Looking back on my recovery in FA, I came in in May of 2003. I was 35 years old. My top weight was 420 pounds. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew I needed help. I never knew there was help like this out here.
Before FA, I never tried diets. I didn’t come from a dieting program. I didn’t come from a 12-Step program. All I did was exercise. I didn’t even know I was a food addict. I didn’t know what that was. All I knew was that I was grossly overweight and I needed help.
My life before FA: I always struggled with my weight. Ever since I was a kid, going back to around age seven, I would do things like eat an entire loaf of bread on the bus ride home from a field trip. That’s one of my earliest memories of how I ate.
Let me go back and give you my family dynamic. I’m from Valdosta, Georgia, which is a small town. Valdosta is known for truck stops and lots of places to eat, and I used to visit them all the time. I was also a military brat. My father was a sergeant in the Army. My mother was a good cook. I had a younger sister who was one year younger than me. We got to see the world — Germany, Italy, Amsterdam, Rome, and a lot of places around the States. It was good to see a lot of culture, but there was also a lot of instability. I was always trying to fit in. That was part of my life story: always trying to fit in.
Another part of my disease is that I was an early isolator. I’m good at making friends, but when it came to being present and genuinely sharing myself, I wasn’t good at that. I look back and I think it came from a lot of fear, doubt, and insecurity.
God bless my dad — he was working with what he had — but my father was a rageaholic. I don’t think he was a food addict. He never had a relationship with food like I had. He was a soldier. He ate like a soldier. He ate what he needed. Me, when it came to food, I ate until I was satisfied, and it took a lot to satisfy me.
My sister was the “skinny mini.” She would eat and then leave food on her plate. I thought that was absolutely ridiculous. How do you just leave food on your plate? I’d say, “You’re not eating that? Then let me eat that.”
Early on, food was my answer to everything. If I had a headache, the answer was food. “You’ve got to feed your headache.” If I had a cold, I needed something warm to eat. If I was sad, I went to the food. If I had something to celebrate, I went to the food.
My disease progressed over the years. Around age seven, I was wearing “Husky” sized pants. This was back in the 70s. My thighs would rub together and wear holes in my pants, and my mother would have to put iron-on patches there. It was embarrassing. The chafing was embarrassing too.
It was a progressive disease, but I never got into diets. My father tried to act like the “diet policeman.” He would always tell me about my weight. He was very physically and mentally abusive to the family. I think that’s where the fear, doubt, and insecurity started. But even with that, my first reaction was still always to go to the food.
I used to want to blame my father for my disease, but the truth is he was only a catalyst. Even if my father had been more gentle, I probably still would have eaten the way I ate. I absolutely loved food. My mother was a great cook, and I was a very good recipient of that.
Eventually we settled back in Valdosta, and then my dad got orders to move to California. I thought maybe a geographic change would fix me. When I thought of California, I thought of “health-conscious California.” I thought, maybe this is where I’ll finally do something about my weight.
We moved to California and I saw all these people jogging and biking. But for me, I didn’t take to any of that. What I did take to was the restaurants. So many different kinds of restaurants. I went right to them.
I started gaining weight and kept gaining. I told myself, “If I get to 200 pounds, I’ll do something about my weight.” Eventually I got there, because I had no answer. Then after I crossed 200, my ambition turned to despair. I just threw out the scale and sentenced myself to being fat for the rest of my life.
I kept gaining. I was an active kid — I played baseball, basketball, football — and I was good at those sports, but I still had this addiction to food. I can remember working out and then telling myself, “Okay, I need to replenish what I just worked off.” And what’s always around the gym? Food places. And that’s where I’d go.
When it came to food, I would go to any lengths to get it. I remember there was a restaurant I really liked, but it wasn’t in San Francisco. I drove over the bridge to get there. When I got there, it was closed. A normal person would turn around and go home. But not me. I knew there was another location in another city, so I drove to that one. When I finally got there, I made sure I got enough so I wouldn’t have to drive that far again for a while. That was how I operated with food.
Eventually, my mother and father got divorced. That was a tough time because I wanted the family to stay together. I hated that we split up. But at the same time, I thought, “Well, at least I don’t have the food police around me anymore.” My dad was gone, and I could finally eat how I wanted to.
My mother was a very hard worker. She was a good cook, and she used to work two, sometimes three jobs to keep us going. I don’t think I was ever hungry. I don’t even think I had time to be hungry. My mother would fix dinners. Then I’d go to school and eat more. Food was everywhere for me. I think I was both a grazer and a binger and I didn’t even know it. I was an equal-opportunity food addict. It could be gourmet food, or it could be junk. It didn’t matter. I loved it.
Years went on. I went to college. I like to think of those as my depressing years. I went to college, but I didn’t get the “college experience.” I was a smart kid. I made good grades. I excelled in band — music was one of my saving graces. But other than that, I didn’t feel alive.
People would say, “Let’s go out. Let’s go to the bonfire. Let’s go to this party or that party,” and I’d say no. Part of it was I had this body image that nobody wanted to see me. I just felt despair. I never thought much of myself, especially when it came to relationships. I didn’t know how to date women. I didn’t know how to relate. I just white-knuckled it for years and never talked about it.
