After all, I am powerless! I came to OA to lose weight but as the slogan says:
 
 “I came for the vanity and stayed for the sanity”
 
I also want to mention that no matter how long I have been in the programme, there are no experts in OA. I have to remind myself that I do not know it all. I have not ‘arrived’. I have worked the OA programme for a long time and most days I am relieved of the obsession to eat, but I am aware that I am only one bite away from losing my abstinence. Just like an alcoholic who takes one drink can fall off the wagon so I too, can lose my abstinence by taking that first bite. I have to stay away from my trigger foods.
 
This has been exceptionally hard during this lockdown period and the situation has really tested my abstinence. It has not been perfect and there are days when I am really white knuckling. It is what it is and I know as long as I stay in touch with the OA programme and keep up my meetings and service I can once again get to a good clean abstinence. This too shall pass!
 
All I can do is share from my own experience, strength and hope. I just know that Abstinence is the most important thing in my life without exception. I know that there is a solution in working the OA programme “One day at a time”.
 
And, one last thing for the newcomers ….
 
“Don’t quit before the miracle happens.”
 
– Tracey, Johannesburg, South Africa