Up until last year, I would still periodically torture myself by trying to get off my medicine.  I would secretly wean myself down to a very low dose,.. not even telling the doctor who was prescribing it… until it was too late.  Then I would start having the anxiety attacks again, and thinking I was going to die in my sleep, and obsessing about death and dying, and I’d get heart palpitations to the point of forcing me to the emergency room (where they always told me “it’s just anxiety”) – – and then I would have to wait several weeks for the higher dose to kick-in.  And I would always vow that I’d never try to go off it again…until a few months later.  (Now that I think about it, isn’t that the same way I always handled my food problem?)

It has literally taken me DECADES to finally come to terms with the fact that there are just some people, like me, who need anti-depressants – – the same way a diabetic needs insulin.  I am talking about people who use it correctly, here, under close medical supervision.  Over the years, I have been told by many doctors and psychologists that there is nothing to be ashamed of  – – that I have a chemical imbalance that is probably hereditary.

So imagine my shock several months back at hearing someone at a meeting telling the group that being on anti-depressants is the same as being “on drugs,” and that people who take them while in program are “not really clean.”

Are you KIDDING me?!

I had all I could do not to jump up and scream at this person.

First of all, no one should be speaking “at” the group.  In program we are taught to share our OWN experience, and to NOT assume that what is right for us is right for others.  But aside from that, it is COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE for someone in program to make general statements about the taking of ANY type of medications!  Talk about being presumptuous, self-centered, and SELFISH!!  Suppose there was someone in the audience who was suicidal?!  Who is only still alive thanks to this type of medicine?  Maybe they are only able to get to a meeting BECAUSE they are on it!  And maybe their newly-found abstinence or sobriety is the only positive thing in their life right now!  Who has the right to take that away from ANYone?!  EsPECially from someone in such a fragile mental state?!  That important point aside, this doesn’t even begin to address the issue of anyone in the audience (like myself) who may already be battling their own inner demons with respect to this matter.  What good does it do these people to be told that they are failures?!  Clearly this is something people need to resolve FOR THEMSELVES!

Moral of the story?  DO NOT let others in program become a substitute for your doctor, your intuition, or your God!  Listen to God, listen to your body, and listen to the advice of more than one medical professional.

IMPORTANT!!!! 12-Step meetings are NEVER the place to get your medical advice! 

In all my years around program, I never knew until recently (and only after doing my own research on the Internet) that there are two different labels used by mental health professionals to describe abnormal eating behaviors.

Here they are:

Compulsive Overeating.  Those diagnosed as “compulsive overeaters” are people who spend unusual amounts of time obsessing about food, weight,…and grazing – eating many times throughout the days.  Although these people may consume many calories when they are totalled together at the end of the day, they usually do not eat a lot in one sitting.

Binge-Eating Disorder.  Those with this diagnosis regularly eat more than 1000 calories per sitting, do it in a frenzied way (usually reporting feelings of being “out of control”), and have intense guilt and shame around this behavior.

I loved finding these “real” labels because it reinforces in my mind the idea of food addiction being an illness.  But even more amazing to me was finding out that BOTH conditions can exist in the same person at the same time!  Which is the perfect description of MY experience with eating disorders!

I am a Compulsive Overeater with a Binge-Eating Disorder! 

There is a NAME for what I have!  There is a PATTERN to what I do!

To me, it is such a relief to know this!  It means that there are so many “others” out there with the same exact problem as I have that the mental health professionals had to give “us” a name!

Isn’t that comforting?!

It is to me!!

The good news?  This was my bottom.  This is what gave me the courage to come back to program.  I was finally desperate enough to admit defeat and ready to start over.  Well,…almost ready.

For months I sat on that horrible fence between going back to OA and staying away.  I was so mortified by the way I looked that I could not even imagine stepping through the door of my first meeting at that size.  Honestly, there was nothing I wanted to do LESS than go back – – but I was dying…spiritually, emotionally, and physically.  So what choice did I really have?

Finally one night in November of 2009, I decided to look online for a meeting in my area.  I was surprised to see that all of the meetings I used to attend were gone (or at least they were no longer meeting at the same locations), and that frightened me a bit.  But at that moment I was more concerned about keeping away from people I knew in program.  I didn’t want to “be seen.”  I decided to take my chances on a meeting I’d never been to out in the sticks, thinking that I probably wouldn’t know anyone there.

I got to the meeting strategically early so I could watch everyone go in.  See if I recognized anyone.  Then I would decide if I should go in.  I waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  No one ever came.  I suddenly realized that the meeting was not going to happen at all.  I felt panicky.  I hadn’t thought of that!  No matter how badly I didn’t WANT to go to a meeting, the idea that I COULDN’T go to one was far worse!  What if there were NO meetings to go to?!  What would I do?!  I knew that the program would work if I could just get myself into the routine of attending regular meetings, but without those, I knew there was no hope for me!  I went home, discouraged and scared.  I spent the next few days doing some heavy-duty soul-searching.  I came to the conclusion that I really DID want to go to a meeting and that I was going to try again (but not until the same meeting came-up again, of course).

