Hello. Welcome to this qualification meeting. I’m a food addict from Florida, and I’m your leader for this hour. After a moment of silence, would you please join me in the Serenity Prayer?
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Well, I’ll just start with my numbers. I was born in 1940. People were still suffering from the Depression, and food was important. I was fat, always, always. My highest recorded weight was 256 pounds, and my last weigh‑in was 110. I hover between 108 and 110, somewhere around that area. I’m a great‑grandmother, proudly, and I’m a widow. I have two diseases going on in my life today. One is food addiction; one is multiple myeloma, which is blood cancer, and I treat them both the same way: I eat right, I exercise, I have support people that I go to, and I’m a very, very happy individual. I could really sit down right now.
I was heavy all my life. As I said, we had no money when I came from Virginia, and my father had two grocery stores. I had to buy my clothes in Woolworth’s because that’s what we could afford. Food was plentiful, and my grandmother would always say, “Eat everything on your plate, because children in Europe are starving.” I could never figure out how, if I ate everything on my plate, that would help them. I never could figure that one out, but I did it, and I did it all my life. Then the plate got smaller, and the food got bigger. It colored my life, as it does for anybody who is not feeling good about themselves.
I suffered a lot from fear, doubt, and insecurity, and by the grace of God, if I work my program today, those things are at a minimum. I’m not saying they’re gone, but they’re definitely at a minimum. I come from a very critical, negative family on my mother’s side, and that’s how I was raised: critically and negatively. That’s what I knew—criticism and negativism—and that’s what I passed on, unfortunately, to my children. I didn’t know any better. I try very hard not to be that way today, but it slips in. I’m not perfect.
I am so grateful for the life I have today. I have had many bumps along the way. I was miserable in college because I couldn’t stop eating. I dropped out because my grades plummeted, because I kept hitting the candy machines all night long, all day long. I got married for the first time when I was 21. I knew it all, and that lasted four months. I got married the second time when I was 23. That lasted 47 years. My husband passed away about three and a half years ago, and I didn’t eat over it.
My history in FA is, well, again, I was heavy all my life. I gained at least 100 pounds with each pregnancy. I had three of them, and, in between, there was a time when I was so miserable, even more so than usual. I was a very unhappy person. I took it out on my children. I took it out on my husband, who was a saint. He also had some addictive tendencies, but his were more workaholism, smoking, different things, and certainly not food. That was not his thing. He put up with me. I look back now at all the times that he put up with me. Of course, for me, it was like, “He’s so terrible, he’s this, he’s that,” but he put up with me, and I am able to see that today. I couldn’t see it before. This program has shown that to me. It has opened my eyes big time.
I have three children: one in Israel, one in Atlanta, Georgia, and one in Florida, near me. I’ve been blessed with 11 grandchildren and two great‑grandchildren. I have a blessed life. We have a wonderful fellowship where I am in Florida—a large one, an active one. Many of us have been around since the inception of FA in Florida. We had the first meeting in West Palm Beach almost 21 years ago, and that was the first meeting, from what I understand, outside of Boston. So, there are a lot of blessings in my life, a lot.
I had a situation at work, in my job, where I had worked for these doctors for over 20 years, and they had the nerve to retire. And here I am, gigantic. I went to the insurance guy and I said—and I was only in my early 50s—“What am I going to do for insurance?” I was on a group policy. Nobody questioned anything in those days on group policies. You just walked in, you did your 90 days, and you were on the policy. So, he said, “Well, you know, you’ve got a few problems here. If I can get you a policy for just 12 months, that’s it. That’s all you can have, 12 months. It’s basically for college students, but I can get you on it.” So, not being too stupid, I said, “Well, how much weight would I have to lose in order to get regular insurance after that?” And he gave me a figure, and I said, “I’ll try it.”
So I did. I cut out sugary things because everybody knew in those days that desserts weren’t good. I didn’t know about bread, but desserts weren’t good, so I cut out desserts. I didn’t know what a normal-sized portion was. I had no idea. So when we went out with our friends to eat, I’d have to look and see what they ate, because I just ate everything. I would out‑eat my whole family at any one sitting—my husband and my three little kids—and I would eat more than all four of them put together. I was a huge, huge quantity eater. Thank God for the scale. Thank God for our scale.
And so, I proceeded to embark on that journey. Thirteen months later, I’d lost 110 pounds and thought I was doing pretty good. I was in my 50s, I was a grandmother, and I was about a size 12 or 14. I figured that was pretty good. From a 26½, I’ll take it. We went away on a vacation. When we were in another country, the only thing that came in addition to the room that you paid a fortune for was breakfast, and there were table after table after table of things. I was able to find things that I thought were healthy or that I could eat and not put on any weight. We were going for three weeks.
