My entire life has changed — An R.A. Recovery
When I attended my first meeting of an anonymous fellowship, I was desperate. I was very unhappy. I didn't understand much of what was said that night. However, I did see a room full of smiling, happy faces, and that gave me something wonderful — the feeling of hope. I gathered my courage and asked someone to be my sponsor. She said, "Yes," and I was thrilled.
    She gave me a very specific and rigid diet and told me to call her in the morning. I did that faithfully for several months. We talked a lot about our problems with food and everything else. Occasionally we talked about the first three steps. I answered twenty-one questions that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I really didn't see a connection between my doing those questions and my not overeating.

	I did see a room full of smiling, happy faces, and that gave me something wonderful — the feeling of hope.

    I thought these questions were a waste of time, but I wanted to please my sponsor. I wanted to belong. So, I answered them just to satisfy her. I thought the real answer was to try even harder to control my behavior and to really dig out those hidden feelings inside me and then share them with my sponsor and at meetings.
    After about a month, I became a sponsor in that Twelve Step program. This was despite my barely understanding the first three steps! I repeated what I had been given — the same physical course of action and questions — to those poor people that I sponsored.
    I was told by my sponsor not to do a Fourth Step. She told me I wasn't "ready" because I hadn't taken the first three steps "perfectly" yet. In addition, my own insecurities stopped me. I wasn't sure exactly how to go about doing an inventory. It seemed like such a monumental task! People told me that it had taken months, and sometimes years for them to complete. I just didn't think I could ever do it right.
    What happened next was inevitable — I ate something I wasn't supposed to. For months afterward, I tried without any real success to follow that physical program I had been given. I did everything that my very caring friends in that fellowship told me to do. I tried as hard as I could. I made phone calls and attended several meetings each week. I prayed, and I took service jobs at the meetings.
    I tried several different sponsors, hoping the right one would give me the magic words that would enable me to control my food. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how desperate I got, I still couldn't control my insane behavior. The more I failed; the more I hated myself.

No matter how hard I tried, no matter how desperate I got, I still couldn't control my insane behavior.

    At this point, I suggested to my sponsor that maybe now I should do the Fourth Step. I was told that first I had to stop my behavior. (I have come to realize that this is not what the program says. That this would be like not going to a doctor until after I was well!)
    During the next nine years or so, I alternated between attending meetings (until I became too depressed by my repeated failures to keep going) and trying every other method of weight reduction I could find. I did lose weight with every method I tried. However, at some point, I could no longer stay with these methods.
    I always quickly gained back what I had lost, adding even more weight in the process. Over the years, I became more and more filled with unhappiness, frustration, fear, and despair. It seemed that there was just no way out — I was convinced I was doomed.
    Then one day, I went to a meeting that I didn't normally attend. This was as part of a desperate attempt to go to ninety meetings in ninety days, which seems somewhat extreme to me now. I didn't know what else I could do to help myself.
    At this meeting, I heard a member of Recoveries Anonymous share that there really is a solution. He said that this solution is completely detailed in the Big Book. This R.A. member shared how this solution is reached by working all Twelve Steps, not just the first three.
(This story is continued in the next section of this newsletter.)

Iimmediately began to do what is now called R.A.'s Highlighting Introduction. Less than two weeks later, I began to go through what is now called R.A.'s Step Presentation. It was both a miracle and a revelation to me. I began to experience hope again, and although I wasn't fully convinced that it could work for me, I knew I had to give this process a try.
    I found R.A.'s way of working the Twelve Steps, as I went through it, to be painless and beautiful. I can truly say my entire life has changed. I felt as if I had been fumbling around in a dark room all those years and finally, someone had turned on the lights! I had always tried to change my behavior of compulsive overeating by attempting to discipline my actions and rigidly control my food. For me, those efforts had ended in failure time and time again.
    On my own, I was powerless to change my attitudes, no matter how much I wanted to change them. However, working all Twelve Steps in R.A. did bring about an attitude change, which has, in turn, transformed my life. Once the attitudes that were behind my behavior had changed, so did my actions.