I never liked asking for help.
Eventually I graduated from college, but I just kept getting heavier and heavier. It was constant weight gain. Then we went to a family reunion and my mother passed away. That was one of the darkest days of my life.
How did I respond? I ate. People wanted me to talk about it. They offered to help me see a psychiatrist. I didn’t want help. I always wanted to be the one who figured it out. I didn’t want to ask.
After my mother’s death, I was introduced to the program. I found FA through my boss. My boss was doing the program. He’d been around 300-something pounds, and he was losing weight. At first I thought he was on some fad diet. I never asked him what he was doing. He ended up losing all his weight. Then he left FA for a little bit and gained some of it back. Then he came back to FA and lost it again. He was down to his goal weight.
One day he came to me and told me about the program. I said, “Yeah, it looks like you’re losing a lot of weight. What are you doing?” He said, “I’m in a 12-Step program.” I had a pessimistic view of 12-Step programs. I had never been in one, but I had friends who went and it “didn’t work” for them. What I later learned is that it didn’t work for them because they didn’t work it.
I said, “Okay, forget the 12 Steps part for a second. What do you eat?” He said, “I eat fruits, vegetables, and protein, and I abstain from flour and sugar.” I said, “Flour and sugar?” He said yes. I said, “You don’t eat any?” He said no. I told him, “Okay, well, you just keep doing what you’re doing,” because I never thought I could abstain from flour and sugar. But the seed was planted. I thought, “Okay, maybe I can give up flour.” So I tried it my way for six more months. Of course, it did not work.
Everything got worse. I didn’t have diabetes or other major conditions, but I had bad knees, a bad back, and sleep apnea. I knew I had sleep apnea, but I never went to a doctor to get it diagnosed. That’s the insanity in my head. I know I’m sick, but I don’t want to do the work to fix it.
Eventually I got to the gift of desperation. I found myself going to the refrigerator for that fourth bowl of that frozen stuff. That’s when it hit me. That’s when God spoke to me. God said, “You shouldn’t be eating like this.” I said, “God, yes, I know.” One thing about God — the voice can be soft, but the message is loud as a bell. I said, “I know, God, but how do I stop?” And I heard: “Submit unto Me.”
I said my prayer. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I was walking to work, and my boss was behind me. He said, “How you doing?” I said, “I need some help.” That was the first time I really, truly asked for help with this food addiction.
He said okay, and he gave me the food plan. I remember doing the food plan the first day. At first I was really happy. But after dinner I was so sad. I was thinking about all the stuff I had to get rid of. He told me to get everything out of my closet that wasn’t my food. I threw everything out except that one flour-and-sugar product in the refrigerator, because I was thinking, “If this FA thing doesn’t work out, I’ll have that on tap.”
I started doing the program and I started losing weight. But I didn’t know I belonged until I got into the rooms. I remember going to my first meeting and looking around at all these skinny people and thinking, “You don’t know what I go through. I’m coming in at about 420 pounds and you’re all skinny. You gain five pounds and have a hissy fit.” But God said, “Sit down and listen.”
So I sat and listened to the shares. I related so much. Some people came in with bulimia. Some came in with anorexia. Some were overweight. I related to all of it. I saw that I belonged here.
I also heard that this is a spiritually led program. I did have a Higher Power, but I never knew that God could help me with my weight addiction.
After the meeting we took a break. I was in the back room wanting to be quiet, but people came over and were so friendly. You led me to the literature table. You showed me how to get a sponsor.
Eventually I got a permanent sponsor because my temporary sponsor retired. He left FA and married an Italian cook. To this day I still talk to him, but he gained his weight back and more. I thank him, because he introduced me to the program.
At first I thought I had a weight problem. In FA I found out I had a life problem. That’s what I really needed. I needed to face the issues I never faced. I used food to numb out. I used food to suppress whatever was happening — whatever trauma happened with my father and my mother, I would bury it.
FA teaches me these principles that help me understand my feelings. My first reaction used to be to run away from them. Now I’m facing my fears. Today I am less fearful. I am more clear and more aware.
I used to be shy and introverted. It was hard for me to even get up and read one of the tools. Now I’m an open book. When it came to relationships, I never wanted people to know who I was. Now people know who I am, and I know who they are, and I get to appreciate that. I think of FA as training ground for life. It has given me a whole new life and a whole new outlook. I’m a lot more confident — not in a condescending way, but in a gracious way. I know that I am enough, I have enough, and I do enough. When I face a problem now, instead of shying away from it, I can recognize it and embrace it as an opportunity for growth.
Today my life looks amazing. I used to work as a security guard. I was good at what I did, but the job wasn’t fulfilling. I talked to my sponsor about it, and I was given the courage to pursue what I really wanted. Today I am a financial advisor. I never thought I’d be here. I never thought I was enough to do that. But I’m doing it. It’s been about a year and a half, and it’s been amazing.
For anyone who hasn’t yet heard what they needed to hear: just keep coming back. I’m pretty sure someone will tell your story the way someone told mine.
I’m a miracle. God told me I’d be a miracle in this program. I’m a miracle among miracles. That’s what keeps me coming back. I see newcomers come in and get better. I see people get better. It makes me want to keep getting better too.