Safety At The Far Shore
My name is [Anonymous] and I am a CO. I will be happy to qualify since I have a couple of minutes of free time before my nose goes back to the grindstone here in Extension Horticulture. I have 131 days of abstinence on GreySheet by the grace of God. My sponsor, who found GreySheet in New York, brought GreySheet to College Station, Texas. She had been my oldest sponsor here in College Station OA when I first came in 1981. She has definitely been an angelic being in my life, and I am grateful for the activity of God in her life as well as mine.
She was also instrumental in leading me to AA, where I should have gone in the first place (I knew I had a bad drinking problem, so I joined OA!) Anyway, I entered the fellowship of AA on March 25, 1981, and have stayed sober, by the grace of God, since that time. I got abstinence, that I was able to stay on a few months later, and managed to stay abstinent for the next 5-6 years. My sponsor moved away, I got a divorce and moved, and when this all happened, I decided to eat "normally" again. When I took back the food, I told myself that I would NEVER let this wonderful stuff go again. I knew that I had been insane to let it go, and I would keep this lovely delicious food all my days. About 5 years of hell later, I tried to get back to OA. Another 3 years of misery in the pits passed before I crawled onto my knees and asked God to please, please, please take away my craving for food that made me crazy and fat (about 200 lbs. on a 5'3" frame). A couple of days later, (God acted swiftly!), I heard that my old sponsor was moving back to College Station. I cried out to God that this was NOT the solution I wanted. I bitched and moaned and ranted and raved, but when she did come, I approached her about started a GreySheet meeting, and I have been abstinent since July 27,1995.
It has been the single most miraculous thing that has ever happened to me, since I have had an eating disorder since I was about 15 years old. It began when I suddenly couldn't eat. I stopped eating one summer, and gradually was able to take food back when school started. When I finally was able to eat again, I started a binge and starve program that I continued for decades. I never got too fat, but I was crazy and food was a huge problem always. Since I have been on GreySheet, for the first time in my life, I don't have an unholy craving for food. It is miraculous.
Some of us just can't handle carbohydrates it seems. I was very slow to accept that, but the last 3 years I ate, I began to recognize that carbohydrates had SOMETHING to do with my bingeing. I wasn't about to give them up, but I knew carbohydrates did bad things to me. They seem to set me up and foster a craving that cannot be denied. I am grateful to God for my abstinence on GreySheet, and I am very grateful to all of you who carry the message to those of us who are very low-bottom food addicts who must resort to sterner measures than food addicts who can take a more moderate approach to abstinence. The longer I am in 12-step programs, the more I believe that they are most effective for addicts who CRAWL in the door. If I had had ANY OTHER OPTION besides GreySheet, I would have taken it. Now that I have been abstinent on GreySheet, I would not eat any other way. There is more freedom, within our boundaries, than I have felt during countless years of trying millions of diets. I feel like I have reached the far shore and safety after almost drowning in a sea of food. God is Good.
Love,
Anonymous