The "Light a Candle" meeting of Overeaters Anonymous in Brentwood, CA

Hi, everybody. My name is Esther. I'm a compulsive overeater. Hi, Esther. Thanks for coming out tonight.

Wow. I brought some pictures. I went back into the house to get them. I don't know how impressive they are. I came into OA a long time ago.

I'm starting to look pretty good in the pictures. But for what it's worth, I'll I'll bring them because you can look at the look on my face and you can look into my eyes in those pictures, and you can pretty much see the whole story as far as I'm concerned. I also paused to get my hanky. I think you all know me well enough to know. I think we're kidding ourselves if I don't bring it up to the mic.

So thanks Roy so much for having me tonight. It's really, really a blessing to have this meeting and, I just I love these meetings where somebody talks and I guess it's just my turn. You know, it's funny, this time of year, is when I came into OA in 1980 3 and it my birthday is next Saturday. My natal birthday is next Saturday and I came into OA right after my 22nd birthday. Right about this time of year in 1983, I had just moved to California.

And I remember, I remember what it was like. You know, my mind was racing. I was really looking for a solution. I knew there was something terribly, terribly wrong and I knew that it encompassed all areas of my life, but I just didn't know what to do about it. And I had heredity and environment against me.

My mother is a 100 pounder and I grew up in a home where we compulsively overate together. My mother was in 12 step programs. She and I had a little joke that we made when we binged together. We would say, yes, father, because the church where she took the 7th tradition money had these little offering envelopes that said, yes, father, on it. And we would take the 7th tradition money from whatever meeting she had been at.

I'm sure she paid it back, but we'd break it open and take it out and binge. That's what that's what we did. And it was kind of a joke. I knew she was really sick. I didn't really think, I didn't think too much about my own illness.

I was just fat. I was just fat. I was always, uncomfortable around. My girlfriends all seemed like they were cheerleaders and beautiful blonde women with size 5 feet and, it was tough, you know. I grew up with, Farrah Fawcett and Peggy Lipton and I had this hairdo in Kentucky aside from just my weight, but I had this hairdo that was like out to here.

It was very humid. And, I just, you know, why can't I fit in? I'm a beautiful reindeer, you know, why can't I fit in? And, I just, my mind was racing. I had moved to California.

I had moved to California with a girl that was about 5 feet tall. She was a size 5. She was blonde. Her sister was a size 5. She was blonde.

Their mother bought size ones and took them in a little bit because she was very slight And, I towered over them like a giant palm tree. I just felt so out of place. And, and I would say, yeah. I'll be right back. You know?

And I would go, and I would binge, and I would come back. So I don't know how you found me. I always knew I needed to come here. I went once when I was about, 16. There was a guy with 1 lazy eye and me in a park with a tree and there was nowhere to sit and I didn't like it and I just I just gave up on OA because I figured, well, that's it and that's every meeting is just like that one.

There was no format. There was no literature. I think we just kind of stood and talked there and leaned against the tree and I didn't I thought he was creepy, so I didn't come back. And what I want you to know is that my story is very, very, very simple. There was no, odd sides to what I did.

I simply ate too much. I ate too much too fast all the time, and I couldn't stop. And that seemed really insulting to me, frankly, because everybody else stopped just fine. Even my mom stopped from time to time. I remember when I was very, very little, the first kind of memory that I had about, oh, I'm just not gonna eat today.

You know, I'm just I'm just not gonna. I was a Girl Scout. I must have been about 7. And we went to some function to get a badge where we were gonna throw a party for these other girls. And I said to myself at 7, you know, I'm not gonna eat the candy today.

That's what, you know, that's what I'm gonna try to pull off. And, I remember later that day being, like, really excited that somehow I had done it. You know, I had gotten I had gotten through a 2 hour meeting without, you know, eating candy and that was that was about the size of it. My, my grandmother's house was a great place to go. My mother would not let us touch sticky things for any reason.

We could not eat candy in the movies. We could not, you know, anything, any tactile. I went to Colonel Sanders' farm and ate chicken with a knife and fork. I mean, I literally never touched my food in my life and my grandmother's house was just great because we would make popcorn balls and she would say, Give me your hands. And I'd hold my little hands out and she'd take a stick of butter and just go and then we'd grab this food and we'd make these balls and we'd do this stuff and it was just, like, touching and sticky and nasty and I loved Tootie's house.

