A Story of Recovery:

Sane and Abstinent Parenting

I came into FA when I was 36 years old. I was 50 pounds (22.7 kilos) overweight, hating myself, and unable to keep myself from eating. I ate no matter what commitment, promise, or oath I made with myself, or anyone else, to not eat. All I needed was a thought about food and I had to have it. I thought about food all the time. I would be eating one food and thinking about the next food I wanted to eat. If I was doing something that didn’t allow me to eat, I was planning the next thing I would eat and when I would get it. I ate in the bath, the car, in bed, on the toilet, and while driving. I met someone working the FA program while I was in another Twelve-Step program for compulsive overeaters. I was still miserable, and I wanted what she had. She told me that, if I did what she did, I would get what she got. I heard this message over and over from other members. 

After I had been abstinent for four years, my husband and I adopted a baby girl. I wanted to be a mother more than anything else. So here I was with a three-day-old baby in my arms, saying to my husband, “What were we thinking?” I had no idea how to be a parent. With the endless help of my sponsor and other people working the FA program, I learned to put my recovery first. I learned to make and eat my meals, sometimes holding her as I ate my dinner and dropping pieces of food on her head. I learned to ask for help so that I could get enough sleep, take sponsee calls and quiet time, and go to my meetings. Fellows gave me the strength to pull out of the driveway to attend my meetings while my toddler stood at the window crying and waving for me to come back. My husband would walk her around the house for hours trying to soothe her until I returned.

This program taught me how to take care of myself as a mother. I learned how to plan birthday parties, trick-or-treating, and other special events around my meetings. I learned to put my own oxygen mask on first. I remember one time my daughter asking me for a bite of my food and me telling her, “No, this is Mommy’s weighed and measured food,” and that she would have to wait for me to get her a bowl of her own. I recall her getting a little older and looking at my plate of food and saying, “Is that your ab-sti-bent food, Mommy?” 

Being a parent meant I had to practice putting boundaries around my program, by putting it first, so I could then be an abstinent parent. In the first few months of her life with us, my prayer each day was that I be a sane and abstinent mother. Many difficult things came up for me as a parent, such as using discipline, working with my partner to parent, learning to take care of my child, guiding and supporting, rather than controlling her, and then later letting her go. 

There are many parenting struggles that every parent goes through, but also many others that are individual to each child. When my daughter was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and anorexia, we chose to admit her to a treatment center that is ten hours from our home. My program, sponsor, and fellows supported me as my husband and I drove there and back each weekend for family counseling and to support her. FA was there for me when I lived near the treatment center for six weeks, so that I could stay with her through her out-patient treatment. There were days I felt I couldn’t go on, but my Higher Power and FA were always there for me with strength and guidance.

My daughter recently completed a very successful semester away from home at college, where she was engaged socially and academically, and she made her own decisions about her health and well-being. I turned to my husband the other day and said, “We raised a wonderful daughter. We did a good job.” I know that I learned to be a parent who was available, consistent, loving, and sane because of what I learned in FA, through the Twelve Steps and my reliance on my Higher Power.