A Story of Recovery:
Cunning, Baffling, Powerful
This disease, gosh! I have been abstinent just over four years now and I was completely caught off guard and truly humbled by the most powerful flare up of my disease I have had to date. I came into program at the age of 22 having spent about 10 years fighting my weight, dieting and gaining the same 10-15 pounds over and over. I could never figure out what was wrong with me that I couldn’t just put food on my plate and “eat it like a normal person”. I always wanted to eat the way we do in FA, but I was terrified it would make me fat, since I wasn’t used to eating normal quantities of healthy food at a time. Instead, I would restrict my food all week, binge on the weekends when no one was looking use laxatives, abuse colonics, drink copious amounts of diet soda and caffeine, use 10 packets of splenda per day and chew sugar free gum until my jaw hurt. And even though my top weight was only about 30 pounds higher than what it is now, I was completely obsessed and crazy. And yet there are still some days my disease almost convinces me that I didn’t have such a big problem.
Most of the time, I feel so grateful that I found this program early on in my life. I hear stories of people who wish they came into recovery earlier and I just look at my life and my fellowship and feel truly blessed. But it happens every so often in recovery that I’ll get this niggling feeling like maybe I’m not really a food addict, maybe I just liked having someone telling me what to eat and how much to weigh.
A few weeks ago, I ended up in a chaotic situation. It was Friday afternoon and I was weighing out my food before a meal at my in-laws. And even though I tried to be mindful while I was weighing my food, it was simply a case of too little time and too much mayhem and I got nervous that I had made a mistake. I made a phone call, explained the situation, and came to the conclusion that I did the best I could in the moment, that I was still abstinent, and I had to just ask G-d for help to move on.
Unfortunately, that isn’t what happened. It took about an hour for my mind to twist itself into so many knots that I somehow convinced myself that in reality, I must have just had a break, and since all of this anxiety was a result of weighing my food, it must be that the program is the problem, and “I think I need to take a break from program”, and that “maybe taking a break will give me the time to truly MAKE SURE that I’m a food addict”.
I became convinced that unless I went out into flour and sugar and saw how unmanageable my life was, that I wouldn’t be able to really say I was a food addict. I told myself that other people who went in and out or spent years eating all the foods that I wouldn’t let myself eat and needed this program to lose hundreds of pounds were really food addicts and they know they couldn’t live without this program, but I didn’t have that same physical proof, so I couldn’t have the same certainty. Then I started to think of all the things that would be so much easier logistically if I didn’t have to weigh and measure my food. Not a good road to go down- I don’t recommend it.
Those 25 hours were some of the most miserable I’ve had in my recovery so far. My husband was understandably upset, watching me have this battle with myself, of “am I a food addict or am I just doing this because it came along at the right time”. Did I have a “headache” 4 years ago but instead of taking an Advil I took Oxycodone, which also would work for my headache. Did I really need to have something so strong?
It’s a miracle that I didn’t pick up the food and instead got on the phone and started the very humbling process of trying to pick up the pieces and digest what had just happened. I was completely baffled: how is it that what I thought was such a strong program disintegrated so quickly and so rapidly?
I have spent the past few weeks truly taking an honest look at my relationship with my Higher Power and what has come out of it has been sobering to say the least. I have been a religious person for as long as I can remember, but just because I believed in G-d, it didn’t mean that I trusted Him to work in my life. It scared me to give over control to a power greater than myself because I couldn’t imagine how His plan for me could be greater than the plan I had for myself.
This was truly the turning point for me, and I came to the conclusion that my Higher Power brought me into the rooms of FA for a reason. I answered yes to 18 of the 20 questions and my life has gotten better and better since I came into recovery. My personality has changed radically because of the two AWOLs I have been in, and I truly enjoy hearing from fellows what it was like talking to me when I came into program because I can so easily forget what it was like. I no longer want to go out there to “try and see” what happens and to “make sure” that I’m really a food addict, I want the life that I have today, and I know that this amazing life is only because I work this program and try to be willing every day to turn more and more over to my Higher Power.
I wasn’t going to write this story, I was just going to keep it for my phone calls, but it became apparent to me that I wasn’t the only person who has had these feelings. I realized that if writing down this story could help even one person that might be feeling this way, I needed to let go of my pride and share it. At times in my recovery, the easier softer way looked tempting, but I honestly couldn’t believe how quickly my disease won me over this time- it was different. I got caught in it, swept off my feet from my secure place in recovery to a scary place that made me question everything about my program and my relationship with my Higher Power. Now, I’m grateful that it happened because it forced me to look at what I was doing and why I was doing it. There can be so much shame in saying my program isn’t perfect, my relationship with G-d isn’t what I thought it was, and that I have so much growing still to do. It’s a good thing I don’t plan on going anywhere; one day at a time G-d willing, I’m going to claim my seat in the rooms of FA.