At my first FA meeting, I was greeted by a woman who told me that she had lost 40 pounds. My ears perked up. Then the room began to fill with thin women. But I was confused. I thought that this might be a meeting for thin women who considered “overweight” to be an extra 10 to 15 pounds. I stayed because I figured I could learn something from people who were thin. The meeting began. Then I heard, in the format, the part about completely abstaining from flour and sugar. Right then I lost all hope. This, I thought, was impossible. What was there to eat besides flour and sugar products? At the break, a woman approached me and showed me her picture. She was once over 300 pounds! I regained my sense of hope, but I just didn’t think I could go without flour and sugar. I left... Continue Reading
Like most people, I always thought I was very different. Unlike other families in my white, suburban world, my father was an alcoholic and didn’t live with us; my mother was the breadwinner. We moved frequently, following her academic career, and lived in school-owned properties rather than in a home of our own. My sisters and I stopped attending public school after eighth grade and spent our high school years living in dormitories, surrounded by Vanderbilts, Duponts, and Rockefellers, girls from lower Connecticut, and from the western suburbs of Boston. In spite of our well-endowed education, we had little money. Our mother became influential in the world of private schools and colleges and a national advocate for girls. We were raised with high expectations of our lives as women, in the midst of her adoring students and colleagues. I was always conscious of the need to perform, to measure up... Continue Reading
Before I was abstinent, the idea of ever getting free from food was as impossible and unlikely as hitching a ride to the moon. I was never very interested in food as a child, but got the idea that I was fat and ugly and should get thinner. So as a teen, I got into starving myself. This progressed to starving and bingeing, then dieting and bingeing, then being unable to diet or control my eating by the time I was 25. Whatever I was doing with food, whether I was under 100 pounds or more than 300 pounds, my thoughts were never far from the obsession about it. FA broke the obsession. I handed my food over to the scales and a sponsor. I fought the FA Program for 10 years. I got abstinent a few times for a few years, and twice lost a large amount of weight... Continue Reading
First, let me start with saying out loud that at this moment I am abstinent. One day at a time I commit the third step prayer and offer prayers to a higher power asking to be assisted in all efforts to remain abstinent today. Today I told my sponsor my plan for my food for this day. I also said that I planned on going to the grocery market. I live alone, I work from home, and I do not report to anyone for my work on a daily basis. Therefore, my connection to my sponsor is an integral, critical part of my mental health within my recovery. She is not my higher power, nor my God, nor my last word. My recovery is in fact in God’s hands along with my ego, my personality, my strengths, and my weaknesses. God’s grace covers my back as old Irish culture has... Continue Reading
Gratitude is a grand and wonderful thing; I love the way it feels and the effect it has on the people around me. I find it easy to practice gratitude when all is well and things are going my way. The challenge comes when all is not well and things aren’t going my way. Lately, that has been my story. In addition to my husband’s unemployment and other smaller inconveniences, I have been experiencing some severe physical pain, and there is nothing like pain to capture my attention. Pain is not unlike a two-year old (or this food addict before recovery!)—demanding, self-centered, selfish, relentless. A few months ago, I started the practice of making a gratitude list every night. I keep a notebook by my bed, and after I get on my knees, I write down a minimum of five things that have happened that day for which I am... Continue Reading
