Hello, welcome to the qualification meeting. I am a food addict from California, and I am your leader for this hour. After a moment of silence, will you please join me in the Serenity Prayer? God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
So, I’m from California and really happy to be here. I am definitely a food addict. I definitely qualify as a food addict, and I will tell you a little bit about myself, what it was like, and what it’s like now.
I come from Massachusetts originally. I now live, I’ve been in California for about 35 years, and I’m originally from a small New England town, and food was my primary drug. I ran from myself by eating food. I was always looking for something out there, further beyond me, and my head was always spinning. I was a very unhappy child. I didn’t think I fit in anywhere I went. I didn’t fit in with my family. I thought I was adopted.
I remember my mom showing me my birth certificate, and I still didn’t believe it. And I looked just like my mom, but I thought she just picked a good kid who looked like her. But I was just so different from my family. And sitting with all that unease and that sensitivity and that just not feeling a part of, I had to do something. I had to take myself outside of myself because the feelings were so strong. I chased food because I ran from my fear, from my insecurity. I ran from not knowing how to live in the world. So food was something that sedated me and kept me comfortable. I come from a family of six. I have five siblings, four sisters and a brother. Everyone else seemed to be normal.
And I always felt like I wasn’t. I didn’t fit in. What’s wrong with me? I remember having that first taste of food when I felt that peace and that calm. I was very sensitive. I still am a very sensitive person, but it doesn’t show up like it used to. And I was very sensitive. And when I ate, I felt better. I distinctly remember having that feeling: this is the solution. This is the solution to my problem, and if I have a feeling, I’ll eat. So I did a lot of eating out of emotions, and I was not a big child. I did a lot of sports and athletic things, so my weight didn’t show up, but I was always seeking food. My dad was a merchant seaman, and he was gone a lot, and my mom was taking care of the six of us.
And I used to have the opportunity to go shopping with my mom. And I would do it because I wanted to get the food I wanted. And I knew that if I went, I could get everything I wanted. I knew I could strategically line it up on the conveyor belt where most of what I wanted would go into one bag. My mom did the shopping once a month, when my dad would send money home. And it was this big grocery shop, and I would remember keeping my eye on that bag so that when I got home, I knew just where to go to get what I needed, and I didn’t have to wait for my mom to put everything up. That bag stayed near me. And once I got that, I was satisfied. Once I got that feeling of, “Okay, I can be in the world now.” Without the food, I felt naked. And the food was the symptom. It was a solution to my problem. My problem was that I just didn’t know how to be in the world. I didn’t know how to live life, and I didn’t feel comfortable doing it.
So I would do the shopping with my mom, often to get what I wanted. And my mom was never the type who would monitor the food and say, “You can only have this much, you can have that much.” She would bring it home, put it out, and say, “Here it is, when it’s gone, it’s gone.” And that’s what started my worry, because now I’m worrying about my other siblings getting it before me. I’m worried there’s not going to be enough for me. I’m worried about who’s going to get the last and how I’m going to make that happen. And so I would stay close to the house, because at the end of the month, we ate whatever we could until the check came again. But when that food was there, I would stay around the house because I had to have it, and I didn’t know what the feeling was going to be like if I didn’t get the last of it.
So I would stay around the house. My mom was a good cook, having six of us. My baby sister had mental development problems, so my mom spent a lot of time focusing on her. So we didn’t get the attention, at least I didn’t get the attention that I needed.
And I knew that the food gave me that comfort. So when I spent the time eating, I would feel safe. I would feel taken care of through the food. So we would eat whatever it was. I was always lurking. I was always trying to make sure no one was getting it before me. And any other time when there was no food, I was gone. I used to be all over the town, running around, doing things. And when it came time for dinner, my mother served dinner at a certain time. It wasn’t like you could come in and eat whatever there was. Dinner was at this specific time. You ate, dishes got done, floor got swept, and lights were out, and that was it. And I couldn’t think of not having that dinner. So I would stay near the house for that meal. I had an aunt who used to serve dinner with her family later than mine.
