A Story of Recovery:

My Life…in Containers

I have been in FA for over a year, and so far the journey has been amazing, interesting, and at times, frustrating. Before FA, I did not contain or even express my feelings in any meaningful or consistent way. I simply ate through them, pushed them down with food, and or shifted into work-a-holic mode and ignored them. My emotions were strewn about amid food wrappers and crumbs that littered the floor as they fell from hasty hands and fingers feverishly shoveling food into my mouth while driving or sitting in front of the TV. My emotions were also contained in volumes of food; some empty calories and some healthy calories, but always a lot of food.  If it was not food, work palliated my emotions through long hours and a jam packed schedule of non-work commitments.  Twenty-one year old journal entries evince my desperation to lose weight and stop over-eating. Twenty-one years ago in a journal entry I wrote, “eating out of control-feeling lonely-don’t know how to fill the void! …How do I fight this?  How do I find peace! I cannot allow food to be my comforter, must find another way to comfort myself in my loneliness….”

Nineteen years later, at the age of 46, I topped the scale at 283 lbs, and on a 5’8 medium frame, simply put, I was fat.  Food had indeed become my comforter and best friend, and it was an abusive relationship. This frenemy caused my knees to hurt when I walked up the steps, and moving in my body was arduous. Because I tend to gain weight in my lower back, my posture was changing amid the hunks of adipose tissue that were growing there. I struggled to stand upright, and when I did so, I felt a strain on my lower back. Because of the strain on my lower back when I lay prone in the water, I could not even swim anymore.  All I wanted to do when I woke up was get back into bed so I could be free of the discomfort and pain associated with being in my body.

While driving one day, filled with self-loathing and disappointment in myself, I asked the universe for help with the never ending battle to lose weight, and via a radio advertisement, I heard about a three year weight loss study at a local university. I called, came in for a battery of tests, and was admitted into the study. There was no food plan, but there was a chance, I would be in the arm of the study using cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and to my delight I was. Because I had tried commercial weight loss plans, my own plans, low carb diets, high protein diets, diet pills, liquid diets, therapy, and fasting, I figured that perhaps CBT would be the way out of the seemingly never ending battle with my weight and over eating. We met as a group for eight months or so, counted calories, learned some CBT exercises, reported each week to the group with regard to our caloric, physical exercise, and CBT exercise goals. I lost over 70 lbs. in less than a year, but after the group stopped meeting and we simply came in to do a weigh in and answer questions, I became inconsistent with counting calories. One year after losing over 70lbs, I weighed 209 lbs., and months later I weighed 249 lbs. My addiction was in full swing, and I knew that I was on the road to an 80 to 100 lb weight gain.  One night, as I was giddily consuming my sugar fix, my fiancée looked over at me and asked me, “what do you want me to do when you eat like that?” Her question came from a place of concern and not judgement. She knew my struggle and felt helpless as she watched me eat myself into a blissful food coma. I knew that I had to do something very different at that point. I had been introduced to FA during my brief foray in OA. My OA sponsor mentioned that FA may be a better fit. A seed had been planted, and I was grateful for her suggestion.  When I came to my first FA meeting, I felt it was my last hope.

Today I spend a lot of time preparing my abstinent food and putting it in various containers. For the first time in my life, I stare at containers in the store and not food! I am always on the lookout for the best containers these days, which is a blessed and far cry from looking out for the newest sugary, salty, or floury food that I used to inhale. The idea of a container is apt to my experience of recovery in FA. Usually, I would think of a container as something that restricts in some way, and in fact the Webster’s dictionary defines container as, “a receptacle (as a box or jar) for holding goods or a portable compartment in which freight is placed (as on a train or ship) for convenience of movement. “

Containers by their very nature have limits, and, as a sugar, flour, volume loving food addict, limits might as well have been a swear word! I ate what I wanted, when I wanted and how ever much I wanted. Since joining FA, I appreciate that there is power in limits. I had made this observation many years before starting FA. I understood it on some level, but never applied it to my eating nor work habits. Restricting felt limiting, and I did not care for limits. I wanted to eat what I wanted, and work as hard or as many hours as I wanted, and then reward myself with food.

In FA, not only do containers hold my abstinent food, but also serve as a reminder of the power of limits.  I make calls and through chatting with other FA buddies, I express how I feel which helps me contain my abstinence. I weigh and measure my food, and talk to my sponsor, which helps me contain good physical health and a healthy relationship with food.  I contain my relationship with my higher power through 30 minutes of quiet time, written expressions of gratitude, and prayer. I attend meetings three times a week for 90 minutes to connect with others. There are stories of experience, hope, and recovery contained in those ninety minutes. It seems ironic, but I have found freedom in limits. With my recovery, I can move about the world in greater freedom and clarity of thought because my feelings do not run amok or get stuffed down or ignored. Each of the 12 steps along with the other tools of recovery allows me to maintain my abstinence.