LOTS OF FOOD REFERENCES HERE!! – – but so garsh-darn FUN!!  And who CAN’T love the line, “…who wants a twig when you can have the whole tree?!”  LOL!

When I am feeling a little down about myself, I put this movie on and before I know it I’m singing along and feeling a whole-lot better.   Here are a few of my favorite clips.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNx84PDvOh8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDwNSR0QmBY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdcUxHh3tAc&feature=relmfu

I never did.

It would be one thing if my imaginary audience was made up of people I loved, or even liked.  But my silent onlookers were more like a group of hecklers, made-up of the people I feared the most.  In my mind, every move I made was scrutinized by this judgemental crowd.  They made me feel like I was incapable of making even the simplest of decisions, like what shirt to wear, or how to apply my make-up.  And the more in-public I was, the bigger and the nastier my audience became.  For example, if I wanted to go to the store, the moment I walked out of the house, I felt like I was being watched by a group of people who didn’t like me while my worst enemy gave a condescending running commentary of my every move. (Can you tell that I have been told that I tend to use my vivid imagination against myself?)

That is the way I lived my life before program.

In doing my fourth step, however, I discovered that the leading voice in my imaginary audience was actually…MINE!  That the “worst enemy” I mentioned earlier was in fact MYSELF!

Once I understood this at a gut level, my imaginary audience shrunk considerably.  There may still be a few nameless stragglers milling-about the stands, a couple worn-out hangers-on, but mainly it’s just me there.  And I have mellowed.  I am not so hard on me anymore.  And I am not so hard on others.  And sometimes, when I am feeling especially close to my Higher Power, there have actually been times when I have been my very own CHEERLEADER!

None of these things ever worked in the long run.

For me, it was not until I did The 12 Steps the way they are outlined in The Big Book that I even got close to finding out what this elusive ‘”benefit” of my binge-eating was.

I don’t really expect anyone to “get” this – – the same way I didn’t get it when well-meaning people tried to tell me the same thing – – but just in case there is the possibility that I may be able to spare just one someone the decades of pain it took for me to figure this…

Here goes nothin’…

I think it can all be boiled-down to this cliche: “the devil you know vs the devil you don’t.”  For whatever reason, it was much easier for me to focus on an obsession that, although horrible and debilitating, was comfortable and familiar to me.  In my twisted mind (the result of decades of negative thinking patterns that reinforced my fears and lead me to constantly seek “proof” of all that is bad about me and the world), the thought of having to face my real feelings or real-life situations SEEMED impossible for me to handle.  I always had this belief that real life was going to be much more difficult to deal with than it actually turned out to be.  But back then, I had nothing to compare these realities to because I had NEVER experienced them!  EVER!!  Food was ALWAYS my coping mechanism!  I knew nothing but being mentally and emotionally consumed with all things “weight,” whether that be my appearance, my clothes size, my caloric intake, obtaining my binge foods, keeping myself “hidden” (literally, behind extra layers of clothing, and figuratively, by avoiding all forms of confrontation and many, MANY social situations), eating in secret, planning my next dieting scheme, agonizing over upcoming events where people would “see” how much weight I had gained, trying to be funny, smart, overly-perfect to distract from my size,…. (not to mention the thousands of other forms of self-abuse which included lots of nasty self-talk and not taking care of myself emotionally, physically, or spiritually).  Since I had never learned any techniques for self-soothing (other than eating), I was constantly beating myself up for trying to deal with life the only way I knew how.

And yet, at the same time, all of this negativity and addictive behavior came naturally to me.  It evolved over so many years and took so long to fully develop, that by the time I recognized what it was, it had already consumed my entire identity.  It was actually to the point of being unconscious – – it was my “default” (as all you tech-savvy kids out there say today).  I didn’t even realize what I was doing, even when counselors came right out and ASKED me…that’s how far gone I was!  I really, honestly, DIDN’T GET IT!  I wasn’t lying or stubbornly avoiding the truth…I genuinely THOUGHT I was being honest, and I guess I was being as honest as I could be at that time.  I guess that’s what true denial is all about – – believing your own self-deception.  I had actually “fooled myself” into thinking that avoiding reality (feelings, confrontation, social situations) was EASIER than facing life on life’s terms!  I truly believed that it was EASIER to stay the way I was rather than try to learn something new about myself, even though I was simultaneously seeking a solution!!  In this twisted scenario-o-mine, the “old” had now become comfortable AND easy!  Who could resist?  And as I stayed there in this little world of food addiction that I had created, my life continued to get smaller and more restricted, which is the ideal breeding ground for fear, which continues the cycle of self-pity and self-hatred, which leads to all kinds of weird forms of self-sabotage,…  This is why I was trapped in a strange weird limbo-land where I was constantly convincing myself that it was useless to even attempt to conquer the very thing I was always trying so hard to fix!