And I used to ask my mom, why can’t we eat like that? And my mom used to say, “No, that’s not how I do it in my house.” But then I got this brilliant idea. I could eat at home and then go to Aunt Jenny’s and have another dinner there. And I thought that was brilliant. I wasn’t aware of having a problem with food. I just knew that it helped me, and I wanted it. So I would go over Aunt Jenny’s and eat dinner. And they knew, because they knew how my mom was, how she was running her household. So when I would get there, they would tease me and call me greedy, and I didn’t care. As long as I got my food, say what you want, just show me where the food is. And it never bothered me. I was not the type to run around going to different stores because I was ashamed of being at that store so many times and getting food. I didn’t think like that. I just thought, I need this, I have to have it, and that’s what I’m going to do. My siblings didn’t seem to be into the food as much as I was. I was known, and that was the way I got attention, too, because my mom would always say, “She’ll eat it all. She’s not fussy, she’s not picky, she’ll eat it all.” And so that’s how I got attention and recognition.
I don’t even know if I liked everything that was served, but because I got acknowledged and felt special and different than everyone else, I would always make sure that I ate my food and everybody else’s food to show my mom how appreciative I was. What I know now is that I was feeding that desire to eat. And I did that for a long time.
I left the little town I lived in and moved to a bigger town, because the town just got too small for me. I felt like everybody knew too much about me and my business, and it was time for me to move on. And I also want to say that, along with all the worry, I had my two youngest sisters. I am the second oldest. And I felt like it was my responsibility to take care of my siblings because my older sister was not going to do it. She was not taking that responsibility. She made it very clear. And I felt like that was my job. And I was always fearful that I was going to fail at that job, that something was going to happen to my siblings, and it’s going to be my fault. And so for me to be in the world with that much intensity, I knew that I had to do something. I remember I used to look for my siblings when they weren’t home, knocking at people’s doors and crying.
And when I would get them, I’d want to beat them up. I was so happy I found them, and I could relax then. So I was always tense. And my baby sister, I took care of her, and I was so defensive of her that when people would look at her because of her disabilities, I would be angry and upset and hurt. And so I would take her in and take care of her. And then at some point my mom had to put her in a school for mentally ill children, and that was very painful for me. I felt like she was taken away from me, and I felt like I wasn’t doing my job, because if I did a good job, she could stay, and that didn’t happen. So I felt like it was my fault, which brought me more into the food and took me more away from my family.
I started isolating from my family, isolating in the food. I got married when I was 15 years old. And when I was 16, I had two children. And I remember my mom, of course, she did not want me to get married. I was adamant, I was pregnant, and I wanted to get married. Being 15, I had to get permission from a judge and my parents. So while I wanted to get married, I couldn’t understand why my parents would let me get married. If that makes any sense. It’s like, how could they do this to me? And they’re giving me what I want, you know, what is that? So it’s always been complicated, and, you know, 16 years old, I’m sitting with two children.
I didn’t know how to be a parent. I didn’t know how to take care of myself, never mind my children. And it was really a downhill process from then. I started seeking men, just that comfort. The food stopped working as it had in the beginning, and I had to go to something else. And so I started seeking out men and got involved in a lot of different things that cost me a big portion of my life. I was incarcerated for a long period of time and taken away from my children, and my mother‑in‑law raised them, and that was very painful. It was very painful to have to live that life, and while I was incarcerated, the only thing that was there to take that feeling away was the food.
And I would just delve into it because I did not want to feel. I thought that if I felt that I would die. I actually believed that if I allowed myself to have feelings, I would die. And so whatever it was that took me away from having those feelings was where I would be. And so I did my time in incarceration here in Massachusetts, and got my children back as soon as I got out, and I was so grateful for my mother‑in‑law, who was willing to give them back to me. And I never once thanked her. I never even thought. It wasn’t like I’m not going to purposely thank her, I just never, that never occurred to me that I should thank this woman for the gift she’d given me. And the reason why I’m saying this is, and I’ll get to it later, but I ended up giving a gift similar to what my mother‑in‑law had given to me.
And so I got my children. Again, I still didn’t know how to be a parent. We grew up together is what happened. My children and I grew up together, but I always had something. It was always something in my body, something taking me outside of myself, something to try to… and I was never comfortable. Even when I was doing what I was doing, I wasn’t comfortable.
