GreySheet IS the easier, softer way

Sara T. Abstinent since October 17, 2025

One of my earliest memories of food is being force-fed white carbohydrates by my stepfather when I was around six years old. Later I stole food - it gave me some kind of comfort. I ate after school when my mother wasn't home. I stole food from the grocery store until I got caught. My mother even put me on speed to lose weight.

I could lose weight but then would always gain it back. I lived that way with food, dieting and eating and eating and dieting until I found OA in ______. I stayed for a brief time but I could not stop binging and OA didn't help me. I then went to AA because I heard that they were powerful. A woman in AA told me about GreySheet and suggested I try it. So, in 1986 I started GreySheet and was abstinent immediately. I hated GreySheet in the beginning, even though I got abstinent the very first day. I was a very angry person and hated everything about weighing and measuring and grocery shopping. I went through at least six sponsors but stayed abstinent. I had to start over five times but never left the GreySheet and never ate non-GreySheet food. It was difficult to start over, even though I hadn't eaten non-GreySheet foods. At some point, though, I stopped weighing and measuring in restaurants. So, again I left GreySheet and tried another food fellowship, OAHow, that weighs and measures with exception, but that didn't last because my sponsor said I never stopped talking about GreySheet. It got so bad that I eventually gave up and decided to eat whatever I wanted. I was out of GreySheet for six years. I thought the GreySheet was too hard. I told that to myself for those 6 years I was binging.

I'm 5'2' and eventually got up to 212 pounds. I absolutely could not stop eating, and I became frightened, so I got on Zepbound and lost 34 pounds in 3 months, but even that stopped working. I called my former GreySheet sponsor and asked for a phone number. That GreySheeter called me. I told her I could never come back to GreySheet because it was too hard. She called me again, and again I explained that GreySheet was too difficult and I couldn't do it. But I was mesmerized by her energy and positive persona. She said, "Why don't you come back?" and I said, "Okay." So here I am. I'm staying for the sanity, not the vanity now, one day at a time.

I have received many gifts in the program. I've reconnected with GreySheet friends that I knew many years ago. I have no guilt when I eat my abstinent meals. I don't have obsessive food thoughts anymore. I'm no longer a "slave to food," as my GreySheet friend used to say. If I do have a thought about my favorite binge foods, I don't have to act on them. There is a space between my thoughts and my actions, which is a miracle. I have a fellowship and meetings that are powerful and help me stay abstinent. I'm making new friends and I have a wonderful sponsor. I'm blessed with the miracles of the program. I thought it was hard, but GreySheet truly is the "easier, softer way" that the Big Book of AA promises!