090. Eating Against My Will

I came to Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) fifteen years ago weighing 211 pounds. Despite countless diets, fasts, and exercise routines, I couldn’t maintain weight loss until I found FA. Beneath my career ambitions, I was plagued by shame and self-loathing, constantly trying to project whatever image people wanted—determined, fun, or athletic.  For confidence, I relied on drugs, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and, most of all, food. In my twenties, I replaced meals with liquid protein supplements, which led to hospitalization, a two-week coma, and the loss of a kidney. Even after that ordeal, I continued fasting and restricting my food intake during the week, and bingeing and purging on weekends - all to suppress my anger and rage. I was an out-of-control food addict, destroying everything in my path—my relationships with colleagues, friends, family, my bank account, and certainly my own health. My therapist, after determining I had probably lost and gained 700 pounds in my lifetime, admitted she couldn’t help, but she suggested I try FA. I didn’t want to go to a meeting—my life was very busy, after all. But I was desperate and broken, so I went to a meeting, and I found hope. Today, I no longer obsess over food or body image, I’ve mended relationships, including with my husband, and let go of the shame that once consumed me. I no longer compare myself to others, and instead focus on what’s right in my world. FA and the 12 steps have given me the tools to live life on life’s terms, and for that I’m deeply grateful.

This food addict’s story was about fear, which led her to go to the food. It was a drug that made her feel safe. Although her family looked normal from the outside, her dad was an alcoholic, and she did not realize how cunning the disease of addiction was until later in life. As early as five years old, she was uncomfortable in her body. There was a constant desire to be thin, leading her to avoid eating all day, just to come home and binge. High school consisted of drinking and smoking. After one year of college, she married her high school boyfriend, had two children, and stayed clean for a while. Her marriage ended in divorce, leaving her a single mom and broke. She knew alcohol was a problem, so she joined Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) at age 39. Despite seeing her sister suffer from bulimia and anorexia, and ultimately die by suicide, she continued to eat addictively. After getting sober, she finally realized food was also a problem. She eventually found Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA). Underweight when joining the program, she has now been at a healthy weight for almost 20 years. She is available for her relationships - showing up as a mother and a grandmother. After obtaining several degrees, there is joy in her career. She now has a kit of tools that helps her feel safe and live free from food addiction. She hopes others can experience that miracle too.

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.