But they also had something that I knew from the States was non‑fat. What I didn’t know was that it was laced with sugar. I started eating that, and it got me. It absolutely took over my life. We got back to the States, and all I could do was think about it, dream about it, have it with everything, and without anything. I would go into the big‑box stores and buy 48‑ounce sizes of it and finish it off in three days. It was ridiculous. In a minute, I put on six pounds. It scared the living daylights out of me.
So I called my friend in Miami, who was trying to sell me a 12‑Step food program. I said, “What was the name of that thing again?” They told me, and I called the local people in West Palm Beach and went ahead and got started. That was in August. This August will be 21 years. I’m very blessed. There was somebody doing what we do today whose sister lived in Boston, who was being sponsored by someone with a lot of recovery, and that person was my first sponsor. Unfortunately, they are no longer in the program, but I am, and I’m very grateful. I’m grateful to be here and able to share that with you, because there are so many ways to come into this program, and I was just blessed.
When I would share my story, I used to say, “Well, it was my friend who told me this, who told me that.” It was God. It was God leading me to this situation, having this gentleman tell me about it, putting it in my head to make that phone call.
I had a couple of rough years, a couple of years when I came in. It was very difficult, very hard for me. I would have a few months and then break my abstinence, or I’d have a few weeks, or I’d have a couple of days. This went on. I actually sponsored for 10 days at one point. I never knew what happened to that poor person. That went on for two years. Then I was blessed. I was able to stay abstinent for almost nine years, and I didn’t realize until afterward how I had done nothing but white‑knuckle it for over eight and a half years, holding on for dear life. I didn’t even realize it. I just kept saying to my sponsor, “When am I going to be neutral around the food? I hear people talking about neutrality around the food. What is that? What does that mean? I don’t get it.” And I didn’t.
Then a series of circumstances led me to think that I could line up six cans of a diet soda—sugar‑free—in front of my meal one night, and I proceeded to drink them all. Then, at two o’clock in the morning, I was thinking, “Well, it was a flavored thing, but that flavor comes from a certain bean that could mean I broke my abstinence.” At 2:30 in the morning, I wasn’t thinking too clearly. I wouldn’t have broken my abstinence; I would have been out of my AWOL, but I wouldn’t have broken my abstinence. But then I thought—since, not knowing what I was doing—I had some other abstinent foods in the refrigerator and in the cupboard, and I attacked them. It was all abstinent food, and I ate like there was no tomorrow. That was the beginning of the end for me for a long time.
I actually got back on track, white‑knuckling it for three more weeks. Then it was Mother’s Day weekend, a few weeks later, that I started my journey of one year of total, total not being able to stop eating. It was horrendous. It was the worst thing. It was worse than childbirth. It was the worst pain I have ever been through in my life. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, honest to goodness. I put on about 85 or 90 pounds. I wasn’t keeping track. But the one thing I did do was go to a meeting every single day. I never missed a day. I never did not have a sponsor. They left me, they dropped me right and left, but I always got somebody else. I begged. I just begged people, and I’d always get somebody. They would only keep me so long, and I couldn’t stop eating. People have their own rules and regulations about people who can’t stop eating.
It’s hard for me today to let go of somebody who’s in trouble like that, because I know what I went through. I know how hard it was for me. I sponsor entirely differently today than I did before that. By the grace of God, one year and just a few days went by. I was in total misery and agony. I guess I hit a bottom. I kept praying for a bottom, and I got one—and I got several. By the grace of God, I was able to stop, and this past April made it nine years ago. So I stand before you, a very renewed person. My friend kept saying to me, “You’re going to have some story to tell someday,” and I’d say, “Who cares? Just get me out of this pain.” It was so painful, so painful.
My worst bottom involved that sort of stuff. Nine days out of ten, I would eat on my way to every meeting and on my way home. I could not stop. There was one day I remember. I went to this one sweet place, and I racked up—I went four times to four different ones. They were all around the neighborhood, and I racked up a $45 bill just from that alone. It played havoc with my finances, with my head, with my body, with everything. Everything was horrible.
My very worst moment was when I came back from a meeting. There was one of these places right across the street from this meeting. My car automatically went in. There was no stopping me; there was no “go.” I’d go to the meeting with food all over me, smelling of certain smells that you immediately know are not abstinent food, and I was miserable. People would say to me, “Keep coming to the meetings, because we take one look at you, and we know we never want to go there. You don’t know the service that you’re doing us by coming.”