And I remember I went there every Friday night but there was a problem because I had all these allergies. I had been diagnosed with, you know, thousands of food allergies and I don't really think this plays an enormous role in my story of why I became a compulsive overeater but it does kinda set up the relationship that I had with food that took me away from you. Because when I got tired of being with you, I had nowhere to go. I had no solace on this Earth. And food became my way to get the hell away from you, to get the hell away from work, to get the hell away from my friends, to to hide, to give myself privacy, to be honest.

It was just a simple way to give myself privacy. And so I would go to Tutti's house on Friday night and she would buy a box of fill in the blank and I would eat it. And she loved it that I ate I ate good, you know. And that was good. I ate good.

And, she wanted me to she said marshmallows were a vegetable and, you know, all these all these things were they were good for me. And I don't know if she knew I was a compulsive overeater or not, but I did not eat like a normal person and I know that. And, meanwhile, all this time, I'm going to school. I'm I've always looked like a little girl. I have never looked my age.

I've always I looked so tiny and little. All the kids were growing up and I was just, like, this tiny little I was a size 6X. I was this, child among young women, among teenagers. I was just really severely underdeveloped. I don't know why.

And and he had this weird feeling that I was fat because I never, like, filled out. I never did that thing where you, like, all of a sudden you lose your baby fat and you're curvy and, you know, I just never I just looked funny to me and there was a guy in junior high that called me FB my entire career and, I asked him, what is it? What does it mean? What does it mean? Because of course I had to know what you thought of me.

I had to know what are your secret thoughts about me? And, years later he told me it meant funky bod. And, and I don't know, I guess, I guess that was true. I certainly felt that way. It was, it was a lifetime of being inside of my head, is what it was.

I wouldn't take anything to anyone, you know. And in writing inventory, I've really had to revisit a lot of the school about school about any of the myriad questions I had about human sexuality and interpersonal relationships and family dynamics. It never crossed my mind to talk to a nurse or a therapist or a helper or a teacher or my grandmother who I trusted implicitly or a relative, or a girlfriend. I mean, I walked out into the world completely ignorant and knowing it, but I always had this wheel in my head that I couldn't let you know what I didn't know and just, just keep it all, keep it all in, keep it all inside. And what I've found, I blamed that on you, the collective you, for many, many years and what I found is that I made a decision.

I made a series of decisions in the past which put me in a position to be hurt today. I made a decision that I have a need to demonstrate my own self importance in this world, that you do not think of me as highly as you do the other people around and that I must win in all situations, that when there's an encounter, I must win. And these are decisions that complicated my personal relationships. In the car wash, at the Rite Aid, with my family and my co workers and friends. God forbid my loved ones, my love relationships are a whole another pitch.

But this complicated my life And when things didn't go my way, I went into the private room and I ate. And that was the deal. And that's all I knew how to do. And I warped that until it ran me into the ground. I did not ever seek another way of my own spiritual awakening or my own desire to be better in this world, my desire to, to make a difference.

Never had any of those motivations into this day. Now I kinda do. What got me here was I was fat. I was just fat and God blessed me by letting me have this illness so that I would seek altruism because on my own, I don't give a shit about I won't there will be no more curse words on the tape. But on my own, I don't care.

I don't care what I give. I just wanna look good. I wanna feel good. I want you to think that I look good. And that was the deal.

So I marched off into my life with with this preparedness and, and, you know, I stumbled through junior high and high school. I don't know why, but at some point, right before I went to college, I I mysteriously lost some weight. Now, I had been hanging out with the cheerleaders and I remember finding myself in the back seat of somebody's car listening to Funkytown on the radio and thinking, These are not my people. You know, I don't belong with these people. They don't make sense to me.

I don't like their company. They're popular and I've spent 7 years of my life trying to be in this car at this moment and I don't like it. It's not fun for me. And, so I decided I would go to a different college and do things a little differently and I don't know why but the summer before I went to college, I lost a little bit of weight. I don't know why that is.

The only other time I had ever lost any weight, I went to the Orient, as a young woman and I, I had no idea what the food was there. Today, I might enjoy it, but, my God, I was raised on Chungking and I really could not understand anything that they had there. It was just too exotic and I lost some weight. Prepared, emotionally prepared, emotionally and physically for the worst and I began a real serious battle with food that never ever let up until it dragged me here, on my bloody stomach in 1983. I, I began a series of trying to I am not bulimic, I am not, you know, know anything interesting in my story.