	I found R.A.'s way of working the Twelve Steps, as I went through it, to be painless and beautiful.

    R.A. helped me to follow the pioneers' original "clear-cut directions" to work all Twelve Steps. I didn't do it perfectly. I still don't. Sometimes I forget to pray. Sometimes I'm running from the second I get out of bed to the minute I go to bed at night. And the whole day goes by, and I didn't even have time to pray.
    Some days will go by where I don't do Twelfth Step work. This doesn't happen often, but some days it does. I'm not perfect. I don't have to be perfect. Nothing has to be perfect. I just do the best I can. I trust that it's going to work, and it has been working.
    What I have now learned, and experienced, is that I needed to work all Twelve Steps. Then, under God's direction and guidance, I had to try to practice these new principles in every aspect of my life. This brought about the change in my behavior.
    I had never understood that the Twelve Step program is a process — a package deal. I have learned that I can't make a cake by putting in only a few of the ingredients the recipe calls for and then thinking the result will turn out the way that the recipe says it should. I can't take some of the steps and expect the same results that are produced by working all the steps.
    It was a revelation to recognize that I didn't have to postpone taking a step until the one before it was completed to my definition of perfection. I have learned that the process must be done completely, not necessarily perfectly. I just do the best I can, and that's OK! I am thoroughly following the original path that the pioneers wrote about. They recovered, and they didn't "maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles." It still worked for them. It is working for me!
    After I went through R.A.'s Step Presentation, I became an R.A. Secondary Sponsor. I wanted to support the R.A. Primary Sponsors who were working with others. I wanted to bear witness to what this program has done for me. I became an R.A. Primary Sponsor myself. I've lost approximately 150 pounds. (It amazes even me! God really does do miracles!) This journey of recovery is fascinating — every day is an adventure of discovery.

I can't take some of the steps and expect the same results that are produced by working all the steps.

    I do not follow a food plan. Instead, I have been restored to sanity, just the way the program promises. It really has happened. I try to eat like a normal person who's trying to lose weight. I now understand that an ordinary person who's trying to lose weight might sometimes eat more in a given day. They may occasionally eat less. The weight came off.
    I've lost the need for perfection. I don't have to hate myself. This is not only about the food. It's about many other things. It's about my life. My recovery has only happened as the result of going through the Twelve Steps in Recoveries Anonymous.
    I had dismissed even the possibility of ever having a relationship with any kind of God. I could not find a faith that worked. However, by working R.A.'s program, I have found a conscious contact with an all-powerful, loving, caring God. He is my Heavenly Father. I can trust Him to take care of me and to do for me what I had, for all my life, been unable to do for myself.
    I'm very grateful to Recoveries Anonymous. Without it, I don't know where I'd be. It has really made my life joyful, happy, and free. I can now look forward to a fulfilling life of continued spiritual growth.

R.A.’s “How To Begin…” Guides
To find out more about our Twelve Step Fellowship, and how you can get started working the Twelve Steps of our Solution Focused Program of Recovery, we suggest that you visit our web site and Download R.A.'s "How To Begin…" guides. This includes R.A.'s Newcomer Guide, "How To Begin Living In The Solution."

R.A.’s Solution Focused Books
Move up to the next step in your search for recovery by downloading and reading the PDF versions of R.A.'s Solution Focused Books. We do not charge for the PDF versions of our books. Instead, we give the passwords needed to open our books to thank those who support our efforts to help others. You can show your support by making a small, one time, tax-free contribution to R.A., or, if you truly cannot afford to make a contribution at this time, by filling out our Feedback Form.
    If you are reading this, you have probably spent a lot of time and energy trying things that did not work out the way you hoped they would. Doesn't it make sense to invest a little more time and energy in this time-proven method of finding the recovery you've been seeking? As the pioneers promise in the Multilith Big Book: ''It works — it really does. Try it.''

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Recoveries Anonymous
For more information about our Twelve Step Program Of Recovery visit our web site at www.R-A.org