Finding Hope in the Pages of the Big Book
Listening to Harlan tell his background story, I couldn’t help but be deeply moved by his childhood experiences and growing up years. Here is a person with very early childhood obesity, with no particular clear cause other than having a parent with untreated obesity. That was not my story and so it further opened my eyes and my heart to the plight of any obese child. Key moments stood out to me. For example, at age 18, his mother was told by a doctor, in front of him, that he would be dead by age 30 – as though he wasn’t even a near-adult human being in the same room.
He tells about his journey through hopelessness and pain into numbness and beyond. Now in the present he lives a full life, experiencing both joy and pain. And he actually experiences these and other feelings without the array of foods that kept him numb and in bondage for much of his life. His current focus is on the Alcoholics Anonymous “Big Book” and the powerful messages of his life that follow the same landscape that is the basis of all recovering addicts –whether alcoholic, drug addicted or compulsive overeater. Service to other sufferers and maintenance of a relationship with a Higher Power are two absolute necessities for his 22-year life in recovery and as a former compulsive overeater. He inspires with his dedication to the principles that have given him life in the “4th dimension.”
Reflection written by Anonymous OA Member