The following week I parked my car and went inside the building, determined to at least find out once and for all if this meeting actually existed.  Low and behold, two people showed-up.  Then another person.  And another.  I didn’t know any of them.  I breathed a silent sigh of relief and immediately felt at home.

For the next 2 months, I attended this weekly discussion meeting and would share on the topic of the day and on the miserable state I was in.  Every day I would binge, and every night I would wonder how I could have done it again!  Then I would show-up at the meeting and say that I REFUSED to stop overeating even though I KNEW that I HAD to!  It was such a torturous place to be.  And week after week, the caring people there just listened and then talked with me afterwards.  There was no judgement, except for the voices in my own mind that kept telling me what a loser I was for not even making an attempt at getting abstinent.  The only thing that I actually DID start to do was to get on my knees every morning and every night and ask my Higher Power for “the willingness to be willing” to stop overeating.  Over the years I had acquired enough program to know that this was my problem – – until I was willing to at least TRY to be abstinent, I was lost.  I was “beyond human aid,” as The Big Book says.  Only God could save me at that point, and I knew it.

One night, after returning home from one of these meetings, the thought came to me that I should try writing-out a food plan for myself.  I was not going to follow it, of course, but if I could pick any way to eat healthy – – any way at all – – what would that be?  I kept this rough draft out on the kitchen table all week and tweaked it between binges.  It was just there, and I worked on it as if it were a school homework assignment.  I felt like I was doing it more out of curiosity to see what I could come-up-with more than anything else.  Best of all, for some strange reason, I felt no emotional attachment to it at all.

By spending so much time looking objectively at my food behaviors over the past 20+ years, I was fianlly able to see that the my biggest problem I’d had with sticking to my food plans of the past always came down to the feeling of deprivation, whether in the amounts of foods or in the elimination of foods.  So my new food plan tried to solve that problem by increasing portion sizes, by giving myself a little leeway within the elimination categories, and by adding snacks.  I knew that, for myself, I needed something that would be easy to adapt to any situation.  If I had learned nothing else, I had at the very least learned that if I was going to lose weight and successfully KEEP it off (which I had never done before), I had to have a plan that I would be willing to follow FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!  Not just when I was losing weight, or when I was trying to impress people, or when things were going my way, or when the weather was nice,…but ALL the time!  I guess it was just my time to finally face this reality…for the first time in my life.

And yet,…

ANOTHER week went by and I did the same thing – made some notes, moved some things around, took out some stuff, added some stuff…but I STILL refused to even TRY to follow it!  I did mention at one meeting what I was doing, but I said it as if it were a joke and that I had no desire whatsoever to even consider trying it out.

Then, out of the blue, at the end of a meeting in the beginning of February 2010, I raised my hand and committed to my group that I was going to start following the food plan I had created, and guess what?  I have been abstinent ever since!  I can tell you that when that happened, it was NOT ME raising my arm!  The thought had not even crossed my mind until that moment.  In fact, I barely knew why my hand went up at all!  You know how sometimes at a meeting you will be wondering if you should raise your hand and say what you are thinking out loud, but you keep stalling?  Well this was NOTHING like that.  This was supernatural.  I wasn’t thinking about trying to follow my food plan AT ALL!  I really believe that it was God answering my prayers.

He knew that I wasn’t going to do it on my own, so He had to do it for me!

Twenty-four years after my first OA meeting, I was at an AA meeting and someone shared about how he’d had another “drunk dream.”  He said that when he woke-up, he was actually sweating from fear and that it took a few seconds for him to realize that he had not really “slipped.”  He then thanked God because he said that he saw each time that he had one of these dreams as a gift from God because it allowed him to get drunk, feel the misery of what that would be like, and then wake-up with a renewed sense of gratitude for another day of sobriety.  Ever since then, whenever I have a “food dream,” I shake-it-off and thank my Higher Power for reminding me just how precious my abstinence is.

For whatever reason, my entire life was spent cowering beneath the shadow of the belief that I was a “bad” person because I could not control the amount of food I ate.  It shaped my personality, formed my behavior patterns, dictated what I could and could not do, strangled my sense of self, and stripped away my self-esteem.  I come from a loving family, I never wanted for anything, and I always felt loved and supported by my parents and relatives, so what was the problem?  In the end, my sense of self-loathing was so bad that I actually convinced myself that the only reason why my parents “acted” like they loved me was because they “had to,” since they were my parents.  Same with relatives.  And friends?  Well, surely they felt sorry for me and were just being “nice.”

What a sad way to live.  Sometimes even now when I look back on all those wasted years I feel sad, but the good news is that I have finally escaped it all.  Some people (MANY people) never get that far.  It may have taken me until the age of 42, but at least I got out!

What is extremely important to take away from this post is the idea that compulsive overeating is a legitimate disease that has three components: a physical allergy, a mental obsession, and a spiritual sickness.  You can read all about this in The Big Book (see the “12-Step Links” at the top of this page if interested), but the bottom line is that it is not your fault that you have this disease, any more than it would be your fault had you been born deaf or if you were diagnosed with cancer.  The sooner you can accept this fact, the better off you will be.