I eat too much. I cannot stop eating, especially sugar. I just, I can't stop it. And, I began the wearing a Mylar suit and going into the sauna, taking speed and jogging 5 miles, diets. The tab pot cigarette diet.

The, you know, and this, this is from a long line and my mother's had some crazy diets too. But at this point, I lost the ability somehow through those 3 or 4 years in college, I lost the ability to negotiate with food. There had been times when I could say, Today, I'm only gonna eat fill in the blank, or I'm only gonna eat this much of fill in the blank. But what happened to me in that dorm was I realized there was a fundamental difference mentally, physically, and I didn't know at the time, but spiritually between me and the person on the other side of that door. And it was so clear to me one night because we would order a whatever.

Everybody would have some or a piece. And then they would go back to studying, talking, walking, living, exercising, and there was nothing for me to go back to. I didn't have anything else. I was beginning a binge and I didn't have a way to get out of that and I had to complete it. I have driven with 2 flat tires.

I have driven through snow. I have walked in dangerous, dangerous places by myself at night alone. I have done everything, that you have probably to get that food. When I start that first compulsive bite, I'm on the little ride at Disneyland and there's a track and I cannot get off of it. I have a wheel and it doesn't work.

Wherever I was going to go, I've missed weddings, I've missed funerals, I've missed, you know, very important meetings, I've not showed up for friends. I was definitely a tornado in the lives of those that I love, just like the big book says. If I told you I was coming over tomorrow, you might not see me for days. And when I finally called, you know, who knew? Who knew what shape I would be in?

And the remorse of the next day, you know, is just unforgiving. But I would eat that food and I would get on this track and I would just simply go to the bench. There was nowhere else for me to go. There was there was no relief in sight. So I became convinced that I had an eating disorder.

So all the more I applied my self will and, tried to handle it and tried to make myself not eat. So, at this point, having lost the ability to diet, whatever we were calling it in those days, and I tell you, that is a certain personal hell. I've heard people in meetings share about, Well, I'm just doing the best that I can. And for me, that was a personal hell was I'm just doing the best that I can. And that means I am a compulsive overeater who is going to binge, and I don't know when.

And that was tough. I don't mean to be so dramatic. It's kind of a teary day. And again, those that know me know that I I weep. So anyway, it's just shocking really that, you know, I should be asked to come here and talk about this because I don't I don't understand why I got better.

It's really it's really shocking. And, you know, I don't know if it hits everyone this way, but when you when you look at your own recovery, it's almost better if I don't think about it too much. But when you look at it, it's really it's really dramatic. It's really quite impressive to me because I I know who I was, and it's one of those miracles that only I really know about, you know, and that's the very best kind. So what I could do was, like, not eat.

I just won't eat all day, and that I could still pull off. But the thing was, when I stepped into the ring with food, I lost and I could no longer make any decisions about food. It was a constant litany in my head and my sponsor talks about this. And this is the greatest freedom that I have in in Overeaters Anonymous, was the freedom from this: eyes open in the morning. Well, I won't eat breakfast.

What I'll do is I won't eat breakfast, and then when I have lunch, I'll just have a salad and maybe I'll have a potato, but I won't have any dressing. If I have the dressing, then I won't have it later. And then maybe I'll have some popcorn. And I won't have the popcorn. I'll have the air popped popcorn.

And then later tonight when we go we're all going out and then we go out, I'll have the the dried toast and I'll have this and I'll have the but maybe this might have it and then I'd eat pancakes. Alright. Okay. Regroup. Alright.

I've had the pancakes. Okay. Alright. That's okay. I won't eat lunch.

I won't eat lunch. And when I don't eat lunch, then later tonight, maybe I'll have a salad a salad, and then I'll have a salad. And it was just this constant, constant, constant calculating, adding this and that and this as fat and that does it and I'll eat this and, oh, my God, I'm going there and what are they gonna have and what do they think if I eat it and they're having this and I have to have that because they're all going to have that and they're going to offer me that. And it was this whole constant I was absolutely a slave to this litany inside my head. I could not get freedom from that.

It went constantly. It probably went at night when I slept because it was certainly there when I got up in the morning. It was up before me. So I decided I would move to California because people in Kentucky just ate too much. Right.

