There was a time in my life where I couldn't imagine that there could be anyone more powerful than me. I was a codependent compulsive overeater, struggling in a disease of addiction. Each and every day I woke up with food on my mind. Each and every night I went to bed with the hopes that the next day would be the day that I would start my diet. I would have brief lapses of freedom while trying this diet or that diet, but I always went back to the food. Food was my power, my source of strength. It was my drug of choice and I am as addicted to sugar as any alcoholic is to alcohol. I'm not exactly sure when my disease kicked in. I have some vague memories of food as a child... keeping candy in my uniform pockets in school, my father telling me I was getting fat (when in reality I was just maturing), food was always prevalent in my life... I have never been able to eat "just one" of anything and I've always had a particular liking to anything sweet, salty, crunchy, etc... but my weight didn't start to creep on until the months following my father's death when I was 16. I was terribly lonely and unhappy and reached for food to numb the pain. I was able to control my weight for only so long because eventually, it was so far out of control, I couldn't stop myself. I never purged or took laxatives, nor did I ever starve myself. Food was my friend and the only thing in my life that meant something to me.

I went through several romantic relationships as a young adult getting bigger and bigger, more ashamed of who I was with each passing month. I tried to hide myself underneath big sweaters and anything black... but all I did was accentuate the fat and hide the Pamela that was inside. "Who was the Pamela inside?" I can remember a boyfriend in college once telling me "Well, you're not exactly thin"... I had completely lost track of me. The binges peaked when I was in college and it was then that I knew that my other friends in school just didn't do things the way I did. I suppose that was my awareness. They were able to be thin and eat just "one" of whatever they wanted to eat. I longed to be like them, but it just wasn't meant to be. Little did I know that there was another plan in the works for me. When I met my husband at the tender age of 19, I convinced myself that he was the person I would marry. Being a byproduct of an alcoholic parent, I never believed than anyone would want me, so fearing loneliness, I latched onto him and so it became that at age 22, we were married. Our relationship was strong, but not grown and it has taken us the better part of out 8 year marriage to see and appreciate the growth. It has not been an easy road for us, I don't think it will ever be easy... but it's been much more comfortable since I found this 12 Step Program of Life.

Anyway, my recovery started just about three years ago when I walked into my first OA meeting, and the miracle happened. I had been through a few of the most painful months that I had known. I was lost in the struggle of being a food addict and wanting desperately to be a person. Some say that it was my rock bottom that got me to that meeting, and back then I would have agreed...today, I know that it was my HP working on me and directing me to the space I needed to be in. I was blessed with abstinence and physical recovery and that is just the beginning of where my journey starts....

In those early honeymoon months of working my program, I thought I was "working a program" because I answered questions and went to meetings. I committed my food to my sponsor and did everything that everyone else told me to do. I made phone calls. I read. I wrote. I offered service and subscribed to Lifeline. I had been so unhappy through the last several years, that I was willing to go to any length to find my utopia. My focus back then was on physical recovery and I know now, that that was all I was searching for. I thought that if I wasn't fat anymore, I would be happy and my marriage would perk up and I would feel like a real woman again... And it did and I did... but that was only on the surface. When I got pregnant just 6 months into my recovery, I didn't have enough program in me to hold onto my food plan or my abstinence. I was an eating machine for last 3 months of my pregnancy. I realize today, that it all stemmed from my failure to complete take steps 2 and 3. I simply didn't have enough HP in me to keep me on track during one of the most challenging times of my life. Despite what I said to others, I still was in control and still told myself that it was me who was running the show. My disease pounced on me with full strength during the later months of my pregnancy and after my son was born, getting myself back on track was one of the most difficult things I ever had to do. It wasn't until December 29, 1999 that I got my old sponsor back and started working my program again...almost 18 months after his birth.

As the next few weeks unravel, I would like to share with you the questions that I journalized while working this step, as well as my ESH pertaining to my official "taking" of the second step. I hope that as you work them, you also will be grated the serenity and peace that this program truly does offer, so long as we are open and honest with ourselves and our Higher Power.