Erika S. will inspire you as she tells you how she reached six years of abstinence and maintains a 120 pound weight loss. She shares her story of being raised by parents who abused drugs and alcohol, where her mom was a functional cocaine addict and a food binge buddy who eventually introduced her to OA. Erika tells of the many diets and diet pills she tried unsuccessfully, leading to congestive heart failure. She tells how she tried to eat normally during the day and then binged at night. After rejoining OA, she honestly shares how she reached a normal weight, but since she didn’t follow the steps, she relapsed, but eventually reached the point where the pain in eating was greater than the pain necessary for her early abstinence. She shares how abstinence is a precious gift they could go at any time, how she begins her absence each morning such as praying “let not my will but thine be done”, how she learned to deal with an inferiority complex, how she deals with her tendency to isolate, and how she stopped food from “calling to her” 99% of the time. Her story is one of hope and success.