And so, I was not going to arrive here fat. I just wasn't going to. And in my little, OA, One Day at a Time book, it says, On the day that I left, Kentucky, it says, A horse that goes traveling. No. An ass that goes traveling will not find himself a horse.

And that was true for me. You'll be surprised to find that even though I did lose weight on the trip and I did force myself to not eat, I got here and I was still a compulsive operator. But, so I went on this I am not gonna arrive in California fat thing. Now, mind you, at 21 years old, now, have you seen any 21 year old women lately? They look good.

There's almost nothing you can do to yourself at 21 that makes you look as horrible as I thought I looked. And the truth was, I wasn't ever more than about £25 overweight. But I had that fat head and I had my mother's head and I had that 100 pounder life in my closet, you know. And I knew how I ate and I knew where I was going. I knew.

So, my senior year of college, I owned 2 pair of pants that fit me. I had blue paratrooper pants and I had camouflage green paratrooper pants and, can I tell you, you would not miss me in the paratrooper green pants? They did not blend in to anywhere I went. And I remember going out to dinner with a beautiful girl who liked me for some reason, a lot. And she invited me to go to this Frenchmen dressy, so I wore the blue paratrooper pants and, I guess, camouflage would be too much.

And I had on this blue top and I just remember sitting with Lauren and I just my top was just splitting open. I mean, I was just so uncomfortable the whole time. And I remember that night was about, you know, what was on in the basket vivacious, interesting, sexy woman. You know, and I moved to California. I fasted on the way here.

I was on a diet of no doughs, tab, pot, and cigarettes. I think my partner that I traveled here with, god bless Billy, I owe him an, an amend. To this day, I can't find him. He was in for the ride of his life. He rode out here with me.

Oh, bless Billy. And, he would buy breakfast beg me to eat it. And I'd say, oh, no. I'm fine. I'm fine.

Meanwhile, I drove past our exit three times. You know, he literally had to stop the car and drive because I was I was just unfit to drive on pot and no doughs and you know? So when we got to, Albuquerque, my jeans fit because I had fasted for about 5 or 6 days. And I was so excited I slept in them that night because you just never knew if you can get them on. You gotta keep them on because you might not get them on tomorrow.

And I had to stay in them once I got them on. And sure enough, when we got to California, I, decided that since I had demonstrated such self control, and it's just like the big book says, I'm gonna put it in the milk. I decided that I was now normal and that I should have a sandwich. Normal people sit down every day and eat a sandwich. And then we went we were downtown at the Hilton downtown, and I ordered a sandwich.

And I had a sandwich and I started on the worst binge, of my life. I couldn't I I at this point, I really couldn't stop. As I said, there was no more negotiating with food. There was just no more negotiating. So, and at this point, you know, my dear friend, the little size 5 cheerleader was, you know, we were at the beach which is exactly where I wanted to be with her.

And she said, I said, oh, I'll be right back. I'm going to Laddie's room. That was my thing. Bye bye. Go to Laddie's room.

See you in a few days. And, so I left and went to ladies room and stopped every little, you know, cantina on the way. And then I came back and I laid back down on the beach with her and I just remember my chest was just like because I had just run and eaten and run and gotten sugar and gotten it in me and get it in me quick enough and get back to you, you know, because I couldn't be with you that long. And, my god, I was at the top of that restaurant at, Vine and Sunset up in the world air up there and I said, oh, I'm gonna go to the restroom. I took the elevator down to Sunset Boulevard.

I walked 10 blocks at night, about 11 or 30 or 12 at night. I walked to Gower Gulch and I bought food and I ate it and I came back. I got in the elevator and I went back from the restroom and that was that was my coping mechanism, for many years. We were driving up the coast, we went to go to San Jose. I was binging on sugar the whole way up so bad I couldn't drive.

I had to pull off the side of the road and put my head between my knees because I couldn't breathe. And, all of a sudden, I remembered that OA meeting I had gone to. Now I had known you guys were here, but, again, that meeting was just so bad. And and the guy was so you know, I just I really expected the worst. I mean, that many of you would become my good friends.

I just didn't really think that was gonna happen. So on, right after my birthday, which was, you know, the accumulation of all this, incredible eating, here I am in California. I'm 21. I don't have a job. I don't have any friends.

I don't know anyone, and I'm bingeing and I'm lost. So I went to the Wednesday night Chelsea meeting where the speaker speaks and then you ask questions. And, God, I knew enough to not get there early. God, I didn't want you to touch me or talk to me. And, I got there at 7:30 and, woman was standing out front.

