Dear Friends,

It's a beautiful day on the small island I make my home. I hope wherever you happen to be it's one also. My name is Mari and I am recovering from addiction. My drug of choice is food and I am happy to share my Journey to Recovery with you.

Once upon a time I used to be "Ruler of the World." Honestly! I truly was "Queen of the Universe" .... the CEO of Planet Earth. The world would have stopped spinning if I had stepped off. Who else would see to it that everything ran how it was supposed to run if I didn't do it? Who would make all the decisions? No one but me. Or so I thought!!!

As I got deeper into recovery ... and especially after I worked the first three steps of my recovery program ... I began to see that the world would get along quite well if I became an observer rather than a participator. How was this possible? It was shocking to know that my children could function as well or even better without my guiding their every step. It was a revelation to know that my husband could take out the garbage without my telling him where the bags were. And my friends and associates could even manage without my writing down everything for them and giving them a list of instructions.

"Hmmmm," I said. "This is a pretty good deal. I'm not working as hard. I rather like this." The flip side of that, however, was that, after years and years of doing things "my way," I had to relinquish that right and let others do it "their way." Jeez! Surely someone is going to mess things up. So I became a little anxious. But it got easier. The kids got to school on time. My husband found the garbage bags. And the list of instructions became shorter and finally no list was required at all.

I began to look at myself. To "go within." To see the place that my addiction had taken in my life. I now had time to see just how unmanageable my compulsive overeating had caused certain areas of my life to be. I believe that I filled my life with so many other things ... that I became the "Ruler of the Universe" just so that I wouldn't have to look at MYSELF and face my own problems. I admitted that I was powerless over my addiction (food) ... and that my life in this regard had become unmanageable. I had never done that before.

But IF I wasn't going to continue being "Queen of the World" .... IF I was "powerless" ... IF my life was unmanageable .... how was I going to survive? What was going to restore me to sanity?