Helpful Hints For Being Interviewed

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1. Prepare for the interview
   Read FA pamphlets before the interview to remind you of the purpose and focus of FA. You can also study the Twelve Traditions. Read over Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) About FA. If you’re unable to answer them, ask the WSI PI Committee or other experienced FA members for help.
   1. If you can, take some quiet time before the interview and ask God to speak through you and to help you “lighten up.” Service is a privilege, and there is nothing to be afraid of or anxious about. You are the expert on your own story. If, at the end of the interview, all that you’ve communicated is the www.foodaddicts.org website, that is enough!
   2. Stick to your own FA experience and story, no need to embellish. Our stories speak for themselves.
   3. You do not need to be an expert on FA to interview. As a general rule, it’s best to comment on your own personal story of recovery from food addiction, rather than on the FA fellowship as a whole. If you are asked a question about FA that stumps you, try not to refuse to answer a question or to say “no comment,” but simply let the reporter know you’ll follow up later with the answer, i.e., “I don’t know the exact statistics for long-term recovery in FA, but I can try to find the answer to that for you. What I can tell you is that in the meetings that I attend, there are many members with over three and some with as many as ten years of abstinence.”
2. Focus on FA as a program of recovery not a diet
   1. Wherever possible, stress the benefits of FA rather than the process we use. For example, if you are asked, “What does your ‘diet’ consist of?” an answer that highlights the benefits of FA could be: 
      “The food I eat is simple and nutritious. I eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, grains and protein."  If you are asked about getting on the scale, you might highlight the benefits of FA by saying, “I maintain a healthy weight and at the same time, I’m finding peace around food and my weight that I never had before.”
   2. Try not to get into specifics of the actual food plan, beyond no flour and no sugar. We don’t want to suggest a specific food plan.
   3. Help the reporter avoid framing FA as a diet.  You can help the reporter tell a more accurate story by focusing on addiction. Emphasize the three-fold nature of addiction and recovery - addressing your spiritual, mental and physical recovery as well.  One way of reminding the reporter and readers that FA is about addiction recovery, not just weight loss, is to say something like: “As a food addict, I am like an alcoholic with food. FA helps people with food addiction the way AA helps people with alcoholism.”
   4. Use tact when sharing the spiritual aspects of the program. Be sure to keep your language religion-neutral. FA is a spiritual rather than a religious program, and we need to keep them separate when we share. Rather than: “I pray every day to God to give me one more day of abstinence.” A more neutral answer might be: “Because FA focuses on recovery from an addiction, I work on my spiritual development through meditation and prayer.”
   5. Do not discuss other programs ( OA, FAA, etc.) or compare them to FA, other than to say we deal with food problems as an addiction. Highlight FA’s great gifts rather than naming specific programs that may not have worked for you.
   6. Don’t allow yourself to be drawn into controversial issues. Don’t debate. Simply restate the fact that FA has worked for many addicts who tried every other approach. If others find peace with food through some other means, we can be happy for them.
3. Keep your language clear and simple
   

   INSTEAD OF:	USE:
   Bingeing my brains out	Bingeing all day long
   In the food	When I was eating addictively
   Eating	When I was eating flour, sugar, and quantities
   Abstinence	Staying on my food plan
   Insanity	My life was completely out of control

4. Remember to provide the FA website address and literature
   1. Write down the website address for the interviewer (www.foodaddicts.org) and ask them to include it in the story.
   2. Leave FA pamphlets, as well, if possible.
   3. Double-check to be sure that the interviewer has the correct name of our fellowship. It can easily be confused with other food addiction programs (like FAA).
5. Have Photographers at Meetings
   Photographers occasionally ask for photos or video to accompany articles about FA. This is a routine aspect of newspaper journalism. However, the presence of a photographer or video camera at an FA meeting raises questions about anonymity. We must ensure that FA groups adhere to the Twelve Traditions of FA.
6. Remember to pray, let go and let God
   1. Leave your expectations with God. If you are misquoted, misunderstood, and misrepresented in some way in the article, relax. The newcomer who needs your message and is ready for this program will get it and will show up at a meeting, regardless of what the article says. Remember, you’re planting seeds and God is in charge.
   2. We may not have editorial control over the content of the article. So once the interview is done, let it go and let God do the work. Treat it as you would any service: pray, show up, do your 1% then get out of the way.

interview hints, interview tips