Alison took my hand in hers. “I can’t answer that for you. I can tell you this. I needed to reach rock bottom before I could admit I needed help with my food addiction. If I hadn’t, I would have continued on the same dangerous path I was on and I’d be dead right now. God works in mysterious ways, Sara. Who am I to question what He has planned for me? All I know is, if it weren’t for my Higher Power, you and I would never have met and I’d be lying six feet under.”
“What was your rock bottom, if you don’t mind me asking?” I couldn’t imagine Alison any different than the sane, rational woman sitting next to me.
“A couple of years ago, I weighed eighty pounds. Before that, I weighed three hundred. I tried dieting over and over and when it failed, I blamed myself for not having willpower. I stopped eating altogether for a while and when I couldn’t do it anymore, I’d binge. Then I’d throw it up. One day I couldn’t stop throwing up. My mom found me passed out in the bathroom covered in bloody vomit. I spent a few months in the hospital recovering and that’s when I learned about OA. I’ve been attending ever since. I’m not going to say it’s easy because it’s not. It’s a lot of work. For the first time in my life, I’m not obsessed with food. It doesn’t rule me anymore,” she declared, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.
She got off of the couch and went to a box across the room. When she came back, she gave me a packet of pamphlets and reading material.
“I want you to read these over. I can be your temporary sponsor until you get a new one. I’d like you to go to ninety meetings in ninety days. Do you think you could do that?”
I just nodded even though it sounded very overwhelming. I wanted help, didn’t I? Well now I was getting it.
“I’m also giving you the name of a nutritionist to help you come up with a safe, healthy food plan. We don’t advocate any diets or have any expectations other than abstinence.” She handed me a card with the name of a nutritionist, and I noted her office was close to my condo.
“What is abstinence?” I understood an alcoholic gave up alcohol, but it’s not like I could give up food.
“It’s different for everyone. An easy answer is no bingeing and following a food plan. You’ll get a better idea when you read the literature. I’ll lend you the Big Book and the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous to read. You start on Step One. Read it every day this week in this book. That’s it for your homework right now. Do you have any questions?”
I had a million, but at the moment I couldn’t think of one to ask.
“I’d like you to call me every day if you can. If you only have a minute to talk that’s okay, but I at least want you to check in with me.”
She paused, looking uncomfortable. “Can I ask you a personal question? What happened between you and Adam?”
Pain rushed through me as if she’d yanked off the scab that had formed over my wound. As both my friend and now my sponsor, I needed to rely on and talk with Alison as openly and honestly as possible.
“When I called him at the airport, a woman answered his phone. I was so upset, I told him I got engaged to Caleb and he basically hung up on me.” Goodbye, Sara.
“Isn’t it possible it was his sister or a friend? Why did you assume he was with another woman?”
“I admit I may have jumped to conclusions initially. He never called me back to explain. If he wasn’t cheating on me, then why didn’t he call me?” I knew why, but I wanted to hear her opinion.
“Because you told him you were engaged?”
“He’d know by now I never got engaged. It was up to him to call me and he didn’t. No, it’s over. I accept it and I’m moving on.”
I could tell she didn’t believe me, because she had a slight smile she tried to keep hidden from me.
“If Adam and you hadn’t broken up, would you have come to this meeting?”
I thought about it for a moment. “I’m not sure. I knew I needed to make some changes in my life. He ... he told me he never wanted to get married, but he didn’t want to lose me. We made a deal. He was going to go to therapy and see if he could get past his aversion to marriage, and I was going to see if I could be with him without the promise of marriage. I didn’t know how I was going to do that. He also wanted me to work on making my own decisions. Will OA help me with that?”
“In a way. You’ll learn how to listen to your Higher Power for your decisions.”
I shook my head as I thought about how crazy that sounded.
“You went to Israel and fell in love with Adam, came home and broke up with Adam, and came to your first OA meeting where you ran into me, who you met in Israel. You don’t think somehow a Higher Power had worked to bring you to this meeting on this day?” Alison asked me.