Clear as mud, right?

Wanna see the short version?

- – – I ate because I was scared not to. – – –

Drinking & Drugging?  To me they are similar to the above example of smoking in that both are constantly romanticized in movies, on TV, in books,…   While we’re at it, we might as well throw-in sex addiction here.  Somehow, over the years, all three of these have become intertwined with the stereotypical lifestyle of rock musicians and former child stars. Often tragic, yes, but still somehow appealing, in a media-tabloid sort of way.

Gambling?  Maybe not so romantic, but definitely exciting.  Ever see all the neat stuff you can do and buy at a casino?  It’s a money-spender’s paradise, the perfect destination for gamblers and shopaholics, alike!  And the allure of obtaining even MORE money is always just one pull away!  I can definitely see the appeal.

Then, of course, you have the “glamour” of anorexia/bulimia.  Can runway models be any thinner?!  With so many magazines berating stars whenever they gain a few pounds, it’s a wonder these eating disorders aren’t running rampant through the lives of the rich and famous.  (Personally, I think they are, but I believe that their “handlers” warn them against getting too thin.)  And in a society that defines beauty according to body size, who DOESN’T want to be labeled as “attractive?”  So you might have to destroy your insides in the process.  Small price to pay if you at least get the benefit of looking good on the OUTside, right?

So what do all these “cool” addictions have that compulsive overeating DOESN’T?

You can HIDE all the others.

You can’t hide a morbidly obese body.  (It’s impossible.  Believe me.  I’ve tried.)

Which is exactly the reason why it is the uncoolest addiction of them all.

In all the other cases, a person can “seem” normal much of the time, even to themselves.  If smokers aren’t smoking (and are not at the stage of hacking-up a lung), they would not stand-out as a nicotine fiend.  If drug addicts or alcoholics are sober, you might not know they have an addiction at all.  Nothing about gamblers or sex addicts (or even serial killers, for that matter) would make those people stand out in a crowd.  And controlled purging and exercise addiction may mask itself as a fitness addiction (which is actually seen as a positive in this country).  But when you’re carrying around 100, 200 or 300 pounds of extra “you” around, everyone sees it and knows exactly how you got that way.  You NEVER get a break from it!  Every time you look in a mirror or catch a glimpse of your reflection in a storefront window or go to the doctor or go clothes shopping…  There is just no way to escape the physical evidence of this disease.  Worse, you don’t even have the dignity of being able to hide it from others!  In this way, I think compulsive overeating and binge-eating cause their own peculiar type of psychological damage that none of the other addictions can come close to.

Sadly, Hollywood continues to use this unpleasant reality of the disease to perpetuate some of the worst stereotypes about people who are obese.  Even in this era of political correctness, you will still see cartoons, movies, music videos, and sitcoms portraying overweight people in the same old tired roles.  Here are a few of my least favorites:

The face-stuffing, gas-blowing, belching, offensive friend.

The lazy, desperate, ugly, reclusive sister/aunt (typically a single female).

The food-is-like-sex addict with an overly-confident view of her ability to attract men (which is supposed to be the funny part).

The painfully shy, bullied, depressed teen who is chronically suicidal.

Only in recent years have we started to see obese characters with real depth.  Overweight people with real sex appeal.  “People Of Size” as the main character, not just some negative supporting role who’s only purpose is make the other person look more attractive.  But it’s still so sad that, even now, an overweight person still has to feel like they are being smacked back to the reality of their low status in society, even in the midst of seeking the same escape that everyone else is looking for in the entertainment industry.

Not surprisingly, I remember spending years of my youth wishing I had a “better” addiction.  I figured that if I could just get over my fear of embarrassing myself that I could at least forget about my weight problem for a while by getting drunk!  At one point I even considered doing cocaine, thinking it would make me thin (until a worldly friend told me that it was possible to do coke AND be fat).  But who was I kidding?  I was even too scared to even smoke a joint!  Then I heard about bulimia.  Now THAT made sense to me.  For, isn’t it the dream of every true food addict to be able to pig-out AND be thin – – AT THE SAME TIME?!?!  I was thinking about it so much that I even told my counselor about my secret desire to become bulimic.  She quickly told me all the horrible medical side-effects, and that stopped me in my tracks.  My fear of doctors and hospitals actually came in handy in that particular situation.  (Isn’t it funny how God works in our lives, even when we don’t even know He’s there at all?)