But I was looking for something that was going to take it off, take that edge off. I think food was my first antidepressant. It was like, this is going to help me be in the world as uncomfortable as I was. So I continued to eat, to try to raise my two children. My mom was not… my mom was the “you made your bed, you lie in it,” and that’s your choice, and you have to live with it. And she was still raising the last two of her children. So she wasn’t able to be there for me in that way. It was very difficult. It was a very hard life that I just didn’t know how to get out of. I never thought happiness would be a part of my life. I never thought that I would live a life of not putting anything in my body. I just couldn’t conceive that happening.
I remember when my children used to come and visit me, and when they would leave, I just thought I was going to die. And I would run to the food. I would run to eat so that I could stuff that feeling. And I would still have them, but I thought they weren’t as bad if I didn’t have the food. So I was incarcerated for seven years, and when I got out, I continued to just try to do life. I did get some skills there. I learned how to type. I spent a lot of time typing. I was really like, I don’t know, 85, 90 words a minute. That’s all I had. That’s all I could do. But it got me a job. I got out, and I got a job.
I was working in Boston in housing development, and I started to get a little glimmer of hope, but I didn’t think it was going to get better than that. I saw some changes; my life got better, but I didn’t think it’d be better than that. So I came to California, and I came here with the hope that I would find another life, that something else would happen. I was the one who… I often say that my first drug of choice was fantasizing. I often fantasized. I remember when we were kids, we had a swing set in the backyard, and I would swing and just pump as high as I could and fantasize this other life. And I was really, you know, seven, eight years old, and I was fantasizing about another life. And so that’s where I was able to get away and see that things could get better. There’s a possibility. But when I got to that level of getting a job, I thought, this is as good as it gets. This is as good as it gets.
I came to California, and there was a lot of political stuff happening at that time. I didn’t come to live. I came to visit, and I fell in love with all that was happening in the town I’m in, in California. And I wanted to come back. So I went home, and I came back ten years later, and none of that was happening. And I’m like, where are they? And none of that was out there. And I’m like, well, “I’m here, let me settle in and start making a life.” One of the things I think I was fortunate to have is drive. I was not going to let anybody keep me down. I had that “I’m going to do something.”
So I got jobs, relatively good jobs. For someone who… I mean, I didn’t finish junior high school. I didn’t go to high school. Junior high school was where I stopped. When I had my daughter, you couldn’t go to school at that time and be pregnant. So I had to leave school, and that was in junior high school. But I knew how to teach myself things. I knew how to say what I needed to get over, to get me where I needed to get, and then I’m a quick learner. I’ll learn how to do it. And that’s what I did when I got here in California. So I got some pretty good jobs, but I was still chasing. I was chasing other things besides food. I got caught up in a lot of other addictions, and I decided that I was going to drop the other addiction. I mean, it was after many, many years. I stopped doing that, and the food continued. The food got even stronger because I dropped whatever the other things were that I was doing. And so the food became really prevalent.
I remember one day at work, and this woman I supervised was losing weight. And I was like… I’m international, I know. I haven’t done all the fad diets, but I would do the ones that look like I’m eating healthy, hoping I’m going to lose weight. But I don’t have to… if I tell you I’m on a diet, then you’re going to expect me to lose weight. But if I tell you I’m doing this, then there’s no weight loss associated with it. But what a nice California healthy thing to do.
And so that’s what I would do. It’s like, I’m doing this, this, and this, but I’m hoping that I’m going to lose weight. My ulterior motive was always to lose weight. But I disguised it with these different kinds of things that I would do. And I’ve often said that there was nothing wrong with all those different ways of doing it. It just didn’t work for me, being the food addict that I am. And it was another place for me to hide. And so I did all those things, hoping to lose weight. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t.
