I had a very dramatic awakening when I was 24 years old, but it didn’t enable me to let go of my eating disorder, which at that time was manifesting primarily as bulimia and anorexia.
I guess I just wasn’t ready then to outgrow those draining habits. It took decades and much more falling-apart of my life for me to arrive at willingness to turn aside from those seductive behaviors. Throughout the long time between my awakening and the beginning of my abstinence, I never stopped believing I could and would recover. That helped me a lot.Distressingly, my eating disorder has never fully abated. It still sneaks into my experience in both obvious and subtle ways. However, it no long rules my being. Through the program and my attempts to build a stronger spiritual foundation, I have found ways to keep learning from my disease and stretching beyond it. I have felt great sorrow about it and accepted its consequences. And I am grateful for the measure of freedom from it the program and fellow OAers have given me.
For me, it’s crucial to keep alive what I have vividly understood about recovery in moments of clarity. Doing so has enabled me to believe with conviction that there are divine forces working in our lives that never evaporate or abandon us. When I lose my faith, it is I who has doubted and strayed. It is I who realizes that I must surrender yet another time. It is in surrender that magic enters my life and gratitude arises. That magic is precious. It arrives unexpectedly and resurrects my spirit, often at the time I need it most.
- Anonymous
