A Story of Recovery:
A Life Saved
I joined FA at the age of 71. I was 50 pounds overweight, had diabetes that had been out of control for 30 years, was on medication for heart disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. I was bingeing at least weekly. I was dying and I knew it.
I became a food addict when I was a child. We lived in a rural area, where there were many farmers who would turn over their vegetable fields and orchards to people for picking after they had done two “pickings.” We were very poor, so we took advantage of this food. In this way, we had every fruit and vegetable imaginable. During this time, we had plenty and my mother made sure we ate well. She froze many of the vegetables to make dishes during the winter. There were no limits to how much or what we ate during this time. If we had a large quantity of a fruit, we would eat it until it was gone. We all remembered days in the past when we had little or no food, and we knew there would be more days like that in the future. So this was how my eating habits were formed.
I started smoking when I was 21, and soon after, began drinking socially. I was addicted to cigarettes for 30 years. I never had a weight problem until I got pregnant with my first child. I had food cravings during that time and gave in to them, despite my doctor telling me to lay off salt because my blood pressure was going up. I used four pregnancies as an excuse for bingeing and eating the wrong foods. I have been on many diets since then, but each time the weight I lost would return along with 10 to 20 more pounds.
My mother went into a diabetic coma when she was 48 years old. We had watched the symptoms for months without recognizing them; no one in our large family had ever been diabetic.
I was diagnosed with diabetes when I was 40 years old. Although the doctors then, and thereafter, warned me about sugars and the importance of eating the right foods, I continued to eat whatever and whenever I wanted. I would receive medicine for high blood sugar levels, but more often than not, I would “forget” to take the medicine. The doctors would send me to nutritionists who talked, usually in a way that was not specific enough for me, about how food affected the diabetes. Nobody checked on me between doctor visits. I listened to them and followed their recommendations for a week or so.
And still I continued to binge on sugar.
Eventually, the diabetes started to affect my body, causing problems with my eyes and circulation. I had neuropathy in my feet that kept getting worse over the years. Twice I broke a bone in my foot and could not feel it or even remember how it happened. I only noticed it when I saw the swelling in my foot and was unable to put my shoe on.
Once I had gotten an ulcer on my left foot and an ER doctor was setting me up to amputate either my toe or foot (he never spoke directly to me about it), but before he did, he made a call to my primary physician and she said no. She, along with a vascular surgeon and my podiatrist, found enough circulation in my foot to complete treatments and my foot was saved.
Still, I kept bingeing on my favorite drug—sugar.
I would buy baked goods and eat all of them when I was alone in the house or during the hour-long drive from work. The word “addiction” never entered my mind, but I did know that I was out of control. I had been eating like this for decades and, even faced with amputation, could not stop eating. After these binges, I would feel sick of myself; I would actually be nauseous, not from the food, but from disgust with myself.
When I retired and moved to another city, I went from a very busy work schedule and active social life to a more sedentary life among strangers. I found a diversion, however, in cooking recipes from the Food Network and gained 50 pounds in one year. Eating like this, I could forget all the days when I’d had nothing to eat. I could forget the many abuses that happened when I was a child, a lot of them having to do with being hungry. From the time I was nine years old, my parents would leave us for three to four days at a time with little or no food in the house. I would have to feed my four younger siblings, and it would usually be something made of sugar and flour.
My doctors were continually raising the amount of my insulin intake until I had to get a bigger needle to give myself shots. I would tell the doctor, “It’s the food I eat.” and the nutritionists would talk to me again. I appreciated them, but it just wasn’t working for me. I had given up on life. I felt worthless, and I was out of control. Several doctors had said to me that I was a high risk for heart attack or stroke, but still I could not stop eating. So I just decided that I would eat until I died. I saw no other way out.
What happened was that my three daughters, who had been losing weight by “leaps and bounds,” told me of the wonderful changes people at their meetings were making in their health through the FA program of recovery. I could see the changes in them and in my 14-year-old granddaughter! I swelled with pride at her progress. They told me I could control my diabetes through FA. When I hesitated, they said, “Just try it for one month.” I did. I never looked back.
I joined FA to lose weight and control my diabetes. That happened, of course, but I got much more, including a closer relationship with God, many caring people who were willing to help me through those first weeks, and sponsors who guided me through the food plan with loving kindness.
People cared! Weighing and measuring my food, along with other aspects of FA, gave me control over my eating for the first time in my life.
Every day is a new day and I am living every day, not just waiting to die. My health has improved enormously. My weight went from 195 to 140 pounds and my blood pressure went from an average of 180/90 to 125/60. My daily insulin has been reduced from 180 units to 20 units. My cholesterol levels are normal. I feel wonderful.
Recently I broke my ankle from a fall and required surgery. It was my unlucky left foot, and I was afraid that this time I would have to have an amputation. Not so. During the many months of healing and wondering if my foot would be okay, I stayed abstinent. I eventually had a year of abstinence in FA behind me, and I know that that time of eating right saved my foot.
FA has saved my life.