142. It Wasn’t Just A Body Thing

I was a typical-sized kid, but I never felt like it. Even as a child, my thoughts about food and my body were relentless. For years, I searched for relief. I tried diets, bulimia, over-exercising, and eventually gastric sleeve surgery. Just a few hours after I got home from the surgery,  I was uncontrollably chewing food and spitting it out for fear of bursting my stitches, devastated that I couldn’t stop.  While I was raising my children, my food addiction stole precious moments from my family. My days were spent isolated in my car with food, consumed with negative self-talk. I lived with constant shame and self-loathing. When I first came to Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), I found abstinence and hope. But my addict mind convinced me to go back to the food. I knew I wanted to be abstinent, but I just couldn’t do it until I was rendered yet more desperate. When I finally returned to FA, I came back with willingness. I was welcomed with kindness and the simple words, "We got you." For the first time, I understood that I wasn't just treating my food or my weight; I was recovering from an illness of the mind, body, and spirit. Today, with nearly nine years of continuous abstinence and more than 100 pounds released, I've raised my children in recovery, walked through divorce, sold and bought a home, grown personally and professionally, and learned to face life's challenges without turning to food. FA taught me the difference between feelings and facts, how to ask for help, and, perhaps for the first time, how to love myself.

I found Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) at 48, after dieting my way up to 360 pounds. Today, I have maintained a 200+ pound loss for over 18 years. My weight struggles began in childhood. In third grade, my worried parents put me on diet pills; by fourth grade, I weighed 157 pounds. My mom, who was the county school nurse, told me I was the largest kid in the entire school district. Food was restricted at home, so I stole money to buy snacks, growing bigger as my weight became my whole identity among my siblings. Nothing worked – not the pills, not commercial diet plans, not a trip to the doctor, where I was told I was "morbidly obese.” As a young person, I took that to mean I was a “morbid beast.” College brought more isolation – eating all morning in bed, late-night vending machine runs, failing grades. On planes, I had to pretend the seat belt was fastened, and I once rode an upside-down roller coaster without the restraint fully secured because I was too ashamed to admit it wouldn't fit around me. I convinced myself I'd be single forever (though I later found a wonderful husband). Everything changed when, at 295 pounds, I had a daughter and realized she deserved a living mother. I found FA, terrified but willing to do whatever it took. My first 24 hours without flour or sugar became another, then another. I found freedom I'd never known, with quiet in my head, peace in my life, and real recovery at last.

I was born into poverty in the Jim Crow South, the oldest of five children, in a home marked by food insecurity and violence. As I grew older, flour and sugar products became comfort, companionship, and protection from trauma, loss, and pain. My father lived with schizophrenia and spent much of my childhood institutionalized. My mother could not provide emotional safety, and I learned to stay silent and hide my pain, even as I was bullied and struggled in school. I entered adulthood already shaped by secrecy and deprivation. After high school, I became pregnant, started my first job, and finally had unlimited access to food. At 22, I married a gambling womanizer whom I thought I could change, and we had two more children before the marriage ended. Tragedy compounded tragedy: my young, seven-year-old daughter was killed by a car, my ex-husband died by suicide months later, and I simply wasn't emotionally available to my surviving children. By the time I reached my forties, my eating was out of control. I cycled through diets, compulsive exercise, pills, and laxatives, always ending up where I started.  The turning point came when I was diagnosed as prediabetic, and I could no longer pretend that food wasn’t harming me. I had served as a hospital chaplain and had seen amputations because of diabetes; I didn’t want that to be my story. When I walked into my first Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) meeting, I knew I’d found where I belonged. Now, as an octogenarian and grief counselor, I know recovery is about far more than food. It is about spiritual healing, rigorous honesty, accepting help, and discovering the freedom of surrender. Recovery has given me clarity, dignity, and peace. Today, I no longer use food to numb out or escape. I live one day at a time, supported by the FA program, a Higher Power, and a community that holds me accountable with grace.  