Just in case all of this is not proof enough for you of the “uncoolness” of being a food addict, here is the one thing that annoys me above all the others…

Compulsive overeating and binge-eating are even considered to be “uncool” by other addicts in recovery! 

Not by ALL of them, of course,…  But still.

At first I couldn’t believe it.

Don’t believe me?  I personally know of at least two people in AA who are very open with friends and family about their involvement with the 12 Step program with respect to alcohol, but who won’t even tell their own spouses that they also attend OA meetings!

Need more evidence?   I have actually had people come up to me IN MEETINGS and tell me that overeating is “easy” to fix – – that it is just a matter of discipline and willpower.  Really.  Couldn’t I, who has never gotten drunk or high in my life, say the same about alcohol and drugs?  I’ve even had AA’s come up to me after I’ve shared about my food addiction to offer me diet tips and suggestions about local diet clubs!  As if I had somehow lost my way and wondered into a 12 Step meeting by accident!  They weren’t being mean, but they weren’t able to grasp that my addiction was every bit as serious as theirs.  They were genuinely oblivious to our common “soul sickness.”

Another example?  I shared a short food story at an AA meeting one night (I was actually asked to because everyone else had already shared), and when I was finished, the next person who spoke actually cross-talked at me and started laughing out loud about how I didn’t know what real addiction was compared to his “bad” drug problem that landed him in jail!  I was mortified!  Luckily, an old-timer came to my rescue and yelled out, “No cross-talk!”

And yet, it is through experiences such as these that I have been able to find my niche within the open AA meetings I attend: I am a self-appointed OA ambassador.  I no longer take offense when people with other addictions don’t get the connection or understand why I am there.  Instead, if they approach me, I see it as an opportunity to talk to them and explain the similarities between food and alcohol addiction, and eventually most of them get it.  In fact, I now have many AA friends who have told me that after they stopped drinking, their eating started getting out of control.  Still others I talk to have shared that, when they really thought about it, they realized that they had been food addicts long before they had ever even tasted alcohol.  Best part of all?  I have succeeded in convincing a few of these people to check out OA, and some of them are starting to “stick!”

Addiction is addiction.

Only a Higher Power can save us, ALL of us (cool & uncool addicts alike), from ourselves.

In the past, I got involved with exercise programs as a means to lose weight.  Consequently, whenever I “went off” a diet, I stopped going to the gym.  It was all or nothing.  Black or white.  It had nothing to do with my health, but EVERYthing to do with that number on the scale.  In my sick mind, if I was not eating right (i.e., losing weight), what was the use?

Thanks to OA and the 12 Steps, things are different now.  For the first time in my entire life, I have joined a gym for the RIGHT reasons!!  For the past 6 weeks, I have been going three times a week as a means of decreasing stress and increaseing my heart health.  Period.

And guess what?

It’s already working!!

I tend to carry stress in my neck and shoulders, and since I have started some light weight-training, that “pain in the neck” is gone!  Also, I have been monitoring my blood pressure, and that is down several points as well!  Of course, I don’t mind the “side effect” of feeling my clothes getting a little looser, but that is not my motivation anymore.  Now that I feel better about myself, I can more clearly see The Big Picture: that I am worth taking care of and that excercise can help me do this.  That exercise is to be used as a tool to help improve my sense of well-being, NOT as a shortbcut to a smaller body size.  Took long enough for me to finally figure this out, but it finally happened!  HOORAY!

Thanks, again, HP!!

Whether I “meditate upon” negative thoughts or positive thoughts, that has no baring on my value as a person.  Same with my food choices.  But the TRUTH of the matter is that the positive/healthy thoughts (or foods or behaviors or feelings,…) are the ones that make me feel BETTER about myself and therefore, they are the ones that will lead me to a more enjoyable way of life.  They will not make me “good,” but they WILL make me HAPPY!

So why not do what I do now?  If you find yourself dwelling on things that make you feel bad, just yell to yourself, “STOP IT!”  And then change the picture in your mind.  I like to imagine this happening the same way a channel changes on my television when I press a button on the remote control.

In the beginning it seemed like I was doing this a million times a day.  Now I think its down to only a couple-hundred times.  (Remember: It’s all about progress, not perfection, right?)

