Since my early teens, I’ve slept poorly. I rarely had trouble falling asleep, but I’d wake up too early, my brain in gear and unable to disconnect. Unable to fall back to sleep, I’d reluctantly get up and start my day after four-to-six hours in bed, always feeling sleep-deprived. I started working the FA program over three years ago. I was 204 pounds and ate all the time. By committing to the FA food plan and doing all of my tools daily, I am enjoying a 70-pound weight loss and have embraced a way of life for which I am truly grateful. I hoped that by working the FA program I’d be relieved of this affliction, as if the Promises from the AA Big Book had a hidden clause just for me. When I continued to wake up early, (actually waking up even earlier so I could do my quiet... Continue Reading
Hopeless. That is pretty much how I felt about the thought of ever weighing under 300 pounds again. At my worst, I weighed 373 pounds, and I was only forced to confront that reality because I was hospitalized with congestive heart failure and they made me get on the scale. That reality check—grounded in an absolute fear of dying—was enough to get me to change some of my ways. I was put on a low sodium/restricted fluid diet, and within seven months had taken off 65 pounds. But then, my chief motivator, fear, began to wear off. I found I could manipulate the daily sodium numbers and add in some flour and sugar products. I stayed “good enough” to not regain the weight, but over the course of another year and a half, I only lost six more pounds. My cravings for the sugar and flour products I “allowed’ in... Continue Reading
February 13 is a day that I will always remember. This was the day that I received my early Valentine’s gift from God. On this day, I shared at a morning meeting in Sacramento, CA, an hour drive from San Francisco. I felt great about doing service and enjoyed the fellowship there. After the meeting, we continued our fellowship at a local café. After that, it was getting close to lunchtime. On the way home, I called a friend in FA from Fairfield, and I ask if I could eat lunch at his house. We ate lunch and conversed a bit. Then it was time for me to go back home, and I began to feel tired. Being a total addict, I was packing in too much in my day. I told my friend that as soon as I got home, I was going to take a nap. I hit... Continue Reading
As a child, I was complimented for cleaning my plate and having a good appetite. I ate quite a bit, but I spent hours running around the city streets, jumping rope, and twirling my baton, so my body stayed a normal size. But by college, I had begun stealing food and bingeing. I stacked desserts in napkins at night to bring food back to the dorm. My eating really accelerated when I married and became pregnant. I was a newlywed, alone in Hawaii. My husband had gone to Vietnam, and I was trying to fill an immense hole in my soul with large quantities of food. I would stand in my kitchen, missing my husband, and make flour and sugar concoctions. I binged voraciously. The Navy doctors cautioned me to stop gaining weight so quickly, and I tried, but I could not control my eating. I had become a food... Continue Reading
I was at a family birthday celebration once and the dessert was on proud display. It called to me every time I walked by the table. But the words came to me, “Don’t eat no matter what; no matter what, don’t eat.” I claimed those words over and over again with success. But then the item was cut and the interior revealed some of my favorite flavors. I realized then that I was in deep trouble. The words came to my mind again, “Don’t eat no matter what; no matter what, don’t eat,” but these words just didn’t have the punch and the power that they had previously given me. Then something from the Twelve Steps came to my mind: that we can’t win through single-handed combat. I realized that I was trying to do battle with a single weapon—my will. I also realized that, under these circumstances, I would... Continue Reading
