A Story of Recovery:

Waking Up Happy

I’ve seen people come into FA because they under-eat, purge their food, obsess about their weight and keep it down with exercise, or have a constant obsession over what they’re eating. I came in because I constantly wanted to overeat.

When I was younger, I pretended it didn’t bother me. Then one day I looked at my eighth-grade graduation class picture and I could no longer deny it. I was not only the tallest person in the class, but I was by far the largest. At 5’7” and 178 pounds, I towered over the rest of the 13- and 14-year olds. I was ashamed and embarrassed.

So I went on my first of many diets. I tried one that required I eat only 600 calories a day, and another where I got something shot into my arm to lose weight (I don’t know what it was and I didn’t care). I went to classes to learn how to “live thin.” I paid a person to teach me how to breathe like a turtle, because turtles supposedly can go for days without food. I had acupuncture, acupressure, and hypnosis. I counted calories, fat grams, and carbohydrates. I tried exercising two hours a day, seven days a week. I’ve lost 90 pounds five times in my life, but I never got to goal and I didn’t stay at my lowest weight for more than a day. I continued to search for an answer. I knew that if only I could lose weight, I would be able to live a happy life.

With every diet, with every painful day of carefully planning what I was going to eat or not eat, I counted my self worth by the number on the scale; if the number went down, I was happier, if it went up, my self-hatred doubled. My emotions and spirituality also fluctuated, and eventually, my spirituality was gone. Even though I was a practicing Catholic, all I could think about was what I was going to eat. Food was my Higher Power. I went to it for everything.

At work, my employers told me that I was extremely good at my job, but had no people skills.  I figured that was their problem. When I got angry, I let people know it. I felt that they had to change, and it was my job to tell them exactly what was wrong with them. People feared me, and I loved that feeling of power.

Emotionally, I always appeared happy and all together, but inside I was confused and lonely. I have been suicidal three times. I wondered what was wrong with me. I couldn’t blame my problem on my parents or my upbringing. When I was 19, I thought I could blame my thyroid for my weight problem, when I found that something was wrong with my thyroid gland. But that excuse didn’t work, because I remained fat, despite my thyroid medication.

I had been yo-yoing between 265 and 175 for about 40 years when I went to nutritionist. She put me on a food plan, which didn’t work. I weighed in at 254 and ended up at 280.

I married and later had two children. I was overweight and suicidal. Food had beaten me.  I went to a therapist, who decided to place me on an anti-depressant to keep me alive. I needed strong doses of two different medications. I was still miserable and still hated myself.

Then my therapist showed me a book about food addiction. I was shocked! I had always thought that I just liked to eat. I read stories about people who ate just like I did, and they called themselves food addicts. I called a program contact and had an introduction to the Twelve Steps as they related to eating. I had been in two other Twelve-Step programs, but this made more sense because it was about food.

I started weighing and measuring my food, and I lost weight. I didn’t follow all of the disciplines of the program. After all, I thought, I was losing weight, so what did it matter? Sure enough, I discovered that Twelve-Step programs didn’t work either! I got down to 165 pounds, and it took only a week to be back up to 175 and gaining more each day, the whole time calling myself “abstinent.”  After five years, I quit that program. I was miserable and my weight continued to climb.

I told my abusive husband I wanted a divorce. It was a huge step for me. Then I picked up sugar for the first time in five years. I thought I could control it.  Sure enough, after 30 days, I couldn’t put the sugar down. I was gaining a pound a day. Again, I didn’t want to live. Being a single parent, I knew suicide wasn’t the answer, but I realized I had to do something drastic.

I called a friend I knew from my last Twelve-Step program and asked her if she had found anything. She told me about a new program that had meetings in Michigan. We lived in Ohio, but she and two other women were traveling to Michigan for meetings. She told me she had 90 days of abstinence and that this program was somehow different. She invited me to one of their get-togethers the following day. She gave me hope.

I went to one of their homes to hear a woman from Vermont talk about FA.  I listened for the first 40 minutes and then I started looking at my watch, wondering why she was still talking when this meeting was supposed to last an hour. What was her problem? I stood up and announced that I was leaving, that I had things to do.

When I went home, I realized there was nothing else out there for me. I called my friend and she told me about sponsors. I called a sponsor that night and I took most of her suggestions. I knew that I was different from the rest of the people in FA, so I would certainly not have to follow all of their “rules.”  Yes, they said they were “suggestions,” but I knew they were rules.  I didn’t have the time or the money (I was an unemployed, single mom with two special-needs children after all!).  So I took what I liked and left the rest. I started losing weight, but also broke my abstinence every 20 days or so.

I changed sponsors because I knew it was the sponsor’s fault. But I still broke my abstinence. I thought a lot of the suggestions were stupid.

We had just started a meeting in Cleveland, and there were only three people there with 90 days, so we listened to a lot of tapes. There was one that impressed me so much that I actually called the person whose voice I had been hearing, and she talked with me about my program. I was doing everything except the phone calls and quiet time. She encouraged me to try doing these—just for three days. She said she’d call me back. She gave me phone numbers of people to talk with.

After three days, she called. I was so touched that this person, whom I had never met, would care so much for me. She asked me to try it for 90 days; I said yes. And I did it. I stayed abstinent.  After eight months in the program, I got 90 days.

It took a little over a year to drop from a size 24/26 to a size 6/8.  I’ve maintained my weight for over nine years now, and I stay abstinent. I use all the tools and disciplines, on a daily basis. I really don’t know which tools will keep me abstinent today and I really want to stay abstinent.

Today I teach multiply handicapped high-school children, and I’m better with people. People no longer shrink away when they see me walking towards them. I no longer want to feel that power over the lives of others. When I’m on my knees, I feel strongest, because that’s when I’m totally relying on my Higher Power.

In these nine years, I haven’t taken an anti-depressant, and I finalized my divorce, changed careers, got my masters degree, walked through the death of my parents, and continue to have a wonderful relationship with my two children, who are now young adults. I feel really good. On most days, I actually wake up thinking, “I’m happy.”

I am incredibly grateful for my program of recovery and I really wouldn’t trade it for a million dollars. This program has saved my life. Instead of hanging onto food and self-hatred, I hang onto my Higher Power, the disciplines of this program, peace, joy, quiet time, and a constant feeling deep inside that all is going exactly as it should. Life is good at this very moment. And as long as I stay in the moment, and continue doing what I’ve been doing, it just gets better.