She's still in program. She's a friend of mine, and she said, hi. Are you a newcomer? You know, if I had an ax, I would've killed her. It was just, you know, and then, yeah, I'm a newcomer.

So I came in. I sat by a woman named Betty. She had red hair. She was from the south. And they said at the beginning of the meeting, are there any other compostable readers here?

I'm sorry. I don't mean to get so weepy. But, I raised my hand, and you have had me since that moment. Since that moment, I have wanted this thing. I have really, really wanted this thing.

I'm blessed with the kind of willingness to do the deal, to do the deal. I have always desired to work the steps, to read the books. I'm one of those good students, you know, my god, tell me what to do. Give me a list. I make the calls.

I'm not afraid of the phone. I do service. I would go out with these old timey AAOA types, you know, and we'd drive to Temecula and they'd speak for 2 hours and I'd listen and I'd ride home in the car and I'd ask questions and I'd study and I would go to that Wednesday night meeting where you ask questions and I was the one would, like, raise my hand and say, you know, how do you, like, not eat? That's just the part that I couldn't get. I couldn't get just that.

And people had different ideas. I do remember a tentpole in my recovery one night. I was still binging. I went out to somewhere out, God, to 10 out and, you know, way out with some old timey AA guy, OA, type of guy who was very abstinent. And on the way home, I was telling him all my problems.

I loved having those old timers in my car. You want recovery? You take an old timer to a meeting. You know, that's great. They'll listen to you too because, they're beaten down.

They've listened a lot over the years. So he took me into his house and he sat me down and he said, Well, you know, Esther, listening to you for the last hour and a half, I have to say that, you know, one of the things, gee, one of the things that really helped me was this page in the big book where they talk about handling your resentments. That page really helped me. Here it is. And he opened it up, he showed it to me.

I said, Oh, I don't know. I don't understand. The words are spinning. He said, said, let me write it out for you. And he took a sheet and he wrote, I'm resentful at the cause affects my my defects, my part in it.

Why don't you take that home? And that piece of paper really did make a difference to me. It really made a difference. I've written many inventories in that style. I've done spot check inventories in that style.

And what I found out is I am powerless over you in what you do and them and what they do to me and what they take away from me and what they say to me. I am powerless. But if I played a role in that transaction, there's hope for me. There's not hope for me if it's all about you because I cannot make you do it differently. But there's hope for me if I made a decision in the past that puts me in a position to be hurt, if I, if I was intolerant of you, if there's some defect I had operating, if I was greedy, if I was, you know, hungry, angry, lonely, tired, whatever it is, if there's a part in it that I can make me better, and God and I can make me better, there's hope for me because I can interact with you in a totally different way and you don't have to change a fig.

You don't have to do a thing. And, that has proven to be freedom, total and complete freedom for me. So, all I knew was that I was doing the I'm doing the best I can abstinence and I did that for I remember I went back, East for Christmas 1 year and I was there almost a whole week, which is the most time I had spent there since I had been in recovery. And, I didn't binge. I ate meals, but I didn't, like, have that big binge that lasts 3 days where you're just doing the Christmas thing.

And I got back to California and I thought, you know what? If that's not abstinent, I don't know what is. I'm gonna say that's abstinence and I'm just gonna call that abstinent and I'm gonna have the I'm doing the best I can in abstinence. And I did that, I you know, it's blurry. I think I did that about 8 months.

It might have been a year and a half. Maybe it was like a year and a half. And I found out something really important for me. And I am very clear about this, standing here tonight as I was that day when my mind was racing and I was trying to solve that problem of being in California and having this illness and knowing nowhere to go. And that is that I have a choice.

I can have, like, sugar or life. And not everybody's wired this way, but I am. And what I found out in my I'm doing the best I can abstinence is that I would be having a meal, and whenever any sugar came into that meal, there was no I had I I don't I am powerless over sugar, and my life is not an option when I'm in there. That was a bummer. But I saw it over and over and over and over enough, and I had enough program to isolate it and see, oh, that's where I really jump off the building.

That's really where I'm gonna kill myself. I really get that, and I got it. I called my sponsor. I said, I got it. I'm allergic to sugar.

