I am a food addict from California. I am so grateful to be alive in this body today. I had the honor of eating breakfast with someone yesterday who reminded me how to remember what it was like and why I’m here. So I spent some time this morning in quiet time thinking about what brought me here to FA, and I’m glad that I did, because after being here for about 14 and a half years, you just get used to being in a 120-pound body. You get used to having a job, being able to wake up in the morning, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, flossing your teeth, eating on time, getting along with people, loving your husband, having your kids come to you. That was not my story 14 and a half years ago when I came to FA.
I want to share a little bit of what it was like for me growing up with a very high-strung, very hyperactive, very nervous disposition. I had a lot of fears. I remember feeling as though I didn’t fit in as early as five years old, looking over my shoulder, wondering who was watching me, feeling as though everybody was watching me. I kind of moved through my house thinking and acting as though there were cameras in the walls watching every move I made, waiting for me to make a mistake.
My parents loved us very much, but they had their issues. My father had OCD, the very neat, compulsive type. My mom was on the other end of the spectrum and was a hoarder. My father had areas of the house that belonged to him, and then there was the rest of the house that was filled with piles and roaches and fleas and animals and dirty clothes and garbage. I had a brother and sister, and we walked a fine line of not making anyone angry and staying out of the way, which we did not do a very good job of. I just remember having a lot of anxiety growing up for a number of reasons.
I started feeling as though I didn’t quite fit in body-wise when I was an adolescent and hit puberty. My body started to fill out. I grew up in a very affluent suburb of New York City, and although we were affluent, many of the kids I went to school with were more so. They had names like Biffy and Tippy and Boppy and Kitty, and they wore Brooks Brothers clothes. Preppy was in when I was going to school. We bought our clothes at Caldor’s, which isn’t around anymore, and I always felt less than—the wrong kind of shoes, the wrong kind of clothing. I think that’s when I really started turning to food to feel better, because when I ate, I felt better. I liked having a full tummy and that warm feeling in my chest, and I liked the little numbing glow that came over me when I came home from school full of anxiety and anger about what was going on. I ate the food, and it calmed me down.
In middle school, I was probably about 130 pounds. I’m 120 now, so about 10 pounds more than I am now. I still kind of fit in from the outside world, but inside my mind, I didn’t belong at all. The way I compensated for that was to have a very tough exterior. Having my dukes up was my posture to life. I kept people at bay with my sarcastic tongue, my sharp wit, and my aggressive mannerisms. There was definitely a message: stay away from me. But at the same time, I wanted friends. I wanted to be invited to parties. I wanted a boyfriend. I wanted people to know my name, and I couldn’t get it. The more I couldn’t get it, the more I ate. The more I ate, the worse I felt. The worse I felt, the more aggressive I became. It was just a vicious cycle. I did not fit in at all.
I was good at a couple of things. I was really good at music, and I spoke Spanish and took French, so I was good at languages also. Music helped me feel part of something, because you sit in a band or an orchestra and you’re part of a group. I joined the musicians’ union when I was 13 years old and was playing gigs with my dad. I joined the Army when I was 17 to be in the Army Band. I had been playing with the Army Band since I was 13.
The military suited me very well—very structured, very disciplined. It told you exactly where to be and when to be there. You had 20 minutes to eat, and then you were done. There was rank, there were medals, and there were ways to validate that I was okay on my uniform. But I really struggled to keep the weight off, and there were weight limits in the military. That’s when I started dieting. I exercised compulsively. I would chew my food and spit it out into the garbage without swallowing it. I took laxatives, I fasted, I ate diet food, and I tried diets from books or magazines, or mostly ones I made up myself, but it was always a struggle.
I went to college on a military scholarship and was in the Army at the same time. I had to keep my weight down, and that’s when I started using drugs to keep my weight down. It was a very fine line because they drug-tested you in the military. We knew when we were going to be weighed and when the drug tests were going to happen, so I had to be very careful to balance it all so I didn’t get caught.
I used other things too, like cigarettes or alcohol—things that were legal—to try and keep my weight down. But I was definitely not normal around food. It’s almost as though at that point things got really bad, really fast. I started eating out of the garbage. I would scrounge around late at night in my dorms to find scraps of food left over in the lounges, and I would eat them.
I didn’t have a lot of money, so when I was walking in the streets, if I found cigarettes that were half-smoked, I would pick them up and re-roll them into binder paper and hold it together with a paper clip because I had to have something to help me feel better. I would go out and drink what was left from other people’s drinks if I couldn’t afford alcohol. There wasn’t anything that was off-limits to me.
The funny thing is, I knew it wasn’t normal, but I didn’t feel a lot of shame around it. It’s almost as though the desire to have those things overcame my sense of right behavior. There was part of me that felt very resourceful at two o’clock in the morning collecting cans because it was recycling. I didn’t see it as scroungy behavior at all. Now I do. Don’t get me wrong—recycling is great—but I don’t have to go out at two in the morning digging through garbage cans to get them.