And I noticed I had international days of eating. Every day, like seven days a week, living in California, one day it was this international food, the next day, Monday was this, Tuesday was that. All these international foods. And they knew me well. That’s all I would do, go to restaurants. I didn’t cook for a long period of time. I just go to these restaurants and eat. That was my motivation. I was so depressed and so down that my motivation for getting up in the morning was, “What am I going to get for breakfast?” Like that’s going to excite me, so I can get up tomorrow to go to work. And it didn’t matter if I was late. It didn’t matter. I was going to stop and get that breakfast. And I’d be getting the breakfast on the way to get the breakfast, and I’m already thinking, what am I going to have for lunch? And then, what am I going to have for dinner? And it’s always restaurants, it’s always spinning. They were my family. I would call there and order the food, and they would say, “Oh, hi,” and say my name, and I’d be like, “Hi,” and feel like, yeah, they know me. I had a relationship with the restaurants.
I’d go home, and most of the time I would take food to go because I didn’t want people to see how I was eating. I didn’t want people to think that I might have had some kind of relationship with food. So I’d take it home, and I’d eat it, and sometimes it was enough for two or three people, and they didn’t know. I was never the kind to make them think I’m having a party or anything, just give me my food and thank you very much, here’s your money. So it never bothered me to think what people might be thinking of me. And it probably did, but I was so angry at the world and myself that I didn’t even want to think about those things. So I would stop and get my food.
I noticed a co‑worker was losing weight. And I thought, this is interesting because, you know, I’m international and she’s losing weight. And I asked her what she was doing, and she told me about FA. And I looked at the website, and that’s where I had hope. When I saw that it was a 12‑step program, I got hope, because I know 12‑step programs work. I had been in another 12‑step program, and I had used experience from that 12‑step program to the day that I came in here. So I knew that this was a program of hope, and I knew that it worked. I wasn’t sure if I was willing. I don’t know that I was willing, but I wanted to. I was tired. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was tired of the pain. I was tired of the losing and gaining. I was tired of food controlling my thoughts. I knew I was tired, but I didn’t know if I could do whatever it called for. So I came. I went to a meeting, and right away I felt at home.
I had hope when I saw it was a 12‑step program, and got here and felt like this could be it. But I was doing a whole lot of other things, don’t you know, and I’m too busy to do this, and I’ll come back one day. But it didn’t work out that way. At that first meeting, I got my sponsor. And I’ve been in the program ever since. I never walked away. I’ve gotten so much. I hear people say we got our life back. I never had a life. I never had a life. I got a life here. I got a higher power in my life. I had people who cared about me. I got friends. I have acquaintances. I got a lot of things that I never had.
And so it didn’t give me a life back, it gave me a life. Consequently, having had my children when I was 15 and 16, I have grandchildren and great‑grandchildren. And what a journey. And that’s why I’m saying what my mother‑in‑law did for me, I’m able to do for my great‑grandchildren. I’m able to play with them and really be in their lives and care for them.
I bought a home last year, and that’s something I never thought would happen. And the reason why I didn’t think that would happen is that I just didn’t think anything good could happen for me. I just thought, yeah, that’ll happen for you and you, and it would never happen for me. So I was always the type, as I hid in those certain types of ways of eating that I did, I hid in my fear of, I don’t want to own a home. Who wants to own a home? Why would you want to own a home? You don’t really own it; the bank owns it. And anyway, I like telling my landlord this broke down instead of having to fix it. So I found all the legitimate reasons not to buy a home, but it was really the fear. And that was the base of my life. The base of my life was fear as a very fearful child.
And I was afraid that it couldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen to me. But it did. And I limited myself. I wanted to take in my granddaughter and her two children and help them. And I remember the first house I went to. Now, mind you, I went to look at a house with no money. I had no money. One day, I just said, I want a house. I don’t know. And I went and looked at this house, and they had a little man cave downstairs, and I thought, “Oh, this is perfect. My granddaughter and the kids could live here.” And my higher power said, “No, I’ve got something better for you.” So I looked at another house, and then I looked at another one that had a cottage in the back; a separate cottage. And I was like, this is even better. And I got that house. I put a bid in for that house, and 31 days later, I had the key to the house. I just could not believe it when people were saying, “Oh, it’ll be months, you’ll go through all this.” It was not that way, and I can tell that was driven by my higher power. So I was able to give—my granddaughter doesn’t live there anymore—but I was able to give back to them what my mother‑in‑law had given and done for me. And I’m able to do that for my family because I don’t have to hide out behind closed curtains, and I don’t have to hide out in my room and eat, and I don’t have to not be over their house for certain holidays because I don’t want to keep eating all the food that’s put out there. They have seen my life change. And I have a son and a daughter, and my daughter is almost… I think next year she’ll be 50. And they love me.