And she said, Bully for you. And and and 3 months later, I binged again. And the chips, my god. 30 days 30 days 30 60 days 30 days 30 days 30 days 30 days 20 days 30 days 60 days 90 days 30 days. I mean, I had, you know, I have a friend that brings her chips when she shares.

The chip thing, you know, I would plan I I planned my acceptance speech for years you know, what I would say. In my home meeting, you could only share if you had 30 days abstinence. And, I mean, I just I had this whole thing about how my allergies were so interesting and that's what made me secret. You know, it's just this whole, plan that I had of what I would say on that day. And I would pick, you know, I wanted it to be a nice number, not like 19th because that that's kind of a, you know, a smearing number.

You want a solid number like the 8th or the 1st or, you know, I I had this whole thing going on. And meanwhile, I'm battling the the illness in the program, which, god bless you, I hope you never feel that pain. There is not a pain that I've had. And I've had pain, you know, somewhat, god willing, no more. But, my god, To know what it is and to come to meetings and eat.

I there was a meeting, you know, we've seen meetings go. We had the maintainers meeting on Saturday morning, went away. We used go there and I remember standing there in the back, listening to the whole meeting, and going out and binging. I just I just couldn't get it. I couldn't get it.

And then I I was 3 months later after I binged, knowing I'm allergic to sugar, I binged again. And then I was convinced and I had the wisdom of, Oh, yes and I've done it again and now I feel the remorse and I know why I don't wanna do it. And then 6 months later I benched again and I just kept doing it and kept doing it and kept doing it. And my sponsor, Kathy, said, you know, Esther, sometimes I think sugar puts you down when it's done with you. And that was true for me.

You know, one day, it turned its head and I crawled away the best I could. And I remember going to bed one night and somebody said pray on your knees and ask to be relieved from the need to eat this. Pray on your knees every day. And I did. Man, you tell me what to do.

I will do it. I prayed on my knees morning and night every day. Oh, God, please, you know, please let me not eat sugar today. Please help me. And when I sponsor people, you know, people that, you know, will take direction, I suggest that what has worked for me is to pick 1 of 2 absences abstinences to start food plan, I guess we call it now.

Either 3 meals a day or no sugar. This is my experience, my suggestion. That's all I'm saying. My first abstinence was just no sugar. One rule.

I can shoot heroin. I can kill schoolchildren. I can run red lights. I can smoke dope, but I cannot eat sugar today. And I couldn't pull it off.

I couldn't pull it off. I could eat all day. And I prayed in morning, I prayed at night. I prayed in the morning, prayed at night. Went to meetings, did service, carried the freaking coffee, the the meeting down Saturday morning 10 o'clock.

Now there's Starbucks. We don't have to do that anymore. But, you know, I would I would carry this this bin of equipment, this meeting and the coffee and water and all that and OA's are very picky about their coffee. You know, you have to have certain kinds of tea and can't have milk and some don't want milk, you know. I did it all.

And, praying on my knees in the morning, praying on my knees at night, praying on my knees, praying on my knees, asking for help. And my sponsor finally said one day, you know what, Esther? You've done your you've done the work. You've done it. You've done the inventory.

You've done the steps. You've done the deal. It's up to God now. You've done your part. You may go the rest of your days in this space, but you just know you've done it, you know.

And, I still binged. I still binged. I remember one night I was gonna do laundry and I went to the restaurant just to have dinner and I abstinent, and I was doing good. I felt good. God, I felt good when I abstained.

But my friend April said, and I think this is a very, very, very good point. You know, I need to know. Do I am I going to stop at 625? Yeah. Okay.

My friend April said the world for her was very, very loud and food turned it down a little bit, and that was true for me. I just I don't like stimulus to this day. I'm just not good. I'm a nervous little bunny. And I don't like all that, you know, malls.

Sometimes it's fun, but, you know, too much peep too many people at a party, too much. And, and, food turned that down, definitely. And it got me away from you. It gave me privacy and it turned everything down. I mean, my god, it's perfect.

So, one night, I was going to sleep. I sat down on the edge of my bed, and I turned to lay down, and I my head started going down, hit the pillow, and right before my head hit the pillow, I thought, I didn't eat sugar today. Wow. Cool. I'm scared to death.

I hope I bet I'll eat it tomorrow. I thought, well, you know, whatever. One day. And then I did it the next day. And then I did it the next day.

