Hi, I am a compulsive overeater, binger, restrictor, body obsessor, purger on exercise.

I have never been obese. Or severely overweight and more than anything my disease will try to tell me that I am a crazy fool being here, and I don’t need this programme. I need this programme, and I know that. I need this programme, because I know in my heart of hearts that I am a compulsive overeater and I don’t need to try and work out why. I just need to know that regardless of my size I am a compulsive overeater and to live through these steps one day at a time.

What strikes me most about what life was like before the programme, is how mental it all seems to have been, and how ignorant I was to the madness.

I certainly spent most of my life preoccupied with food and self-image! Whether it was dieting, bingeing, purging on exercise, or self-loathing because I didn’t look as thin as my other girlfriends, or my mum. Regardless of whether I was underweight / overweight or a normal weight my mind would beat me up and as a result I loathed myself. Not having an I’m full button’ when it came to the amount of food I consumed was a big struggle. I used food to deal with my emotions and nervous energy.

As I reflect, I can certainly observe a progression of the disease, and how cunning, baffling and powerful the disease was over the years of my life prior to the programme. 

Food has always been ‘a thing’ in my life. Whether it was through shame from stealing it, disguising the gluttony, or trying so relentlessly to eat like a normal person.

At five years old I recall an obsession with nuts (one of my trigger foods) and sneaking walnuts from my grans cake making cupboard. At 11 I consumed so many monkey nuts that I involuntarily projectile vomited a solid mash of nuts-there was just no space left for the nuts to stay down. Using humour as an excuse for gluttony was another cunning way at which I would consume large quantities. Family events centred around huge buffets, the over excitement at all the flavours, and stuffing myself and continuing to stuff myself, long after others were long done with the food. I’d go on nights out just for the hangover day so I could binge all day on junk food, and feel no guilt. I’d act up, picking my food like an uninterested ‘lady’ even though my mind was wanting to shovel food in like a pig. Then he’d go to bed, and I could truly enjoy it. Swapping salty flavours for sweet flavours meant my binges could last hours, until I passed out, and then I’d come round and I’d continue. There are countless times that I am able to recall a food bingeing story. And I can through the help of the programme see that this was not a food issue but a life issue. I could not cope with life, and food was ‘the fix’ to my inability to cope with life.

The sanctuary of the car for a binge was a classic, I don’t know how many times I’d stop on long car journeys telling myself whatever excuse I needed: I’m tired, its lunch time, it’s time for a snack, I’m nearly there, I’m sad, happy, bored, angry, frustrated lonely, I hate myself, or absolutely no reason.. I’d better get something to eat ….     

One thing that seems clear pre-programme is that I didn’t admit powerlessness. I would relentlessly try to be victorious. Self-will would always be there telling me that I’d sort this out, tomorrow or after I’d finished whatever it was I was eating. During car journeys self-will would look like the most insane scene; I’d be chucking food in the back of the car to stop me eating it and then dangerously driving all over the road as I attempted to retrieve the packet of something I’d seconds earlier chucked away.

Either never wanting any mealtime to end because that meant life had to start. Or denying my hunger and having a tiny portion and driving myself crazy about when and where I was next going to eat. Mimicking whatever my thinner friends were eating, and mimicking their food behaviors healthy or not to see if that might work for me.

The progression of the disease saw me becoming obsessed with health, and ways to get the quantities in without the weight gain. I could definitely binge on broccoli, and I’d binge on cabbage and salad portions that could probably serve 8. Food behaviours became more extreme, I would get the whole loaves that we baked and I would frantically nibble off every crunchy bit of bread and hope that my partner couldn’t tell what I’d done. Oats had a low Glycemic load so I’d stuff cold porridge oats soaked in water into my mouth. no joy, no peace just frantically stuffing myself to try and get the effect I needed to sufficiently numb me. Sugar was off my radar during my orthorexia phase, but any sweet taste or high fat and the physical craving and mental obsession would begin, for example I’d binge like crazy on dates and walnuts that I’d mash together into so called healthy energy balls. I have no end of shameful food stories that I could recall. The truth is that I was forever trying to eat like a normal eater and no matter how much willpower I had I could not stop from starting on a binge and once I started on a binge I could not stop.

How I ended up in OA?

This felt very spiritual. I had just left my partner, and found a new place to live. Full of anxiety I brought a few jars of nut butter spreads, a few halva bars, and a packet of rye bread, and stuffed myself as subtly as I could on the bus. For some reason I opened up to the woman I had just moved in with, and she mentioned OA to me. I had never even heard of it. I read up about it online, and something in me broke, I just flooded with uncontrollable tears, I couldn’t stop crying…. I read as much as I could about it online, and I got top marks as I ticked yes to every single are you a compulsive overeater question. I just had no clue that such a disease existed.

