Suppers is my shelter. I have heard that advertisers know just how to push your low self-esteem button to get you to buy their products. I’m very vulnerable to these messages. There must be twenty bottles in my bathroom representing fear-based purchases to tighten my jowls, touch up my roots, or whiten my teeth.

My kitchen shelves are packed too. If something is on sale, I’ll buy five, trying to limit myself to things I’ll actually use. Half of the items are in packages where you can’t tell if the words are advertizing or nutrition information. My take is that if it’s legible, it’s advertizing but if it’s too small to read, it’s probably nutrition information.

My magazine pile is the same. I read about yoga, I dream about gardening, I get great ideas from cooking magazines. Do I actually do all these things? No! I buy subscriptions.

At Suppers meetings, I know I’ll never be a target for improving someone else’s bottom line. I’ve got my own bottom line to worry about. I can’t let my healthy change process be derailed by advertisers. And for me, the bottom line is that if I don’t change the way I eat, I will spiral down into poor health of my own creation. I am already well on my way. And while I do take responsibility for the choices I’ve made, I have to say these choices were facilitated by powers that have not the remotest interest in whether I live or die.

The Suppers commitment to protect us from commercial messages is my shelter. Not only does it protect me from spending my money on health fads, it makes me face my real problem. No gym membership, yoga class, protein shake, or breakfast bar is going to help me deal with my core issue: my addictive relationship with food. At Suppers, I am completely free to examine the emotional and biological forces that landed me here and then do something about it on my own schedule.