Growing up, I always felt different/separate. I focused on my body as early as first grade- I remember looking at my best friend's thighs and then looking at my own and thinking I wasn't pretty because my thighs were bigger. I didn't go on a diet until I was 12, but the majority of my childhood memories up until that point involved sugar.
During the first decade of my life, I didn't eat to feel better but I noticed that when my friends and I would eat dessert, they might or might not eat all of it, but I was the only one who went back for seconds 30 minutes later. I remember thinking, "am I being a bad guest to go back for more?"
I remember going to a classmates birthday party when I was 9. She wasn't very popular but she was rich. She had a movie party and there was this huge array of candy for the party. I remember thinking, "she must be so happy because she gets all this candy, ALL the time!"
After my parents separated when I was 11, I was exposed to my father's alcoholism. In my eyes, my father went from successful businessman to falling down drunk daily. He would get so drunk and get into harmful situations. He fell down flights of stairs, had multiple seizures, spill scalding water on himself and suffer 3rd degree burns. I took on the role of taking care of him. I would get groceries, sit up until all hours of the night waiting for him to come back from the bar, making sure he didn't pee in the closet, etc. I withdrew from my friends because they couldn't understand the horrors and issues that I had to face on a daily basis. I was alone for long stretches at a time and I started eating to pass the time. I wouldn't get any meals when I was with my father so I started grazing on cookies/soda/cakes all day long. And food became my best friend. It would comfort me when I was scared and overwhelmed or entertain me when I was bored and lonely. I wasn't able to express my anger at my father, so I would "anger eat" crunchy foods. I learned that sugar, flour and eating huge volumes of food would numb the bad feelings and quiet the voices of self-hatred.
Food was always there for me. It kept me company, made me feel better and never abandoned me. I thought I had found a really good solution until I started getting interested in boys at age 13. I always had a terrible body image- I would look in the mirror with disgust. I thought I looked like a boy, my teeth were too big for my face, I hated my Dorothy Hamill haircut, My clothes were all very old and worn and I was heavier than 80% of my classmates.
I went on my first diet when I was 13. I couldn't afford to pay for a diet, but heard from the TV that I needed to reduce calories. I discovered pretty quickly that if I could only have 600 calories/day, I would be happiest when those calories came from sugar or flour. But I kept failing on diets, because I would get ravenous soon after I ate sugar and I would binge (the phenomenon of craving). I was angry all the time, at the world, my parents and most particularly, myself for getting so fat. I was about 30 lbs. overweight. My days seemed like Groundhog Day: I would wake up and promise myself that I would stay on my diet, I would get severe headaches around 1pm from not having eaten, I would daydream about how happy I would be when I got thin - not concentrating on the lesson given by the teacher. I would return home after school intending to eat a very small amount of food. Invariably, I would eat more than I wanted, or I would experience some emotions that I couldn't handle, and I would think "F-it" I messed up anyway. I would then binge until I was over-full. At night, I would be baffled about how I binged AGAIN. I would then try to change the "formula" of following day so that I could stay on plan, but the next day I would also end up binging. I never realized that the common thread was 1) continuing to eat addictive foods and 2) the learned behavior of using food to soothe me.
My father got sober when I was 15 and introduced me to the 12 steps. He completely changed by working the 12 steps and became the father I had always wanted. At the end of the summer of my 16th year, I was dreading going back to school since my plan to become thin and beautiful over the summer had failed (again). I remember the self-loathing. I needed help. I finally told my father what I had been doing with food and he suggested that I go to rehab. I just wanted to get fixed. I was tired of living my life obsessed with food and body image every waking moment. It was torture. I would eat to regulate all of my emotions. If I was too excited, I would eat. Too sad or angry, I would eat. Soon there wasn't any emotion that I wanted to feel without numbing it with food.
At rehab, I learned that sugar and flour were addictive and that all my diets were unsuccessful because I couldn't stop once I ingested sugar or flour. I learned that I wouldn't self-destruct if I felt a "bad" emotion and I could even sit with a "bad" emotion and, while uncomfortable, be ok. I started weighing and measuring 4 meals a day, and stopped eating all sugar, flour and wheat. I found that I needed to rely on something other than me. I had seen the tremendous things that trusting God did for my father and thought, "well, if it could work for him, than I might as well give it a try."
When I got out of rehab, I started going to FAA meetings every day. I started living life rather than escaping from it. I started to actually like myself. I remained abstinent for 6 years and moved to North Carolina for law school where there were no meetings. I convinced myself that I could stay abstinent anyway since I knew all the facts about food addiction. 6 months later, I started rationalizing that I could have a little bit of sugar, since it was "healthier" to eat everything in moderation. I told myself that I was just being dramatic when I said I was a food addict.
Unfortunately, when I picked up sugar, the obsession came back. I soon found that I was worse than when I had stopped. I resigned myself with the fact that I would always be fat. I thought about going back to FAA, but I thought that I could never get abstinent (I had tried on my own several times) and stop drinking diet soda. I was consuming 12 cans of diet soda daily. I thought it was keeping my weight from exploding. I didn't realize that it was actually keeping my cravings alive.
On my 51st birthday, I felt like there was nowhere else to go. I had joined AA after I went to rehab, but I knew that Alcohol was just a way to temporarily fill the hole inside me. I did, however, pursue a spiritual path as I could feel that was the answer I had been seeking. I had developed a meditation practice but soon found that it was impossible to sit still after I had binged. I had been praying for an answer and one of my AA friends said that a sponsee was going to FAA and found success. I also learned that about 80% of women in AA also had an addiction of some sort to food. I looked on the FAA website and attended my first virtual meeting. I found a sponsor at that meeting and with her and my higher power's support I was able to get abstinent (one hour at a time). About a month into abstinence, my brain fog lifted and I was able to see clearly again. I heard from others that it is easier to stay abstinent than to get abstinent. I also heard that the best way to prevent relapse was working the steps with a sponsor, attending a lot of meetings, and developing a conscious contact with God.
I am so much happier now that I'm abstinent. I can be present for my kids and my mood is no longer connected to my weight. Most importantly, the endless dialogue in my head stopped. Once I gave up sugar, flour and wheat, my cravings for those foods went away.