I left that one meeting one day, and somebody had been yelling at me at the meeting. He was ranting and raving. He had been in the food himself and knew it all and was really giving me a hard time. I went across the street. My car could not miss it; it had to go into this place. I went in, and I ordered quite a bit of stuff, with a cup of something I shouldn’t have, with all kinds of things in it that I shouldn’t have, and sat down. As a food addict, you know what you like and what you want, and if it’s wrong, you can let them know. “That’s not what I ordered.” So, I told her, and I said, “Here, take some of these back.” She said, “Oh, that’s okay. Just keep them, just keep them. I’ll give you more.”
Oh my God. I had enough for five people, and I sat there and I ate all of it, with tears running down my face. I couldn’t not eat it. There was a garbage can across the room, and I kept looking at that garbage can, praying, “Please, God, let me throw it away.” I couldn’t do it. I had to eat it. The food just really, really owned me. It was a horrendous experience, but that was definitely my worst bottom. By the grace of God, a few weeks later, He gave me the gift. My friend kept saying, “You’ll have some wonderful story to tell someday.” I said, “No, no.” But I am so grateful. My whole life changed from that. Everything about my connection with God is so much stronger today. I sponsor differently. Everything in my life has changed. My relationships with my children are changing. I think they still see me way back when, but I feel it. They may not see it; they may not understand it. I understand that I’m a different person today, and I’m very grateful for that.
This program has given me—on a little sheet of paper, we were asked to “tell about your experience and how you live your life with FA.” FA is my life. I don’t stop and think about things; it’s who I am, it’s what I do, it’s how I live my life today. I’m so grateful because I have such peace most of the time. I’m human, and people—especially family—will get to me every now and then. Thank God for sponsors. Thank God for fellowship. In our area, we have a lot of recovery, and I’m very grateful that there are many people I can go to and unload on and say, “Help me with this, help me with that.”
What I really want to let you know is that there is so much hope in this recovery. Nothing else worked. All my life, I battled this disease. I didn’t know it was food addiction; I just knew that I couldn’t stop eating. I did everything you can think of—all the different liquid diets and then all the other diet programs. I went to a doctor for different things. I tried them all because I was just so miserable all the time. I got very, very, very depressed one time, too. It showed with my children. They did not deserve the mother they had all those years. Thank God they came out okay, because I guess they had the father I had all those years. Thank God they are wonderful and productive human beings today and are raising beautiful children.
I don’t know how I was blessed to come into these rooms. I don’t know how I was blessed to have the fellowship I have, to have all of you to talk to, to mingle with, to come to these conventions. I’m just so grateful for the life that I’ve been led to.
I have other addictions. Control is an addiction of mine. Shopping is an addiction of mine, and I have ways of trying to work with those as well. I have my systems that I try to put in place. It’s all because I don’t eat, because if I were in the food, I wouldn’t care about these things, and I didn’t care about these other things. I had no self‑worth either. I can remember when I was heavy, I would go into a store and never leave without asking, “If my husband doesn’t like this dress or outfit or whatever it is, can I bring it back?” I would go to him, and I would have to try it on first thing and say, “Okay, what do you think?” He’d give me an opinion. If he liked it, I’d keep it; if he didn’t, I took it back, because I had no sense of what I liked or didn’t like.
As things evolved, I can remember his saying to me, “You walked in the house with all these bags of new stuff, and you didn’t even try it on for me.” I said, “I know. You’ll see it when I wear it.” That was a huge change in my life, huge.
There was a situation where my husband was sick for many years. He was quite a bit older—17 years older than me—and he did pass away three and a half years ago. I was a caretaker, and my fellowship was wonderful. They brought meetings to my house when I couldn’t leave. I was co‑leading an AWOL, and I remember that I got a call from the person who was watching him one evening saying, “You’d better get home; this is going on.” I had to leave the AWOL right from the front of the room. I felt terrible having to leave. But this program has given me a sense of purpose, a sense of well‑being. It has given me all the things I missed growing up. I missed out on how to live my life. I didn’t know. I didn’t have very good teachers either. My mother, unfortunately, as I look back now, was filled with fear, doubt, and insecurity—filled with it—and she passed that on. My father was a sickly man. He died when I was 23; he was 49. My mother and my sister died when I was 33; my sister was 29. So I had a lot of loss in my life and didn’t know how to handle that either. I just did not know how to handle life.