I once had a sponsor who told me that if I did not break-up with my boyfriend the following day, she would have to “left me go.”  This sponsor was over-stepping her boundaries, but I didn’t know  it.  NO sponsor has the right to tell you how to live your life or to make major decisions for you.  All they are supposed to do is to refer you back to the Big Book and your Higher Power for inspiration and share what has worked for them.  But I was new to program, had just lost a ton of weight, and had this particular sponsor on the highest pedestal ever created.  In reality, it was my Higher Power who was giving me the power to recover, not her.  But you couldn’t tell ME that!  I should have simply changed sponsors and moved-on.  Instead, I got off the phone, cried hysterically, and left program for 2 years, gaining back, not only the 75 pounds I had just lost, but another 30 pounds on top of that!  (We won’t mention the fact that the boyfriend was long gone by that point, but that’s a whole other story!)

Another time I had a male sponsor.  Not a good idea.  Why?  Because he made comments like, “There’s no such thing as PMS.  That’s just an excuse women use to eat,” and, “You need to start wearing tighter clothes now and showing off your body.”  In that fragile state of “newcomer,” it was hard enough dealing with food withdrawals, never mind getting-up the nerve to tell an “old-timer” that he was way out of line!  I’ve also heard lots of stories about people who end-up dating their sponsors.  Talk about complicating things!  Again, in general (and there are always exceptions to every rule), NOT a good idea to choose a member of the opposite sex as your sponsor, and NOT a good idea to date your sponsor, regardless of gender.

This last example is probably the hardest one to take.  Over the years, I’ve had several sponsors lie to me about their own program.  This is a complete breach of trust and of the spiritual principles of the program.  I’ve had sponsors tell me they are abstinent but they are not, or say they did x,y, & z in recovery but they didn’t…  Here I am being completely honest with them, ASSUMING they are being completely honest with me, but then I find out that the whole relationship is based on a lie!  It can be DEVASTATING!  But only IF you are putting your sponsor above your Higher Power!  For even this type of betrayal can be worked-out through mature communication, as long as both parties are willing to be completely honest with each other.  Again, we are dealing with fellow addicts here.  We MUST, at all times, keep in mind that sponsors are just human beings who have been in program a little longer than we have.

If, after you have spoken to some fellow OA’s and your Higher Power, you come to the conclusion that the relationship with this particular sponsor is beyond repair, tell her/him that you have decided that the relationship is not working out and then move on.  There are SO many good sponsors out there!  Honest, caring, people who would LOVE to work with someone who is serious about recovery!  Remember, the sponsor gets just as much out of this relationship as the sponsee does.  And don’t ever forget the most important sponsorship rule of all:  You can change sponsors AT WILL!  NEVER feel that you MUST stay with a sponsor who is not right for you, or worse, one who is using their position of “authority” to manipulate you or make you feel worse than you did when you started!  You should ALWAYS come away from interactions with your sponsor feeling BETTER than you did when you started!  If that is not the case, something is very wrong.

The other thing I’d like to just throw out there is the reason behind all this measuring.  I think it makes a lot of sense to look at all of it as a metaphor for us trying to “measure” our self-worth.  We desperately want those numbers to “prove” to us that we are “good enough.”  To tell us what we do not believe about ourselves on our own.  Why else would are moods be so closely tied-in to those numbers?  Ever notice how the amount on the scale or which pair of jeans you can squeeze into can determine the kind of day you’re going to have?  That is just the type of nonsense that has to be corrected.  Until we can get to that place where we just “know” we are fine the way we are, we will never be able to conquer our addiction.

The good news?  The 12 Steps are designed to help you do just that.

But what if your sponsor DOES let you down some other way?  Does that mean you need to get rid of him/her?  Not always.  It is usually suggested that you at least try talking things out with that person.  If the two of you can’t work things out, remember that you always have the right to switch sponsors at will.

The main thing to keep in mind when it comes to the words “God” and “Higher Power” as they are used in anonymous programs is that they refer to “the God of your understanding.”  This could be the God of the Bible, or Mother Nature, or some sort of Creative Intelligence.  I’ve also heard “Him” or “Her” or “It” being called “The Power Of Love” or “The Spirit Of The Universe.”  The point is that you come to a place where you acknowledge the existence of forces that are beyond your limited understanding of the world.  Actually, what you really need to conquer your addiction is a source of energy that is both outside of you and more powerful than you.  As for myself, my God-prejudice was so strong that I had to resort to something even less mystical than any of these titles by simply believing in “The Power Of The Group.”  The more meetings I went to, the more transformations I saw taking place in the people who followed the suggestions of the program, and the more I could feel the power that comes from those who are truly interested in helping their fellows, the more I had to concede to the fact that “Something” was helping these people.  “Something” not of themselves.  And that was all it took.  That tiny seed of willingness to admit that there may be something “out there” that could help me was all that I needed to begin my spiritual journey.