So give it a try.  I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

My first garbage-picking memory starts out nice enough.  Every Saturday night my family would gather downstairs to watch a show or movie and mom would make pigs-in-a-blanket.  That tradition is one of my happiest childhood memories.  Unfortunately, it is also intertwined with the early stages of my eating disorder.  That is the part I will be focusing on here…

I can remember lots of obsession related to this particular group of food memories.  It would start with being fixated on when the food would be ready to eat.  I would watch the clock…

tick…tick…tick…

…get the condiments out…

tick…tick…tick…

…and the plates…

tick…tick…tick…

…and the napkins…

tick…tick…tick…

…and the drinks…

tick…tick…tick…

Truth be told, I was being TOO helpful.  It was not in my nature to be that useful.  “Selfish motives” were the thing powering me at that time.  When “the dogs” were finally taken out of the oven, I would choose the largest one, never giving a single thought to the possibility that someone else might be as hungry as I supposedly was.  Then I risked burning the roof right out of my mouth by biting into one of the steaming “pigs” while everyone else had the sense to wait for theirs to cool.  Before I knew it I was on my second one and already mourning the fact that I wanted a third but couldn’t have it for fear of looking like the thing I was eating.  All the while I ate, I was silently plotting a way to get more.

I knew that the leftover dogs would be sitting in a the pan on the stove until we were finished watching tv.  If I pretended to go to the bathroom, I could make a pit-stop in the kitchen and eat another one before I rejoined the family.  Sometimes I would wimp-out, especially if there was only one or two left, thinking that would be too obvious.  But luckily for me, I come from an Italian family where food shortages are a rarity.  Most times there were as many as four or five left, so I was easily able to convince myself that no one would notice if one more was missing.  That usually held me for a while, and then I could focus on the show and enjoy the time with my family…

Until…

…after the show it would be time to clean-up.  I would watch helplessly as my mother dumped the rest of the uneaten dogs into the trash, then I would hold my breath and wait to see if anything got thrown on top of them.  If they remained “clean” on the top, as they usually did, I knew that I had all the makings of an early morning snack.  I swear that knowing this would wake me up the next morning hours earlier than usual.

At about 5 a.m., barely allowing myself time to pee, I would silently race to the kitchen trash container and grab the room-temp dogs.  I knew that by that time the dough would be rubbery on the outside and gummy on the inside, but I didn’t care.  I didn’t even put anything on them.  That would be too messy, since I wouldn’t be using a plate.  Besides, I didn’t have time for luxuries like that!  I was in a race against time!  What if my parents heard me?!   I would gobble the dogs, one in each fist, while standing in the hallway entry so that I could keep an eye on my parents’ bedroom door.  If one of them DID wake up (and it happened!), I would dash back to the trash can and throw them back in.  I’m sure they would know what was going on, but no one ever said anything to me about it.  But not to worry…I beat myself good and hard after every time I did it.

Years passed, my disease progressed, and my gorging was completely out-of-control.  I was buying bags and boxes of stuff I swore I wouldn’t finish, but I’d ALWAYS finish them!  Finally I got desperate enough to try a new way to stop myself.  I would get rid of whatever food I had started to eat (but didn’t want to finish) by burying it at the bottom of the trash – only to dig it out hours later.  I can’t tell you the humiliation of wiping coffee grinds off a bag of smashed chips or of eating out of a container of half-melted ice cream – –  because I “had to.”  Later-on I figured-out that unless I removed whatever type of food I was sick of bingeing-on from its packaging and mixed it with the trash that was already in the can, there was always going to be that possibility of me going back-in for more.  Of course, there were the times when I would try to fool myself by not disposing of “the goods” properly, knowing full well what I planned to do later on.  I’d play the whole horrible game with myself, only to end-up eating every last bit of what I didn’t want to be eating in the first place, no matter WHERE I put it!!

To live this way, day after day, week after week, year after year,…was pure torture.  I always felt helpless, like there was no way out, and ashamed that I couldn’t stop myself.  But today my life is completely different.  All the obsession and compulsion that I had surrounding food has been removed!

The same can happen for you!

I say,…

“O-A…

IS the way!”

Doesn’t mean I want to do it, though.

At first I looked at my beloved pink packets (the yellow ones make me physically sick and the blue ones just scare me) as what I “deserve” – – the same way I used to look at all foods I wanted to eat – – as if eating them was a reward for good behavior.  At that time, I was consuming about 15 packets a day.

About a year into my food plan, I started to look at those packets as “treats” – – something to give myself a little pick-me-up.  I could finally recognize that they were not the best choice, but that they did help me stay on track by satisfying the need we all have for sweet-tasting foods.  In an odd way, this was growth for me, because it was acknowledging that it was OKAY for me to like sweet things and that, even though I may not have the “perfect” food plan,” I had made one that it was do-able, which, for me, was the most important part.  At this point I was down to about 10 packets per day.