At 37 years old, I weighed more than 200 pounds and felt trapped in a cycle I couldn’t explain or escape. I had tried countless times to control my eating, but every attempt ended with shame, anxiety, and another promise to start over tomorrow. Food was my solution whenever I felt overwhelmed by stress, perfectionism, or fear. From sneaking sugary lunches as a teenager to enduring electroconvulsive therapy for severe depression, from the terrifying premature birth of my daughter to the loneliness of early motherhood, I kept turning to food, convinced I simply lacked willpower. When a friend invited me to a meeting of Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), I resisted. I could not imagine a life without addictive eating. But desperation opened the door to willingness, and one measured meal at a time, one day at a time, I discovered recovery.  More than two decades later, I have built a meaningful career and found a purpose I never expected: helping others recover. Perhaps the most moving realization is that my daughter, now an adult, has never known the mother who ate addictively – only the one who found freedom. My experience of addiction, grace, and transformation in FA has taught me that recovery doesn't just change what’s on your plate – it changes your whole life.

I didn’t look like someone who had a problem with food. I wasn’t overweight, but I was obsessed. For me, this was largely a mental disease.  As a kid, I went straight for the desserts. As a teenager, I felt socially uncomfortable. While other kids were out together, I was home alone eating. In college, I’d binge on a big sugary breakfast and then crash, falling asleep drooling on my books. Just before graduation, I learned about bulimia, and within three weeks, I began bingeing and purging in secret. I was ashamed, exhausted, and stuck in a cycle I couldn’t stop.  In my first Twelve Step program, I stopped purging—but I kept bingeing on sugar and flour. I lived with a constant knot in my stomach. I didn’t understand it then, but it was anxiety. By the time I found Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), I was irritable, negative, and always looking for someone to blame. I’d show up to meetings in a bad mood, not wanting to be there. But I kept coming back. I made the phone calls. I practiced gratitude, even when I didn’t feel it. Slowly, things began to shift. Even my kids noticed – when I was off, they’d say, “Mommy, you need a meeting.”  I’m so grateful to be abstinent through FA. One day at a time, I am free from obsession. My relationships are stronger, my marriage is better, and I’m no longer consumed by my weight or my size. Today, I have peace – and a life beyond anything food ever gave me.

I don’t remember ever having an easy relationship with food. Food was my comfort, my reward, and my hiding place. I was a middle child with three brothers, and I was the only one who couldn’t escape a problem with food and weight. As soon as I could ride a bike, I headed straight to the corner store for food. As a first grader, I figured out how to use my allowance money to buy two school lunches, and as a teen with my first paycheck and a driver’s license, my car became what I called my “mobile eating unit.” At college, with unlimited food plans in both the cafeteria and my fraternity house, my freshman 15 expanded to a freshman 40. By 23, I was supposed to be living my best years, but at 310 pounds, my world was shrinking fast. I couldn’t walk up stairs without getting winded, and I avoided life whenever I could. Every night I promised myself I’d change; every morning I failed again.  I first came to a Twelve-Step program in 1994, but it took years before I truly surrendered. Then, in 2007, my mortality was on the table. I was pre-diabetic with sleep apnea and on the cusp of needing blood pressure and cholesterol medications. Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) became my lifeline. In FA, I found structure, accountability, and freedom. Through weighed and measured meals, sponsorship, and working the Twelve Steps, the obsession with food began to lift. I lost over 100 pounds, but more importantly, I found peace. FA didn’t just change the way I ate– it changed how I live, how I love, and how I show up in the world. Today, I live with gratitude, acceptance, and a sense of purpose; and I remain committed to this path, one day at a time.

Esta grabación presenta la historia de una mujer nacida en San José, Costa Rica, miembro de Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), que cuenta cómo una infancia llena de amor y abundancia de comida se transformó en una dolorosa adicción a la comida. Desde muy joven, la bulimia se convirtió en su anestesia para enfrentar el duelo por la muerte de su padre, la migración a Estados Unidos y las difíciles transiciones escolares en Florida. A lo largo de la adolescencia y la universidad, describe atracones, vómitos, vergüenza y una profunda dismorfia corporal, aun cuando otros veían en ella inteligencia y potencial. Su historia incluye servir en la Marina de los Estados Unidos, usar la comida, el alcohol y el exceso de ejercicio para intentar controlar el peso, y vivir relaciones en las que sentía que dependía económicamente de los demás. En Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) encontró un camino distinto: una comunidad, una madrina y un plan de comida que le ofrecen estructura, esperanza y la posibilidad de descubrir quién es realmente, más allá de la adicción a la comida, donde las promesas del programa comienzan a hacerse realidad.