I graduated college, was commissioned, came out to California, and started working as a nurse in a hospital in San Francisco. It wasn’t very long before I was the heaviest nurse there. I was squeezing myself into the biggest uniform the Army made, and I felt shame about that every single day. It wasn’t a secret—everyone else was clearly 20 or 30 pounds less than me—but I tried to pull it off with a tough, competent demeanor. On the job, I knew what I was doing. I had it together. I was in charge. But inside, I was constantly looking over my shoulder, worried I was making a mistake and feeling like a fraud.
When I came to California, I weighed about 140. Within five years, I was at my top weight of 225—in the military. That’s tough to do. They were looking to kick me out because I couldn’t lose the weight. My supervisors loved me. My boss would come to my house at five in the morning to get me to go running with her. She lived about an hour away and drove in just to help me because she didn’t want me to get kicked out. Most people didn’t want me to get kicked out, but I couldn’t do it for myself, and they couldn’t do it for me.
I saw the writing on the wall and resigned my commission. My husband and I bought a little house in a nearby community, and I was going to start all over. We had our first child by then, and I had dreams of the white picket fence—homework at the table, scouts, youth group, a beautiful life. I thought if I could just accept myself as I was, everything would be okay.
I wish I could say that I maintained for a while, but my life got worse, even faster. I had two more children, and by the time I was 35, I was miserable, suicidal. My house was filthy. My husband threatened to divorce me. My children—seven, five, and three—were terrified of me. I yelled all the time. I threw things at the walls.
It got worse when I started drinking by myself at night. The food had stopped working. I couldn’t get relief from eating, and I couldn’t get relief from drinking. That was terrifying. I struggled to make it through the day. I would put my kids in front of the TV, and if they asked me for anything, I felt overwhelmed. If they cried or were bored, I couldn’t cope. I felt like I had failed them, and I didn’t know how to make them happy. I loved my family very much—I just couldn’t show it.
I lost my ability to work after making a couple of minor mistakes that didn’t harm patients but scared me enough that I quit my job, knowing more mistakes would follow. We didn’t have much money, and what we did have, I spent on food. I felt a great deal of shame about that, because my husband worked very hard to support us, and I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I couldn’t stop.
About six months before I came into the program, my father passed away, and that pushed me over the edge. When my kids needed something or were fighting, I’d get so angry I was afraid I might hurt them. I would lock myself in the bathroom and hurt myself—poking myself with forks, pulling my hair, biting my tongue, hitting my head with books. It was very scary.
But somewhere deep down, there was this idea that things could be better. One morning, I was sitting in my room, overwhelmed, eating out of a half-gallon container with a big spoon, with the TV blaring. A preacher said something like, “If you find God, He’ll take care of you.” So I got on my knees and said, “God, help me.”
A couple of weeks later, someone told me about FA. I was amazed that anyone could not eat flour and sugar. I couldn’t believe people weighed and measured three meals a day and didn’t eat in between. It took me a couple of weeks to get to a meeting. I went with my friend, terrified. I didn’t know anything about 12-step recovery, but I had already decided I was going to do it.
At the meeting, I didn’t understand a word that was said. But at the end, I walked down the aisle to a man in the front row, crying, saying, “I need help.” I got a meal plan and started the next day.
At the end of that first day, I went to bed and thought, “Oh my God, I’m abstinent.”
I told my husband I didn’t know what they would ask of me, but I thought this would work, and I would need his help. He said he would support me.
Early recovery wasn’t all a pink cloud. That lasted about a month or two. The first month I lost 24 pounds, then found out I was weighing my food wrong, so things slowed down. I lost 100 pounds in about eight and a half months, and by the grace of God, I’ve kept it off for almost 14 years.
That is the least of the miracles. I’m not standing here ready for a fight. I feel comfortable in my skin most of the time. I have a good relationship with my husband. My house is clean. We’re not in debt. My kids aren’t afraid of me. Life is really good.
It was hard at the beginning to use the tools, especially picking up the phone and calling people I didn’t know. I started at the top of the phone list and worked my way down. My sponsor told me the tools were non-negotiable. Coming from the military, I could follow orders, so I did what I was told—calls, meetings, quiet time.
Quiet time was hard. My mind raced, but I sat there anyway. Over time, it settled.
At meetings, I would set up chairs perfectly aligned with the tiles. It gave me purpose. Reading at the front was terrifying—my hands shook—but I did it anyway.
For the first six months, I felt angrier and angrier. My feelings were coming up, and I didn’t know how to handle them. Through working the steps, especially the fourth step, I learned I couldn’t afford resentment or anger. Making amends helped me see my part and let go of a lot of that anger.
Today, I have a job I love as a school nurse. I connect with people in a way I never could before. My kids rely on me. My daughter, who once pushed me away, now hugs me. She’s 19, and we have a beautiful relationship.
My husband works hard and supports me, and I see now how my recovery has changed the way I show up for him and for everyone in my life.
I love this life, and I’m glad I didn’t miss it. Before FA, I thought my best years were behind me. Now I know they’re ahead.
Thank you for listening to my story. I hope something I said helps someone else.