099. From Fear to Freedom

A food addict from New South Wales, Australia, I am the youngest of three who grew up with a strict, abusive father and a hardworking, protective mother. My childhood was filled with deep-seated fear, including night terrors, fear of the dark, and fear of my father. Despite having a large, extended family around me, I felt totally alone and alienated. As a child, I was trained by Olympian swimmers to be on the national team, but I got scared and quit the sport. Then I found dancing and went off to the UK to study ballet. Once again, fear led me to drop out. I realize now that opportunity frightened me, so I kept saying "no." Amid personal struggles with identity and acceptance, including abuse and familial disapproval, food was my constant source of comfort. At times, I would wake up at four in the morning and start cooking before leaving for work, only to start cooking again when I got home. My eating grew worse, and I started using bulimia and extreme dieting to control my weight. Thankfully, despite initial skepticism, I attended a meeting of Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), which provided a pathway to recovery and self-discovery. I have embraced my true identity as a gay man and embarked on a journey of healing and personal growth. I never thought I would live past forty, but today I am sixty-one, with dreams and hopes for the future. I thought I was too damaged, too broken, and too far gone, but FA proved me wrong. I thought it wouldn’t, but this program absolutely works.

Una joven adicta de los Estados Unidos con raíces en América Latina vivió con mucha inestabilidad en su juventud. Buscó consuelo en la comida y los laxantes.  Por las extrañas acciones que practicaba con la comida desde muy pequeña, y la incapacidad de parar de comer, ella subió de peso. Cuando se sintió rechazada y perdida, encontró la recuperación en el programa de Adictos a la comida en recuperación anónimos (Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous). El sentimiento de “¿Qué importa?” fue reemplazado con un estilo de vida y una actitud mental sana. Esa estudiante de medicina que luchó por tantos años ahora se percibe como una estrella a sus propios ojos, y a los ojos de su familia.

For years, I blamed everyone for my struggles with weight and food addiction – my parents, my wife, and my job. After I joined Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), I realized it wasn’t their fault. My practice of eating large quantities began in childhood. Teased and friendless, I would sneak away to eat alone with the lunch money my mom gave me. This pattern escalated through high school with food, drugs, and alcohol, and in adulthood, I frequented drive-thru’s, mindlessly consuming meals meant for four. My career facilitated my food addiction, enabling me to binge on the company’s dime. As I ate massive amounts of food, my weight escalated. The real wake-up call came with the birth of my children. Multiple people began telling me, “You aren’t going to live to see them grow up.” I could barely care for myself, much less care for my children and family. In FA, my life quickly began to transform. Only a few weeks into FA, my wife said, “You seem calmer.” I had started at 398.6 pounds (180.8 kilos), and the extra weight fell off in the first year. I not only lost weight, but I began recovering from all of my addictions – including social media – saving my marriage and allowing me to love my children truly. I still have problems today, but I now tackle them with phone calls, writing, and prayer. FA has taught me to live a balanced and fulfilling life, always learning and adapting.

At a young age, I was completely focused on food and how to get it. Gaining weight by third grade, I went on my first diet – with my mom! By twelve, after a painful friendship breakup, I was binge eating and purging in secret. In college, despite quitting drinking, smoking, and pills through sheer willpower, bulimia was a battle I simply couldn’t win alone. College amplified my struggles; the affluence of my peers left me feeling inadequate, and my father’s death during my sophomore year led me to more unhealthy behaviors and depression. Feeling completely ungrounded, I found daily tasks difficult, and my life was truly unmanageable. I spent my days literally going from dining hall to dining hall, eating my way through the pain. A turning point came when I heard a recording from a recovering alcoholic that mirrored my story with food and how I ate. This realization led me to Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), where after several starts and re-starts, I am grateful to now have over 20 years of abstinence from food addiction. This freedom has transformed my life, allowing me to leave grad school (the right decision!), start a business, share in a wonderful marriage, and embrace motherhood thanks to a profound change in my attitude. Through my recovery in FA, I have found a spiritual path, a peaceful foundation, and a life I never could have imagined.

Despite growing up in a home full of love, this budding food addict was in a cycle of sneaking, hiding, and shoplifting food from as early as age six. She came to learn that no amount of love could have prevented her food addiction and no amount of love could have cured it. Her parents and siblings were moderate eaters, and they tried to help curb her addictive behaviors around food. She had dreams of waking up thin, just for a single day. As an adult, her husband was her “eating buddy”, and their social life – dinner parties, holidays, and vacations – revolved around food. Despite turning to nutritionists, doctors, a hypnotist, commercial diets, and intense exercise, she still ended up weighing over 290 pounds. The real turning point came with motherhood. At that time, the physical and emotional toll of her food addiction had relegated her to a role on the sidelines – a spectator in her own life. Then she found Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA). There, meetings gave her a place to share secrets she had never told before about the way she ate. She heard hope for a better life. She got started with an FA sponsor and lost 160 pounds. It is now ten years later, and she hasn’t seen those numbers on the scale since. Today, she knows she is not alone, and she is no longer living life on the sidelines.

