I came into FA just before the holidays. I found quite quickly that I was going to have to unlearn a lot of things if I was going to continue to be abstinent. When I came into FA, it initially felt like food was chasing me. I had always eaten more or less unconsciously (face falling on food). It was a really a new thing not to turn to food whenever I wanted to. I had cravings and became very fearful when feelings came up that I used to push down with food, alcohol, or pills. Often these feelings came in a flood, and I would feel alone and in a weird emotional state, often thinking about eating or leaving Program as the only solution. Leaving FA seemed like an option when my head was chattering, “It’s just a matter of time. You are not going to be successful anyway.... Continue Reading
The first time my sponsor suggested I go to three meetings a week, I honestly thought the rules did not apply to me. I thought that maybe three meetings were okay for everyone else, but not for me. After all, I had a seven-month-old baby, a two-year-old toddler, and a husband who worked 12-hour days. The last thing I could expect my husband to do was to care for his own children so I could attend a meeting. We had an agreement in our marriage. He was the breadwinner, and I had quit my job to stay home and rear the children. I certainly could not dream of asking my husband to stay home from work so I could do anything for myself, alone without kids. Imagine how uncomfortable I felt when my sponsor “bullied” me into going to three meetings per week. Little did I know that this was... Continue Reading
I ate because I couldn’t face my life. Then I couldn’t face my life because I ate! My life was out of control from an early age. I grew up as an only child and my parents divorced when I was two years old. My mother was very permissive. I was undisciplined and unruly. I talked too much, and I sucked my thumb until high school. Yet even after years and years of looking for a solution to all of this, I still wouldn’t let go of any of the food or of trying to control everything. Like it says in Alcoholics Anonymous, “The people of AA had something that looked much better than what I had, but I was afraid to let go of what I had in order to try something new.” Before FA, I spent 23 years in Twelve-Step programs for food, trying to get abstinent. I... Continue Reading
When I entered the doors of FA at 155 pounds, I was broken in many areas of life, not just with food. As the AA Big Book says, alcohol was but a symptom. In the same way, what I did or didn’t do with food was but a symptom of far deeper personality problems that I have had from the get-go. I found FA after talking with someone from another food program I was in, who had been in FA for a few months. She talked about how she found help from the unity and structure of FA, and from FA’s definition of abstinence. She said that the clear-cut directions were helping to keep her abstinent, one day at a time, on life’s good days and bad. My eating began as a little tot, when I was told that I rummaged through open pantries and crawled with anticipation and delight... Continue Reading
The speaker at the first FA meeting I attended was adorable and wore a yellow, cardigan sweater. All of the buttons were buttoned, which was what got my attention. I could not button my sweaters. My blouses, on the other hand, had safety pins to keep the gaps closed. Not a pretty sight! That meeting really woke me up for the first time in forever. People actually said out loud what I’d kept in the dark cave of my own guilt and despair for my entire life. At the meeting I heard the speaker ask people with less than 90 days of abstinence to read from the front of the room. I immediately decided (or my disease decided for me) that I would not be getting up there to read. I did not want to be seen in the last, stretched pair of pants that still kind of fit. I... Continue Reading