They’ve seen my life transform. They’ve seen what this program has done for me. And I just, I didn’t think it was possible. I really didn’t. I thought that I was just going to trudge along in life. Hopefully, every once in a while, I might get a windfall. Maybe something good would happen. Maybe not. But I was always going to suffer. I thought there was always going to be suffering in my life. And the food continued the suffering process for me.
Once I was able to put the food down and start doing this program, I was so grateful when my sponsor told me that I needed to go to three meetings a week. I mean, it was not like I got this busy life where I can’t do it. I was so tired of going to work and going home and going to bed with my food and getting up in the morning and doing the same thing that when I had some place to go, I was like, thank you. I’ll be there three days a week. I didn’t even want to fight. I couldn’t even say I was busy because that was not my story. I am a lazy food addict, and I didn’t have friends. I had one friend, and that was it. So my life wasn’t built around all these activities, and I was grateful to be able to come to FA three times a week.
My mom and dad lived in Mexico for a while. My mom and dad are both, God bless them, they’re both alive. They’re both 89 years old, still married. And so there are five generations in my family. My mom and dad were living in Mexico. And I remember we had a family reunion out there. This is before Program. And I went to this family reunion. I tried to control everybody’s life. Like we all went to Mexico to have this big family reunion, and I wanted to tell everybody what to do. And I believe the only reason they let me be there is because I’m family. Because I know they wanted to say, “She’s got to go.” And I just tried to control everybody. It was horrible. It was a horrible time, and it was horrible for me.
My parents now live in Texas. I’ve been to visit a couple of times, but I went to visit them this one time, and right away, my mom saw the difference in me. She said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but whatever it is, keep doing it. Keep doing it.” Because she saw that inside, things had changed inside for me. She thought I was calmer and gentler. And the only reason I could be that way is that you all were just a phone call away. When I felt it coming on, I could call. I had someone to talk to. I didn’t have to walk through it by myself. My mom was just really proud of me. And to add to that, the home I bought, my mom gave me the money to buy it. And I know there was a time she would not have given me a dime. She would not. She was like, “No, I’m not going to give you my money because you’re only going to throw it away.” And when I told her I wanted to buy this home, I said, “I love my apartment, don’t have to have it, but if you’re willing to do that,” and she said, “Yes.” She said, “I want to see what you do with the money I have for you.” And she gave me the money, and that was not the relationship we had.
I talk to my mother constantly now. We have great conversations. In the past, I used to just want to hang up. I never wanted to talk to her. It was always an argument. And now we’re like, I am so much like her, it’s unbelievable. And we have these great conversations, and she calls me and tells me things that she has not told any of my siblings because she trusts me. And that all happened since I’ve been in this program. That did not happen before this. So I am grateful for the people that I’ve had in my life, the people that are in my life. I’m grateful for the love that I get here. I’m grateful for service. I never thought about service or doing anything for anybody. I was so self‑absorbed that I couldn’t think of what I could do for you. It was like, “What can you do for me? What can you give me?” And I came into this program, and I did a little bit of service, and it felt good. I got outside of myself, and it feels good, and I continue to do that.
I love doing service. I love sponsoring. I love being with people we can talk to and really get to the core of what’s going on, not just the surface. I spend a lot of time thinking about this program. I have a job now. I’m actually a program director of a program for women substance users who are coming into the program looking…some for recovery, others not. But I’m working with people who have master’s and PhDs, and they’re talking to me and asking me questions about addiction, about looking at that side of it, and I’ve been working on this for a long time. I love the women I work with, and I love my staff. It’s all women’s staff and all women in the program, and we get to really care about people. I get to really care about people, and it’s because I can care about myself now. In the past, I could not care about myself, so I couldn’t care about anyone else. So yeah, I’m grateful for this program. I could never do enough for all that this program has given me. Thank you.
Would you please join me in a moment of silence and the Serenity Prayer?
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.