A Story of Recovery:

Living Through Discomfort

A few years ago, I left FA for five months after being abstinent for almost six years, and being in recovery from food addiction for more than 11 years. It was a failed experiment at doing things my own way, but it taught me a valuable lesson: that I had never fully surrendered to FA and that I needed to do so, so I wouldn’t keep leaving and eating.

How had I never really surrendered to the FA program in almost six years of doing it and looking like I was surrendered? Well, some of it boiled down to negativity. I complained to myself constantly about meetings.  Most of the shares seemed boring and repetitive.  I didn’t want to hear from people who were doing FA differently from me; newcomers aggravated me with their own difficulties and complaints about FA.  Intergroup was a waste of one Sunday a month.  Sponsoring took away my precious morning time. And I never liked my food plan.

But the main way I failed to surrender to the FA program was in my unconscious unwillingness to sit in the discomfort I felt around my new marriage. I got married after four years of abstinence, and the ensuing two years were beyond difficult. My husband wound up being really different after we married than how he was while we were dating. I was so disappointed and miserable, and I thought that if FA was really working for me, I’d be feeling better or I’d know what to do. I couldn’t decide to stay married or get a divorce. I worked all my tools around finding a solution – took extra quiet time, asked God for help, talked about it with my sponsor and fellows every day, and in AWOL. And yet, I felt worse and worse, and could find no clear answers.

I also felt angry with God and FA for not supplying me with, if not the answers, then at least comfort. In looking back I see that I just was not willing to sit with the discomfort of my lack of clarity and simply not eat, one day at a time.  I couldn’t wait and trust that, by just weighing and measuring my food, I’d be okay and the answers would come eventually. I was in too much pain, and because I had never fully surrendered to just not eating no matter what (which also includes not leaving FA no matter what), I left looking for relief.

I didn’t find any relief from the discomfort of my marriage while I was gone. I couldn’t make the decision to stay or go outside of FA either. And while I didn’t binge or eat flour and sugar while I was gone, I did find myself unable to stop thinking about food for a single second – and that mental obsession was something I had been free of for almost six years in FA.

One day, after being gone for five months, I sat at my desk at work, unable to concentrate on anything because I couldn’t stop thinking about the upcoming Christmas dinner at my in-laws. I was obsessed with trying to figure out how to withstand the torture of not partaking in their yearly, after-dinner dessert extravaganza. What would I eat or do while they ate one dessert after another? How would I not eat those desserts? I couldn’t figure it out! It was crazy. I decided that I needed something to keep me safe from all of these food worries. Go back to FA? No, what I needed was a breath mint. I asked my coworker for one, which she gave to me. I popped it in my mouth and chewed it up. I thought, hey, maybe I can just eat breath mints and that will help me to not eat flour and sugar. That was my best answer to all of my terrible anxiety – to chew some breath mints. And the really bad news was, I’d given up breath mints and gum, and it had been a very painful surrender, more than 11 years before.

Without thinking, I had thrown all those years away in a split second, just as fast as I could chew and swallow. I realized I would soon do that with flour, sugar and quantities. I could not avoid the food addict in me; she had a mind and power all her own. I really was a food addict, absolutely powerless over food. I couldn’t even rationalize it. I knew that little breath mint was anything but little; it was the beginning of a food deluge I would not be able to avoid. Food was too powerful for me. I fought it for a little while longer, but a few hours later, I decided to come back to FA.

Although I wish I had not left FA, I am grateful I did because it taught me that I really am a food addict, and that I need to surrender to working this program no matter what – no matter how uncomfortable I am, no matter what is going on in my life. I cannot pick up that bite. I cannot leave FA. Surrender also means stopping myself when I find that I am thinking too negatively about meetings, fellows, and sponsees, when I start daydreaming about all the changes I’d make to my food plan if I were my own sponsor, or when I start thinking my emotional pain is too great and FA won’t work for me. At these times, I have to ask God for more help.

Surrender means weighing and measuring my food every day even though my marriage is still incredibly painful, and is probably going to be that way for a while. Eating, or leaving FA, won’t make it better.  Leaving won’t make me more comfortable or give me answers any sooner. Getting with the program means surrendering to it and being grateful for the freedom from food and food obsession that it gives me. That’s enough today. If I stay abstinent, stay in AWOLs, and work my tools, I have to trust that God will eventually give me the clarity and comfort I crave.

 

This story was originally published in the Connection Magazine. Subscribe to the Connection Magazine for more stories of recovery. Or submit your own story of recovery.