I knew I had to call the number of my local meeting, and I remember blubbering my eyes out on my own and feeling petrified. For the first time ever I was anxious that I wasn’t going to be big enough to be allowed into the only place I’d got top entry level marks for in my life! The thoughts all got too much for me to make the call, and I binged. I binged hugely before I made the phone call, and I binged after I made the phone call. Then I proceeded to binge leading up to the 1st meeting. It was as if my disease knew that something was beginning to shift and the disease wanted to get as much in as possible.. Then the warm welcome from a group of all shapes and sizes. When it came to my share, I burst into tears again, the whole thing had struck such a chord. I can’t express the emotion that poured from me… but a part of me knew that I had found home. It all felt completely divinely orchestrated. And I felt so blessed to have such an eye-opening introduction.

The message felt clear. Get a sponsor, get abstinent, and Go through the steps as laid out in the big book. I got a sponsor, I got abstinent, I began the steps the big book way, but it is only now that I realise I needed to hit a whole other level of desperation, I needed to know on a deeper level how much I needed this programme. And as I commenced on my three-year relapse, I can see as clear as day how the disease progresses, 

The beginning of my relapse came when I had finally achieved a weight loss so significant I’d never experienced. I became lost to my ego, believed I had what it took to conquer the disease armed with my self knowledge and will power alone! I was soon to begin to fall long and hard into every ice cream tub and flavour for three years… But at the early stages of the relapse, I weighed myself at 8 stone a weight I’d always dreamed to be. I remember looking in the mirror, and thinking that I just needed to get to seven stone and that would be perfect then. Somewhere in my head an alarm bell rang, 7 stone hadn’t sounded safe before, and I mentioned this to highlight that no matter my size the disease would tell me that I was not enough, and happiness was over there. It has become helpful for me to know how diseased my mind was. no matter what size I am even when I was at my dream weight my mind was restless, irritable and discontent.

Now as I journey on the path of, ‘the size that god intends for me’. I can be at peace in accepting that my mind can’t tell the true from the false. That God is doing for me that which I cannot do for myself, and if I continue on this path of Spiritual progress not perfection, of working the steps to the best of my ability, then regardless of what my mind will tell me, I am the size that God intended for me to be. The programme is a design for living that I absolutely depend upon, a set of directions, a map to sanity. I realise the restlessness, irritability and discontent at the core of my being, and by working this programme, slowly the layers of learning are revealed.

I find myself surrounded by beautiful, wise, practitioners of a spiritual programme of wellness. It is a family with which a deep health flows. It’s one day at a time! Today I feel well, yesterday I was seething at the programme and drowning in resentments, my disease started to tell me all sorts of negativities… The power of God in this programme is utterly profound. I thought about taking action with an outreach from a certain person that I thought might be able to share some valuable experience strength and hope regarding my situation, and froze, instead opted to phone into the meeting. And when it came to the shares, the lady I’d intended to call was the first share, and she said exactly as I needed to hear, as if it were God… it was just so odd…

I was asking God why am I still struggling with life, I’m living in the steps to the best of my ability…. and the sharer I’d intended to call, said “shitstorms still come into my life, life still shows up, the programme doesn’t take life’s troubles away, but it gives us the tool kit to deal with life in a new and more manageable way. And that was just as I needed to hear.

This programme gives me a loving powerful hand of God, knowledge and understanding of my disease, and how to live in the solution, every step of the way as I journey through life – it really is a design for living that really works. For me only a few days ago I was feeling hopeless, I was lingering where I shouldn’t be – back in the mind, trying to work it all out, rather than sticking to the steps and the action …I was telling myself I wasn’t good enough, and trying to work it out, why I was having the same resentment come up over and over… Yet I was abstinent. And I can say that I am experiencing neutrality around the food- A wish that I could never have imagined possible I don’t hover around the dinner table never wanting the food experience to end. But I eat my abstinent meal, tidy away and think about the next chapter of my day… Yet here I was and abstinence and neutrality around food were no longer enough!!!! I was feeling anger at the fact that I wasn’t at peace with every other issue that had arisen in my life! 

Through the tools I could see that I was trying to run the show again. through the tools I could see that I wasn’t fully giving over my life and will to God. Through the tools I can start to see how taking the actions of my amends are like action steps from God, and through the practice of these actions, I can trudge the road of happy destiny.