Our Stories

My name is Mary and I am a compulsive overeater. I have always had an abnormal relationship with food. The only reason I think that I was not an overweight child was because I grew up at a time in Ireland when junk food and sugar laden foods and fizzy drinks were not available, also as we lived in the country we walked or cycled everywhere. I feel that my compulsive overeating springs from an incident in my childhood when I contacted TB as a three year old and ended up in hospital for 14 months at a time in Ireland i.e. 1960 when children were not informed about what would be happening and also visiting was restricted to once fortnightly. I never felt that I belonged anywhere or that I was good enough just being me. So I had to be perfect. Others could make mistakes, fail exams, and stand up for their rights even demand their dues but not me. I suffered from low self-esteem and a lack of self-confidence, which I still do to a much lesser degree to this day. I always felt that food, especially chocolate and sweet foods, held the promise that they would relieve my distress, but the food no matter how much of it I consumed, never delivered on that promise. It was a case that one bite of my binge food such as chocolate was too much and then all the chocolate in the world would never be enough. I hid food from my children and stole their supplies on many occasions. I would binge every weekend at a minimum and would do this in private.

Before joining OA I would have preferred to eat above just about any other activity I could mention. Food was my best friend and my worst enemy. It helped me I felt at that time to deal with all my emotions. These could range from happy, sad, angry or just feeling o.k. The only problems were that: (1st) I was using food to try to deal with my feelings so that I could say that I was trying to swallow down my emotions, (2nd) this resulted in a weight gain as I was eating ++ when I was not hungry with a (3rd) result in that I was becoming more depressed and full of shame as I realised that the (1st) was not working and that diets and self will were not sufficient to prevent me compulsively overeating and becoming overweight. There had to be a better way to deal with my situation.

Luckily for me I read an article in The Examiner about OA meetings in Cork which included a contact phone number. This contact person is a member of OA and understood what I was dealing with. The only requirement to joining OA is a desire to stop compulsively over eating. It is a 12-step programme encompassing spiritual, emotional and physical healing. We use tools to help us such as: a food plan, phoning other members, meditation and prayer, writing, service and sponsorship. We hand over our compulsive condition to a power greater than ourselves. We continue on the format of “One day at a time”. At the beginning of every meeting the ‘Invitation’ is read out and the final sentence of which reads, “Welcome to OA, welcome home”, made me realise that I had indeed arrived at a safe, healing home.