I went to my first OA meeting on Sunday December 27, 1998.
The baggage I carried into that first meeting was “not sure how this will work when nothing else has” as well as “this was the second worst Christmas in my dysfunctional family’s history”. (Pretty bad when you can rate how bad a Christmas is in relation to other family Christmases right!)
I also carried baggage. My recent abusive and failed relationship, my family abuse and my poor self-esteem.
The Sunday morning meeting was located in the far back corner of the basement down a long, mostly unused, hallway in a hospital. Being two days after Christmas, most of the regular members were absent. The two members in attendance were men who were physically larger than me. I will be honest, I just wanted to leave. I was actually scared of them because they were men, there were two of them, and I knew no one would hear me in that room. The only reason I didn’t leave was because I didn’t have a plausible lie; all they had to do was look at me and see that I ate too much.
The two men were shocked to see a newcomer. When I relaxed a bit I could see that they were also a little scared of me. Neither of them were in recovery at the time and they admitted to being worried that I was female and would not be able to connect to the program because of them. They both seemed to fall over each other to beg me to come back the next week promising that the meeting was made up of mostly women.
I stayed and they started the meeting. One man read the format, the other read the preamble, steps and traditions. As they took turns reading all I could think was “this is weird” and questioned if I was even in the right place. None of the stuff they read made sense. I don’t even remember the meeting topic with certainty. It was just a low grade buzz.
I do know that at the time they did not do anything special for newcomers, like read “Our Invitation to You” or talk about step 1. I know this because I was at the business meeting where the newcomer format was introduced a few months later.
The buzz in my head got louder and louder until all of a sudden one of the men looked me in the eyes and said “Don’t you think the problem we have with food is the same problem that an alcoholic has with alcohol or a drug addict has with drugs?”. I don’t remember if I was able to say anything or just nod. I do remember that was the moment that I knew I had finally come to the right place. I knew I would be at that meeting the next week whether there were more women or not.
This was my first lesson – how to connect with someone who is not in recovery. I know my job when explaining the program to a newcomer is to talk about the allergy of the body, and the mental obsession so they understand how we see the problem. I need to try to explain it so I can make a connection with that newcomer so they can have that same sense of finally being in the right place.
My recovery journey started with two active addicts who tried to share the program as best as they could. I think the winning combination of that first meeting was:
- The men were regular attendees of a strong meeting and knew people who had recovered
- They told me about recovery from compulsive eating
- Though they could not lead me to recovery, they pointed me in the right direction
- They tried made me feel comfortable and tried to connect with me
After that incredible moment of finally knowing I was in the right place, and with people who were like me, I walked out of that meeting on a cloud! I got into my car and drove to a convenience store. I bought a bunch of my binge foods, and then I ate them in isolation.
I think a lot of us eat after a powerful OA meeting when we are not in recovery, then carry shame about it. As a person in active addiction this was the only way I knew how to deal with the fear and elation I felt after that first meeting. It was the only tool I had that worked in 1998.
If you are not in recovery yet, and you leave a meeting feeling scared/anxious/excited/happy/sad/overwhelmed and then go abuse food, please give yourself some grace. I am not saying it is ok to abuse food, I am saying it may be the only working tool you have today. Stick around and see how to change.
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