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
Approximately one year ago, after I had been in FA for 15 months, my AWOL group, in its study of the Twelve Steps, was approaching Step Four, where we take a fearless moral inventory of our personal challenges. I was besieged with fear of this process and the requirements of Step Five, wherein we were to discuss our shortcomings, character defects, and injured relationships with God and another person. How would I do? Would I be found lacking? Would I be told that I was unworthy—told to go back and do this over? These thoughts were obsessive and causing me great concern. I was on the verge of making up an excuse to leave the AWOL. All my life I had been fixated on the notion that I had to be perfect or else I would not be accepted or loved. In fact, I went to great lengths to make... Continue Reading
Making decisions is difficult for me. You wouldn’t believe how long it can take me just to pick out the right kind of dishes, cutlery, clothes, and paint colors. But thankfully, joining FA was a very easy decision for me. I found FA 12 years ago when I was 22 years old and completely desperate. My top weight was 142, but I typically struggled with an extra 10-15 pounds on my petite body, through controlled eating and exercise. I had no idea that the disease of food addiction owned me. I just thought I was unhappy because everyone and everything around me sucked. I was angry, negative, manic, mean to my loved ones, lost, and sad. What I didn’t know was that I was full of self-hatred, and underneath my punk rock, indie, bad-ass attitude, I was scared of life. Drugs and alcohol helped me to cope in social situations,... Continue Reading