I am so grateful for sponsors who lead, for sponsors who guide and help, and for fellowship everywhere, because my friend says FA is like having a Yellow Pages; anytime you need something, there’s somebody who has that same situation or has been through it, or who can help you, and that’s the person you can pick up the phone and get help from at any time you want.
I love these conventions. I have had to miss three, unfortunately, as time has gone on, for family things that were at the same time. But other than that, this is such an infusion for me—to come and mingle and be with everyone, and meet people I’ve only spoken with on the phone, and get to see them face to face, and to meet old friends. You’ll notice that I’m having a real hard time with names today. I just can’t remember people’s names anymore. I am 73, so there’s a little bit of “it’s allowed.” It’s allowed.
I am on chemo for the multiple myeloma, but it’s a little pill I take 21 days on and seven days off, and my only—thank God, my only—reaction from that is I get a little tired in the afternoon. That’s all. So I lie down for a little while, and that’s it, and I’m done. Sometimes I don’t get a chance to lie down. I’m still done, and I go on with my day, and I go on with my life. It’s a full life, and it’s a wonderful life.
I’m blessed with wonderful neighbors. When my husband was very, very sick, he asked the neighbor next door to please look after me. I didn’t find this out until a few months ago, because I kept thanking him and thanking him for doing this and doing that. Every little thing, I’d call him up and say, “I need help,” and he’d come, because I’m living in the same house I’ve lived in for 47 years. I thanked him, and he said, “Don’t thank me. Jim asked me to look after you.” That was the first I’d heard of that. So I’ve been blessed through my lifetime. I have truly been blessed. How God led me to this wonderful group, I don’t know, and I’m not questioning it. I’m just grateful. And what can I talk about some more, trying to keep it brief?
Giving service in our area is very, very important, and I’m sure it’s important wherever we go. I’ve been blessed. That’s one of the things I learned early on: give service, show up, do for someone else, give of yourself, your time. I think the Big Book has a whole section on it. The 24‑Hour‑a‑Day book talks about it all the time, and that is such a blessing to me.
I can remember one time, at five‑something in the morning, driving down the superhighway, going to pick up somebody an hour away, taking them to a hospital another 45 minutes to an hour away, and thinking, “What am I doing? It’s pitch dark out, and I’m here, and I’m driving all this way, and I’m taking them. Oh my gosh.” And you know what? I got there. I got them there. There was so much gratitude. I stayed there with them while they had their surgery, and I was so grateful at the end of the day that I had done that. That’s what this program teaches us: giving service, getting out of ourselves, doing for someone else, not being so self‑focused. For me, it was all about me. I was miserable, so it was all about me because of my misery. Today, I try to understand the other person, to really try to understand them. I didn’t have the capacity to understand anybody when I was miserable myself and so into myself.
So I give service by co‑leading AWOLs. I give service by showing up for different meetings and taking positions there. I give service by just answering the telephone. I try to do that. It’s hard; sometimes I get behind, but I do the best I can with that.
This program has given me, truly, a life second to none—truly. I have a friend who would say, “If I can just paint you a picture of recovery…” and I can’t. You can’t paint that picture, but you can try to live it. I’m trying to live the recovery that God has put in front of me. All I have to do is say, “Show me the way. Just show me where I need to go. Tell me what I need to do next.” These are my prayers: “How can I help the next person? How can I be of service? How can I get out of myself, get out of my self‑centeredness? How can I get rid of some of my defects?” I want to get rid of all of them, but I’m not going to be picky about it—just get rid of as many as I can, and for as long as I can, because that’s an ongoing process for me. The defects kind of come up and hit you in the tushy every now and then.
I’m just so grateful that FA has given me such a blueprint for living. When I’m doing the things that are suggested and doing what other people ask of me, then my life is just beautiful, wonderful, terrific, and I go to bed with a smile on my face. I’ve gotten to the point where not only do I read two pages of the Big Book, but now I read two pages of the FA book every night, too. That’s my second time around. I’m almost finished with the second time around. When I picked it up last year at the conference, I had it almost completely read by the time I got home. I couldn’t wait for that book. I love it, and I love all the literature, and I love the people in this program. I have just a lov for all of you. I don’t know—I can’t even describe it. The person that I was 21 years ago is so different from the person I am today.
If I can love myself, then I can love someone else. If I can remember that God loves all of His children and I am a child of God, then I can remember that I am loved, loving, and lovable, and that is something that I really fought. I didn’t think that was possible. I really didn’t. I was so unloving to myself, and I felt that way toward others.
So I just thank you all for coming, and just remember: I don’t eat, no matter what. No matter what, I don’t eat. Thanks.
Please join me in a moment of silence and the Serenity Prayer.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.