After 2 years of abstinence, it finally started to dawn on me that “food equals fuel.”  Period.  It is not “good.”  It is not ” bad.”  It is not “a reward” or “a “punishment.”  It is not a comforter or something to use to get revenge on others (or myself).  It is simply the way I get the nutrients required for my body to work properly.  There is nothing EMOTIONAL about it!  I am not saying that I have this concept entirely down pat yet, but it is definitely starting to take shape.  I have since substituted agave nectar for many of my pink packets (I chose this sweetener because it supposedly has a low glycemic index) and for the past 4 months I have not noticed any difference in cravings.  I currently use 3 tablespoons per day, plus 3 pink packets.  Not perfection, but definitely progress!

Then, a couple weeks ago, I was at a convenience store and there was a sign for a sugar-free frozen drink made out of diet soda.  Hmmmm…

Had to try it.  I’m not gonna lie.  It was YUMMY!

Next day I had another.

Next day another.

That night I was sick.  Must be made of yellow packets.  Had to give it up.

Doesn’t mean I wanted to, though.

…and the battle continues….

Not surprisingly, when my husband and I moved into our first house, complete with our own front yard to take care of, I brought my neurosis with me.  In both houses we have owned, the rule was that I did the backyard gardening and he did the front.  And that was set in stone.  I wouldn’t lift a finger in the front yard, again, for fear of being seen.  At my current house this became more of an issue because the front yard is very large (so my husband could really use the help) but it is also on a busy road (which means – GASP! – people!!)  During the fall, especially, I eventually had to help rake leaves in the front yard, but that had to be on my terms – early morning weekends ONLY – (I am talking about BEFORE 7 a.m. here!)

All that started to shift last year.  I don’t know when it happened, exactly, but several times I found myself picking-up stray sticks or raking up a little patch of leaves in the front yard WITHOUT having to analyse all the reasons why I couldn’t be the one to do it.  Last spring I filled flower boxes in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, in the middle of the FRONT YARD!  This past fall, I even raked leaves “in broad daylight!”  But the biggest change happened just a few short weeks ago.

For some reason I got it in my head that I wanted to rake out the beds, take apart the existing rock border, and re-stack it in a neater design.  I looked at my schedule and penciled-myself-in for the following day.  I got out there around 10 a.m. and worked until around 4 p.m. (stopping only for lunch and a couple small snacks and drinks).  I was so involved with what I was doing that I didn’t even realize that I had spent an entire day, in the COMPLETELY unflattering position of sitting cross-legged on the ground, in SHORTS, working in the FRONT YARD!!!, and IT NEVER EVEN CROSSED MY MIND that there may be passers-by who were making fun of me or thinking negative things about my body, or making fun of what I was doing or how I was doing it – – all the crap that had consumed my thoughts for my entire life!!

This was a TRUE MIRACLE for me!!

Thank you, HP, for freeing me from all that horrible, draining, unproductive insanity!!

“One of the many doctors who had the opportunity of reading this book in manuscript form told us that the use of sweets was often helpful, of course depending upon a doctor’s advice.  He thought that all alcoholics should constantly have chocolates available for its quick energy value at times of fatigue.  He added that occasionally in the night a vague craving arose which would be satisfied by candy.  Many of us have noticed a tendency to eat sweets and have found this practice beneficial.”

At the time it was written, I’m sure author Bill W. never imagined that this book was going to be used to help compulsive overeaters.  But isn’t it fascinating how he is recommending the replacement of alcohol with sugar because of the “positive” effects?

I have seen many people from AA who are able to give-up drinking only to find that they have a raging food addiction.  After years of seeing this over and over again, I can’t help wondering if this has to do with the suggestion of eating candy whenever they have a craving for alcohol, or if their addictive personality would have lead them to that new vice anyway.  Or maybe it is something more biological than that.  I have heard food addiction described as just another form of the body’s allergy to alcohol because both involve the way our bodies break down sugars.

Of course, I have also met many alcoholics who switch from swigs to sweets and are very successful with their programs and have excellent recovery.  So apparently this is great advice, as long as you are not pre-disposed to having an eating disorder!

Whatever the reason, many AA’s end-up in OA, and many of them have told me that giving up excess food was much more difficult than giving-up drinking.  They say that this was due to the fact that with alcohol, they never had to put it into their bodies again.  With food, they still had to “mess with it” every single day.  I don’t know how true that is, since I have never had a drinking problem, but I just thought it was interesting to see what The Big Book had to say on the topic of food.  It may not be very helpful to true compulsive overeaters, but to me, it sheds a little more light on the similarities between these two deadly diseases.