I used to love to swim in the ocean. As a child I spent many years living near the beach and was always happy to go swimming. I liked to dive into the waves, to swim far out and watch the people on the shore. I would stay out there for hours – the sense of floating, of being lifted up by the waves, of swimming with or against the current were all fun for me. As my disease progressed, I went from bingeing and dieting in my teens to gaining 30 pounds and then battling to lose the weight. I discovered bulimia and excessive exercise and spent my 20s and 30s bingeing, throwing up, running 10 miles at a time, and lifting weights for hours at the gym; the weight was managed by these drastic methods. I found FA 10 years ago, but kept breaking my abstinence, and the... Continue Reading
As the new year approaches, I am sitting here thinking about this occasion in years past. I always had resolutions, always. Looking back, I now see that they were pretty typical addict resolutions: I was going to quit smoking, I was going to stop drinking (for real this time!), and, of course, this was going to be the year that I was going to eat in a healthy way for the rest of my life—no junk, no sugar (wasn’t so convicted about the flour), and no caffeine. And, I was going to stop throwing up once and for all. When making all these resolutions, I had the best of intentions. I believed that this time it would be different. I would try this, that, or the other approach that I had not tried before, and this time it would work. No thought was given to the fact that it never... Continue Reading
My son was born almost three years after I came into Program. I had been bulimic for about 12 years prior to FA. Before I got pregnant, I had some concerns about the impending weight gain and body changes, but I actually loved being pregnant and felt really healthy. The extra weight came off easily after my son was born, and I learned how to adapt my new schedule and responsibilities to fit with the tools and disciplines that supported my recovery. But I had a break in my abstinence when my son was two. I was still using my tools, but not with the same vigor as I had before. I was having a hard time being a parent. I had unrealistic expectations for myself and for my son, as well. I slipped into negativity quite frequently and started isolating, even though I was going to meetings and making... Continue Reading
Twenty-seven years ago, when I first met the man to whom I am now married, we were just getting to know each other, so in the spirit of honesty and “full disclosure,” I told him that I had been bulimic, but wasn’t anymore. At the time, I was in another Twelve-Step program for food addiction (although we didn’t call it that). I had not been actively bulimic for a while, so I thought it safe to tell him, because I was “fixed.” I had been anxious about telling him, not knowing what the response would be. When he did not go screaming in the other direction, I thought: Phew! That’s over! Now we can get on with it. Things went along quite well for the next several months. I had a good job, I was in love, and all was right with the world. But alas, as I was to... Continue Reading
Today I got a call from an FA member from the U.S. who was traveling with family in Europe. It was a call for help. I heard how difficult it was for her to get the food she needed to stay abstinent, to stick with mealtimes, and to meet her family’s needs. I could relate. I could relate so well because I had just recently been traveling in a country where I did not know the language. I stayed in four different hotels over a period of seven days. I had given a printed version of my food plan to each hotel before my trip started and had asked the travel agent to arrange for me to get my lunch to take out, before the daily bus tour started. I had been quite confident. Why should it be difficult to put something that simple into practice? They had it in... Continue Reading
