A Story of Recovery:

This Bulimic Had It All

Twenty-seven years ago, when I first met the man to whom I am now married, we were just getting to know each other, so in the spirit of honesty and “full disclosure,” I told him that I had been bulimic, but wasn’t anymore. At the time, I was in another Twelve-Step program for food addiction (although we didn’t call it that).  I had not been actively bulimic for a while, so I thought it safe to tell him, because I was “fixed.” I had been anxious about telling him, not knowing what the response would be. When he did not go screaming in the other direction, I thought: Phew! That’s over! Now we can get on with it.

Things went along quite well for the next several months. I had a good job, I was in love, and all was right with the world. But alas, as I was to discover, all was not right with me. (When he and I met, I weighed about 118 pounds and was 5’ 3½” tall).

The following year, we decided to get married. Between that decision and our wedding day, I proceeded to lose weight. The day we got married, I weighed 102 pounds. Every time I went to have my wedding dress altered, it had to be taken in. I thought that was lovely. I had never been that thin, and for the first time in many years, I was not throwing up to achieve a low weight. I was eating according to the food plan I had created in the other program (you could actually do that there – make up your own food plan).  Several people were worried about my weight and told me so, but I paid no attention, thinking they were all just jealous.

Eventually the inevitable happened. We were married in September. Two months later, we went to spend Thanksgiving with my mother in another state. There was something about being with my mother, my new husband, and all that food that pushed me right over the edge, back into that bulimic abyss. I kept it a secret as I always had. I could not bring myself to tell anyone what was going on, much less my husband and my mother. I could not ask for help from the two people who loved me most.

I carried on in my frenetic, secret, and very lonely world. Not only did my husband and I have an apartment with only one bathroom, but we also shared office space that had only one bathroom. One has to be pretty cagey to be a closet bulimic under those circumstances, but I was pretty well practiced. I had been bulimic off and on for about 24 years at that time and, to the best of my knowledge, no one knew.

After almost a year of this craziness, I finally could not bear it any longer. Here I was with so much of what I had always wanted. I had my own business that was a five-minute walk from our apartment, a lovely place to live, many wonderful friends, and was married to a terrific man.  And yet I could not stop throwing up. I didn’t get it, but I sure knew that I was in trouble!

Thanks to my Higher Power and a wonderful friend from the other program, I learned of a Twelve-Step-oriented treatment facility that dealt with food addiction. I had been in AA for many years and the Twelve Steps had helped get me sober, so I figured that path might just work for this, too. So three days before Christmas, my husband put me on a plane for what would later prove to be not the cure, but a huge step in the right direction. I was very frightened about the prospect of all of this, but I was even more frightened of what might happen if I did not go. I could not have gone on much longer without doing some serious damage to myself.

During the next eight weeks, I learned about food as an addiction, which immediately made sense to me. I knew that I was a food addict. Many of my defenses were stripped away in the absence of my drug and without any place to run.

I would love to be able to say that I have been abstinent since that time, but that is not my story. I can say, with deep gratitude, that I have not been actively bulimic since that time. But on my journey, I was to take many side trips into all the latest everything—macrobiotics, vegetarianism, and veganism. I even became a “raw foodie” for a while. This was all under the guise of “good health,” whereas in reality, it was all about controlling my weight. As I ventured into each of those arenas, I hoped this one would be “it.”

I wasn’t to find “it” until I found FA, thanks to an old high-school friend who had found this program in another state. At that time, I weighed 100 pounds, was obsessed about my weight, and had no peace. It has been the journey of a lifetime, with many bumps and stumbles along the way, but I have always been stumbling forward. With the help of my Higher Power, my fellows, and my sponsor, I am abstinent and at peace. And now I know that I am definitely not cured, but I do have a daily reprieve from food addiction, one day at a time.  As long as I do today what I did yesterday, I will continue along this path of recovery.