I had months of all-day sickness and a strong aversion to my abstinent meals when I was pregnant with my second child. I never thought it would end with my baby dying due to a sudden placenta abruption ten days before my due date. I never thought I would deliver him eight hours after he was pronounced dead. I never thought I could ever stay abstinent through something so heart wrenching. But I did. How did I do it? I did it with the help of my sponsor, who showed up for me in ways I have never seen anyone show up for another person. Among many other things, she listened to my intense grief for months, comforted me, and reminded me that I had been through a traumatic experience. She helped me walk through (and overcome) resentments toward the medical staff that sent me home with symptoms two hours... Continue Reading
Addiction is an ugly word. Learning I had a food addiction was like getting a life sentence with no chance for parole. But I came to FA resigned to the fact that since nothing else worked for me, I needed to work this program. I have found that FA has given me a chance to live in a healthy body for the rest of my life. FA allows me to have healthy, filling, nutritious, delicious meals. FA encourages me to be grateful for what I have and to avoid the abyss of self-pity. I admit that being in a right-size body is surprisingly scary. I need to talk to people with long-term abstinence to help me accept the new me. I have seen FA members who insist on sticking to their own ideas. For instance, many people have a hard time letting go of what they think they should weigh. I’ve seen... Continue Reading
I remember one Christmas holiday when I left the San Francisco Bay Area and headed north to visit my family in Portland, Oregon for 10 days. As chance would have it, Portland had its worst snowstorm of 30 years that December, and I was there in the middle of it. A white Christmas; how exciting for this California girl! I’d been abstinent for eight months, and the world felt alive to me again—the temperatures, the smells, and the colors were vibrant. I clearly remember the coziness inside my mom’s sweet little yellow house, which was surrounded by banks of snow. From inside, with heater blasting, we snuggled up to read books under a down, throw-blanket on her couch. One day we donned snow pants and boots to walk a mile to the local coffee shop, where we drank hot tea and played a board game. Later that day, when my 3-year-old nephew... Continue Reading
I didn’t know what a food addict was. I thought I was weak willed, maybe even a child of a lesser god. I wasn’t the type of addict who hid food; if I had it, I ate it. I once bought a mailbox—the kind you find in the country on a post—and put a lock on it so I could hide all the foods I obsessed over. I gave my husband the combination, and he was strictly instructed to lock up his favorite foods, which of course were flour and sugar items. I thought it was a perfectly good solution for my problem. In hindsight, it was a desperate attempt to control my eating. Who but a food addict would need to lock away food from themselves? When I thought about the word “addict,” I thought about my former father-in-law, who hid beer all around the warehouse in which my... Continue Reading
I was able to make it through my first Christmas holiday abstinently, but what was harder for me was the time after the holidays. Thank goodness a long-time member had warned me about this. Now I am just as mindful after the special holidays and occasions as I am during them. Every occasion is just another day, in terms of my food, and celebrations can be special solely for the gift of abstinence I receive by working this program. Certainly the days leading up to that first Christmas, and the various events that I attended, were uncomfortable. I got through it all by gritting my teeth, smiling false smiles, making lots of phone calls, and using every FA tool offered. The smells brought back memories of the happy-time feasts at my grandparent’s house and the excitement of the night before Christmas and Christmas morning. I’ve always associated food with feeling... Continue Reading