I am a 73-year-old Asian-American woman from New England and, I can promise you, I’ve quit almost everything I’ve started in my life except for the Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) program. I found FA at thirty-three and have benefitted from this program for more than half my life. By 11 years old, already consumed with fear and worry about my weight, I plunged into extreme restriction with week-long fasts that left me undernourished and dizzy. By 15, I started to binge and watched the weight pile on in just a few months. In college, I hid my eating, leaving campus by bus to find stores and restaurants where no one would recognize me. I fell into a depression that left me unable to shower, comb my hair, or brush my teeth. Feeling hopeless, with nowhere to go, I found FA and learned how to ask for help. This program taught me how to walk through my fear and become willing to trust in a power greater than myself. First, we put down the food, then we do the steps, and then the changes come, one day at a time. I am truly thankful for my wonderful life of gratitude, service, and freedom from food addiction.

I grew up in a very diet-centric household; we were always on some kind of diet. At an early age, I started rebelling against the rigid household rules, finding every way I could to get the food I wanted. When my parents divorced, I would ride my bike over to my dad’s house to steal change for treats at the corner store. By 8th grade, I was obese. Wherever I was, I wanted to fit in - or hide. My life was like wanting to be invited to a party, but never wanting to go. Then I met someone who brought me to a meeting of Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA). I walked into that room and felt a peace I had not known before. I wasn’t sure if I could ever change, and I was scared! But I stayed, and I listened. My journey has been nothing short of amazing. I’ve maintained a 140-pound (63-kilo) weight loss for 26 years, almost half of my life. To be someone who now eats with a fork and a knife is a miracle. I’ve learned to walk through this world feeling really good about who I am. I thought I’d never get married, but I’ve now been married for ten years to a partner who one-hundred percent supports my recovery. Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous is the community I never knew I wanted, and the FA people have become my chosen family, my true friends.

I was born and raised in Ireland. When I was 11, my family moved away from the big city to a rural area. Always in search of my identity, I thought that if I found out who I was, everything would feel better. But I had a spiritual hole inside of me, and I tried to fill it with food. I thought my big social life and ambitious jobs would help me feel complete. Instead, they only led me to perfectionism, self-criticism, and large quantities of food. After eight years in Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), I have learned that no matter what happens, I’m going to be OK. FA taught me how to love myself first, then how to love others, and finally, how to receive love. Today, I practice the daily tools of the FA program, let go of being perfect, and feel blessed that the hole inside of me has been filled with a rich, spiritual life. I’m grateful to have a healthy relationship with food and to understand that life can be many things at once: authentic, messy, and very human.

In first grade, I weighed 120 pounds, and by fifth grade, I had high triglycerides, high cholesterol, and a fatty liver. Never feeling like I fit in physically or socially in my hometown of Brooklyn, NY, I was bullied over how “different” my family and I were. Four summers in a row I was sent to weight-loss camp, which put my parents into debt. By the holidays every year, I was back to bingeing. Then, at fourteen years old, my parents brought me to Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), and finally, I was home. Recovery in FA has taken place at many levels for me. I was diagnosed with depression, ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, and a chronic illness that impacts my daily experience, and I am now receiving help and treatment for all of these things. I also know that I am not defined by any one of these diagnoses. Now in my thirties, I have learned to face whatever comes my way, which allows me to have a ridiculously amazing life. I have found the partner of my dreams, a job that I love, a home that we own, and the perfect fur baby. Today, I feel blessed and lucky to have the life I have. Thank you, FA!

A sneak eater and a speed eater from the jump, I literally made friends with kids based on what they had in their fridge and pantry. When I was around food, I couldn’t rest until it was finished. My earliest memories are food-related, and they are painted with a lot of shame, fear, and low self-esteem. I thought if I got down to a magical weight, everything would start going my way. Instead, I ate my way to 300 pounds, while blaming everyone around me. When it came to a point where numbing myself with food stopped working, I found Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA). The physical recovery never gets old; I can hike, do yoga, and I’m in better shape in my late fifties than I was in my twenties. I fit into the same size clothes year in and year out, and no more sleep apnea or CPAP machines either! But the emotional and spiritual recovery are the true gifts of this program. FA is the answer for me. My life just keeps getting better, and I can’t imagine living any other way.