A Reason to Celebrate

I sat at my parent’s dining room table to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. With my right hand, I reached for a third serving of dessert; with my left, I popped open the top button on my black polyester pants to release some of the pressure from my 340- pound body. My stomach ached and I struggled to inhale, but I could not stop eating. After all, doesn’t everyone eat themselves out of their clothes on Thanksgiving Day?

Though it was Thanksgiving, that wasn’t the reason I was eating myself out of my clothes. I didn’t need a holiday celebration as a reason to eat, it was simply something I did. By the time I reached 340 pounds, I was eating more than 8,000 calories a day. There was no celebrating, only misery. Food became my most intimate relationship and it almost killed me.

The problem started a half-century ago. As a child, food was my favorite thing. In less than 20 minutes I could eat entire baskets, boxes, or bags of foods meant to last my family for days. I was an outgoing but very insecure kid and food was my confidence.

Sixteen years ago, when I walked into my first FA meeting, I heard people say things I was embarrassed to even think. I binged daily, stole food, ate spoiled food, and erased these from my memory like they never happened. I often reported, "I haven’t eaten all day" and I convinced myself that was true. But in that meeting, people remembered how they ate before recovery and talked about it in public! FA people were like me, and I’d never heard anyone talk about eating the way I did.

Five years after that first FA meeting, I got abstinent and started my recovery journey. My fellows supported me in releasing my deadly, intimate relationship with food and grabbing on to FA with both hands. Day by day, my sponsor and fellows taught me to remember how horrible it was to be unable to stop eating, even though it was killing me and devastating my life. They taught me that I couldn’t stay in denial. They gave me tools that were way more effective than that third plate of dessert. They gave me hope.

This most recent Thanksgiving, I sat around the table with my family and celebrated. I’ve kept off 190 pounds for the last 10 years. On that day, I didn’t eat multiple servings of huge portions. To my family’s ongoing surprise, and my delight, on Thanksgiving Day I ate the same way I’d eaten the previous day, week, month, and years, and I focused on the people. At the end of the meal, I clasped my hands in gratitude for another Thanksgiving in recovery to visit with my family. And that is an amazing reason to celebrate.