And when Sunday came, I had a week. And I thought to myself, I am not going to tell a living soul about this. This is my secret. And it was 1 week. And as the weeks went, then I had, like, 5 weeks.

And then I had, like, either 8 or 9, but I couldn't remember the number and I thought, Well, I'm going with 8. And whenever I didn't remember, I would go with the lower number because I just didn't want to freak myself out. I was so into the, you know, when is my birthday gonna be and all this. And I just kinda kept at it and kept at it and kept at it. And 52 weeks came, and that was Valentine's Day.

And so that's my OA birthday. And, I didn't even take a candle that 1st year. I was so freaked out still. And then on my 2 year birthday, I took my first candle. And, this last February, I took a candle for 14 years without eating sugar, one day at a time.

And that is a miracle. So I still have to do all the work. Now when you remove what you have heard is such a gigantic part of my day. Oh, and my coping mechanism. Oh my goodness.

One of the really important things that I have learned in abstinence, I we all talk about, you know, I have heard in meetings many people talk about that day when, Oh, I just ate all day and I turned the TV on and I closed the blinds and all that. What I found for me, and it's really been helpful, is that I need that day. I need an ugly, dirty day. I need to pull the blinds down. I need to turn the phone off.

I need to to hide and I need to not take a bath. But it doesn't have to be about food. I can still be abstinent and do those things. I like to hide. I need a hidey hole.

And I have worked that into my plan. I have worked that into my tools. I know now through inventory and through experience that although I have many fine qualities and I come across as very gregarious, I am introverted. And I need to feed alone. I don't get energy, like, being with people.

I get energy at home alone with everything just so and, you know, like, soft lighting. Just cup of tea, soft lighting. I'm doing pretty good. So I need to know that. And when I go to a party, a lot of times I've learned this in program.

I go early and I set up chairs or I help you with the stuff in the kitchen and I get myself in inserted into the party early because if I come and there's a room of 20 people, I don't do as well. And I come across like I do, and see, that's what'll that's what's so spiritually heartbreaking is you never knew what I was going through. Nobody ever knew, and I made sure you didn't. That's part of the illness for me. I just made really sure you couldn't tell.

I remember one time being in a, I don't know, a therapist office or somebody good's office and saying something like, I walked in and I acted like everything was okay. And they said, you know, great. They said, well, Esther, did it ever occur to you that you can walk in a room without projecting how you are? You can walk in with hesitation. You can walk in not knowing what's gonna happen.

You can walk in, and see what happens. And I didn't really know that. I realized, that I had been holding myself together my whole life and that I I don't have to do that. And it was a big risk to let that go. So the the the the last footnote on, you know, the ripping me page off the teletype information for you about my abstinence today is that, through a series of of circumstances, I chose last year to go to Chicago and do some work for about 6 months.

And, I was okay. I had gained some weight. My dad died, and that didn't really, you know, play a lot to do with it. But it was around that time, and I kinda gained some weight. And then I kinda gained some weight.

I got on the scale and I was like, man, I have gained weight. And I talked to somebody and they said, oh, you know, it's okay. And, you know, whatever those things were to do. My sponsor is really good with weight loss. She believes recovery is a 3 legged stool, physical, emotional, spiritual.

If you're not getting physical recovery, you're cheating yourself. You may as well have it. So, I went to a meeting in Chicago and I I said, I'm Esther. I'm new to the area. And they said, Oh, here's a newcomers packet.

And I didn't say, well, I've been in OA since 1983. That's 17 years, you know. I'm a speaker and, you know, I'm on the I'm on the helpline. I took the newcomer packet, and I went home and I read it. And that's the kind of combustible breeder I am.

I don't really need to be 15 years abstinent or 14 a half years abstinent, but I need that quality of I will come back to you. If I go out there tonight and I make a mistake, I'll come back. And that's the deal. That's what I really want is that ability. I don't know why recovery kinda starts at your butt and works its way up.

But if you put your butt in the chair, it's like it just it does. It just kinda, you know, works its way up into my head. And so the, the short version is this pamphlet said something I'd never read, something I didn't know. And it said, if you're sitting at a meal and you're afraid that you'll eat more than you need or that you want, probably the worst thing you can do is to try and talk yourself out of it. In that moment, reach for a tool, pray, call somebody.

And I didn't know that. I was sitting at a meal trying to talk myself out of eating. I didn't know that was bad. I thought that's what you're supposed to do. I called a woman in Los Angeles.