Ich entdeckte die Bulimie als Teenager. Zunächst schien sie die perfekte Lösung für all meine Probleme zu sein: Ich konnte unbegrenzt essen, ohne zuzunehmen – und dick werden wollte ich auf keinen Fall. Schon bald wurde der vermeintliche Freund Essen zu meinem Feind. Mir wurde klar, dass ein Bissen von Zucker- oder Mehlprodukten zu viel war und zwanzig niemals genug. Bevor ich zu Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous kam, rutschte ich ins Untergewicht ab. In FA nahm ich dann zu – mit dem Ergebnis, dass ich heute in einem gesunden, schlanken Körper lebe. Dafür bin ich seit vielen Jahren dankbar abstinent. One Bite Is Too Much and Twenty Are Never Enough I discovered bulimia as a teenager. At first, it seemed like the perfect solution to all my problems: I could eat without limits and not gain weight—and gaining weight was something I absolutely did not want. Before long, the friend I thought food was became my enemy. I realized that one bite of sugar or flour was too much, and twenty were never enough. Before coming to Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous, I slipped into being underweight. When I came to FA, I gained weight—and today, as a result, I live in a healthy, slender body. I am deeply grateful to have been abstinent for many years now.  

I grew up with a young, single mom, and the early years at home were tumultuous. Finances were tight, and things often felt unstable. From a very young age, I could eat as much as my grandfather. There was no real connection between feeling full and stopping. I was a chubby kid, taller than my classmates, and became very aware of how I ate in front of others. I tried dieting, but I couldn’t stick to anything. I remember thinking, " Why lose weight if I’m just going to gain it back?”  Even as a teenager, I sensed something deeper -- that I was dealing with a real condition. I attended my first Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) meeting as a senior in high school. I heard food addiction described as a medical issue rather than a failure of willpower, like I had read in fashion magazines. That changed everything. When I began following the FA food plan with clear boundaries and structured meals, life started to shift. I experienced mental clarity, my anxiety began to ease, and I felt a sense of peace. After twenty-eight years in FA, the obsession is gone. Removing sugar and flour, along with using the tools of the program, has taken away that constant need to eat -- something no diet ever did. I felt supported through every stage of life, from weighing and measuring food in my college dorm to dating, marriage, and raising three children.  The daily routine of recovery in FA is second nature now, and it has created space for me to grow into who I am. Today, I have a Higher Power, a beautiful community, and a full life. This is a “we” program. I don’t have to do this alone, and I no longer live in the struggle

I grew up in a tumultuous home where appearances mattered, and secrets were kept. I learned early how to look fine on the outside while hiding what was really going on – and that habit followed me straight into my food addiction. In school, I thrived. I was smart, the teacher’s pet, and loved gold stars and approval. Inside the classroom, I felt confident and included – even by the cool kids. Outside of it, I was deeply insecure and desperate to belong. From a young age, I could eat enormous portions. Food never shut off for me. By seventeen, I was over 200 pounds, swinging between extremes – exercising to the point of injury, fasting for weeks, or bingeing until I was in physical pain.  When I came into Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) eighteen years ago, I did what I knew how to do: I tried to look good – to my sponsor and my fellows. Then came my moment of truth. I was told that if I kept managing my image and hiding how I really felt, I would eat again. I heard the expression, “We’re only as sick as our secrets.” That realization changed everything. Today, honesty is the foundation of my recovery in FA. I’m maintaining a weight loss of more than 100 pounds, but what FA gives me goes far beyond neutrality with food. In FA, I have found balance and joy in my personal and professional life, and compassion as the primary caregiver for my aging mother. At sixty-one years old, I no longer seek constant approval or gold stars. Working this program, I am truly free from addictive eating and living a deeply satisfying life.