I am Susan and I am a food addict. I am just stunned and amazed at the difference that FA has made in my life. I remember when I was a teenager going on a band trip. I was very socially awkward. Being on a bus with all the other kids was especially difficult because there was no place to hide the fact that I didn’t know how to talk to my peers. I would often pretend that I was sleeping or reading, and that would be my excuse to myself as to why I wasn’t talking with the other kids. I was very ashamed of my near-muteness. I read and “slept” all the way from Oregon to Canada and back. I was a big pretender– fine on the outside, lonely and ashamed on the inside. Somewhere around my early twenties I went on a camper road trip with my... Continue Reading
I woke up this morning thinking about my first day in an 8-week residential treatment program for food addiction. I was 41 years old and had been bulimic off and on for 25 years; I was underweight and unhappy. It was two days before Christmas, and although I did not particularly want to be there, I didn’t want to be anywhere else either. How had I gotten there? At the time, I had my own business and had been married for the past 15 months to a man I adored. Those were two of the things on the top of my list of “if only I had (fill in the blank), then I would stop this crazy eating.” Yet, there I was, unable to stop by sheer force of will. I don’t know when I became a food addict; I may well have been born that way. I was always... Continue Reading
Today I was supposed to work, but my work said that they did not need me. Cool. It’s rainy out and I am tired (and filled up) because I had an FA meeting last night. But then I got this little thought, “Hey, maybe I should text my sponsor and see if I could come over and help her pack stuff for her move.” So I texted her and it looked like a go. (It is a miracle of Program that it even occurred to me to ask. Back in my food addiction, I would not offer to help anybody do anything unless I was getting something out of it. I remember one time when I spent most of the day helping a family move, only because I kept thinking they were going to give me some speed. They never did and, in fact, the cops came over and made... Continue Reading
Focused on digging my car keys out of my oversized bag, I hurried out of the Walgreens toward my white car. But when I pushed the button to remotely open the driver side door, nothing happened. My shoulders slumped. I pushed again. “Batteries must be dead,” I muttered to myself. So I tried the key in the lock. It would not open the door. Now what? I repeated the ritual. Same results. Just as I’d begun again for the third time, a voice from behind made me spin around. “That door is not going to open no matter what you do.” A scowling woman strode toward me. I didn’t like either her tone or her expression. It called up—what? Fear? What had I done wrong? She crossed her arms. “That’s MY car.” Not until that moment had I noticed an exact replica to the car I stood beside parked in... Continue Reading
As a food addict, I have the tendency to go to extremes. I have been overweight, underweight, bulimic and compulsive with exercise. I have learned a bit about weighing, measuring and moderating my behavior as well as my food during the 13 years I have been in FA. Because of that, I felt safe buying a Fitbit without going back to being compulsive with exercise. I wore it quite happily for a couple of years, but lately it had all begun to feel like I was veering in the direction of looking at it all too often, more and more invested in getting those 10,000 steps a day, becoming way too attached. When I spoke with my sponsor, with that old extreme thinking, I said I either wanted to hide it in a drawer or smash it with a hammer, whichever she suggested – I wanted peace from the insanity... Continue Reading
