Several weeks ago, I was admitted to the hospital for colitis, after a reaction to antibiotics that were prescribed for an infected wisdom tooth. Before I could get the infected tooth pulled, I ended up staying for four days until the colitis cleared. Because I was so ill I was unable to eat, and when I did, I wasn’t able to keep it down. In the four years that I’ve been in FA, this was the first time that I didn’t have complete control over what I ate and the first time that I was ever too sick to eat. Before Program, nothing could ever stop me from eating! While I was in the hospital, the doctor ordered my first-ever colonoscopy. As a food addict, my only thought was that I had to fast and wouldn’t be able to eat. I ended up throwing up some more while having to... Continue Reading
One early morning, I was visiting an unfamiliar FA meeting and a very attractive, slender, older woman stood up to share. She explained that prior to retiring, she had worked in television and had lived quite the pampered life. Each morning she would call for a limo, and then was fed, prepped and made up for the camera. She had assistants do and tell her everything she needed to know, and all she had to do was show up. She said her FA life now was very similar, but even better. Carefully, I strained to hear her, knowing how unglamorous my FA life of shopping and chopping seems sometimes. She continued saying that when she gets on her knees in the morning, it is like the limo is being called and her higher power arrives shortly thereafter during her quiet time. They discuss her day ahead and strategize about difficult... Continue Reading
Before I came into FA, I did service and performed many acts of kindness. But I find that service in recovery is different. For me now, doing service comes from a deep desire to arrest my own suffering, and to help others with God’s wonderful gift. I feel good when someone else finds the freedom I have found. It is not important that I like doing the service, but rather whether it gives someone else the opportunity to share the joy I have found. Learning to do FA service and do things I ordinarily don’t like to do was an acquired taste for me. Service has become an expression of my recovery, but it is also has been a route to getting there. I remember my early days in program 16 years ago. My sponsor and old timers had to teach me to love and do service. “Could you stop... Continue Reading
A few days before I came into FA, I had stayed up yet another long night and consumed an entire family-sized dessert. I then proceeded to empty the garbage can with my bare hands in order to hide the package of the sugar/flour item. It was an out-of-body experience that night, as though I hovered above myself, watching in disbelief what I had become. Food had taken over my nights, and obsession with food and weight had taken over my days. I know now that I have been a food addict since childhood, when I used to stockpile sweets under my bed. I wanted to have some comfort for the many nights my parents spent fighting violently. I have long been an isolator and felt so alone. Food was my constant comforter and companion, while also being my mortal enemy and abuser. For most of my life, I have struggled... Continue Reading
I couldn’t stop. Mind you, I thought I could. I would get a few days, even weeks of abstinence—not surrendered abstinence, but I would get excited and hopeful, telling you how much better it was this time, how this was it. I was done with the food. I would have some revelation from the last binge that I was sure would break through my pattern. Now I was ready to stay abstinent, no matter what. This conviction lasted until some feeling came up that I was convinced I could not live through, and perhaps more honestly, did not want to live through. Loneliness, fear, insecurity, doubt, any or all could feel overwhelming. I would rush to the store for my familiar binge foods. I would chew and spit out the foods, not swallowing, but chewing and tasting, in denial that it was “so bad,” because my weight did not change... Continue Reading
