Most of my life has been extraordinary. I have had two long-term careers I loved: social work and teaching. I grew up with an amazingly talented, attractive, and accomplished extended family in beautiful homes. There was a lot of love, but also depression and alcoholism. I clearly remember my father’s beautiful artistic sister dying when I was five. I didn’t know at the time what suicide meant. Later, I found out it was also the cause of death of my grandfather’s sister. I overate sweets from the time I can remember, but was so active I was only a few pounds overweight as a child. In my 20s I maintained a normal weight. I had found out that if I drank the foamy kind of alcoholic drink, it took my appetite away. I realize now that I was technically anorexic, as I frequently didn’t eat anything for days, but the... Continue Reading
I recently drove to visit with family and friends and to attend my high school reunion. I enjoy the privilege of having both Canadian and American citizenship and carry passports issued by both countries. When I arrived at the border, I was lucky enough to drive directly up to the booth. This is a rare occurrence. Usually there is a long line of waiting cars. I was very excited thinking I was going to zip right through and be on my way. I handed the customs officer my American passport and that’s when my plans of zipping right through the border came to a halt. I haven’t had a passport photo taken since I came into FA four-and-a-half years ago. In that time, I have lost 250 pounds. He looked at my photo; looked at me; looked at my photo; looked at me and asked, “Is this your passport?” I... Continue Reading
I think the fact that my mom’s side of the family is Norwegian has something to do with the fact that my family approaches the morning coffee break with an almost religious dedication. In the historical life of my family, no matter what’s going on, when 10:30 comes around, an internal alarm clock goes off saying that it’s now time for “coffee break” – the perfect combination of caffeine, flour, sugar and fat. Weight has never been an issue for me. But then I started living with chronic illness. With the onset of the illness, I went from being a cross-country cyclist and a long-distance runner to being someone who couldn’t run across the street without exacerbating unexplained symptoms of exhaustion, weakness and fogginess. For lack of a better term, I identified as someone living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Early on in my health challenge, I became convinced that if... Continue Reading
I came into FA when I was 22 years old, my life was unmanageable, and I was fat and miserable. I was 180 pounds at that point and my weight was only going up. I had tried everything, but despite my desire to lose weight, exercise, and be healthy, I couldn’t stop eating. I got a sponsor at my first meeting and started working the program. I lost 60 pounds in the first 5 months. My body and my life quickly started to change. Fast forward. I had been abstinent for five years, working my program gratefully and willingly each day. I went to all of my meetings, participated in multiple AWOLs where I was able to work through the Twelve Steps, and held several service positions at the meeting and Intergroup levels. I had often heard people refer to me as an “FA cheerleader” due to my enthusiasm, gratitude,... Continue Reading
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... Continue Reading
