Lately I've been thinking about my concept of my higher power and how it has evolved over time. Lack of believe in God was never my problem. I knew there was a god and I knew exactly where he was going to send me - straight to h-e-double hockey sticks! Couldn't exactly get real excited about turning my will and life over to that.

But my food addiction put me in a trap that I couldn't spring. And the Steps told me I needed to be restored to sanity by a Power greater than myself.

So one of those nights when I was feeling overwhelmed by life, knowing I couldn't do it alone but terrified to turn it over, I stood in the kitchen and said:
"Okay, God. I'm just going to have to trust that you aren't who my mother said you are."

It was a turning point. And I turned toward my higher power with skeptical trust. :)
And I can see that at every turning point, the difference between going forward and going back is the willingness to take a chance that things aren't like I think. The willingness to be gullible, to have some skeptical trust. If that willingness isn't there, I'm going back. There's just no doubt about it.
The combination of desperation and that willingness seems to be what makes abstinence possible for me.