“Denial of the truth leads to destruction.”
– The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous, pg. 6

Obviously a person living in denial of their addiction and all that it is doing to harm them and the people around them is moving toward self-destruction. Yet, when I was the one living in that denial, it was not obvious to me. I was 5’4”, 260+ pounds and still could blame my obesity on anything and everything outside of myself. There were even times that the denial was so strong that I could look into a mirror and not see an obese person looking back at me. Instead, I would say things to myself like: “Whenever you wear black, you look really svelte” or “From the side, you’re so thin.” These were outright lies, but the denial of my addiction made me believe them. It wasn’t until I was able to accept the truth about myself – that I had an addiction to compulsive eating – that I was able to move beyond those lies by asking for help from others who understood my addiction and were already in the process of recovering from it themselves.

“Denial of the truth leads to destruction” can also be directed toward my personal spirituality and emotional growth. As long as I am blaming God and others for the way my life has turned out or how I’m feeling today, I will remain stuck in misery. As long as I believe the lie that tells me everything would be better if only the people around me would treat me better, I will remain alone. As long as I point my finger at others in order to make myself feel better about my own behavior, I will stunt my spiritual and emotional growth. I must accept that the majority of the difficulties in my life are self-imposed. Once I do that, I can ask others for help to overcome the defects of my character that bring about difficulty in my relationships and my life.

It is definitely not easy to look within myself to find out if the problem in my life is me. In fact, it can be downright frightening. But, what is more terrifying to me today is not looking. When I refuse to look within, I refuse to grow. When I don’t grow, my life is stagnant and empty. When my life is stagnant and empty, the urge to fill it can be so overwhelming that it will lead me back to the lie of my addiction: “Here, eat this. You’ll feel better.”

No matter how frightening it is to look within and hold my character defects up to the mirror, it is significantly more frightening to envision a slow, painful and miserable death from compulsive overeating.