Complete Surrender

I have always had a problem with food. For most of my life, I either starved myself or binged to the point of feeling sick. At a young age, I learned to sneak food and hide the evidence. I was teased about being fat, which terrified me because I didn't want to end up like my obese mother.

In seventh grade, I weighed 135 pounds and was in a normal-sized body. Yet when I looked in the mirror, I saw a fat person. I always based my happiness on how much I weighed. Even when I was 114 pounds, I still felt as if I did not belong, and I was not comfortable in my own skin. I was too embarrassed to buy diet pills, so I stole them from the drugstore. Then I started taking illegal diet pills, which helped me drop 21 pounds in high school.

Near the end of my senior year, I was drinking and using drugs to numb myself and escape from reality into oblivion. That continued for many years, but I managed to maintain my weight until I went into recovery from drugs and alcohol at age 22. Then my weight started to creep up. I was still maintaining some control, but I was bingeing and starving myself. I started taking pain pills for a legitimate reason, but quickly started to abuse them. I learned that if I took the pills, I didn’t eat much and I was able to drop some weight.

When I turned 27, I got pregnant and used that as  a green light for the large amounts of food I consumed. I ate like there was no tomorrow. I got up to 199 pounds but was able to lose weight later, with the help of pain pills, which helped me stave off bingeing. When I stopped taking pain pills, I found myself getting out of bed during the night and sneaking down to raid the cupboard or refrigerator. I gained 30 pounds within six weeks. I had lost the ability to control my eating.

Just like with drugs and alcohol, I told myself that each day would be different. I began the day telling myself that I would eat healthy meals and wouldn't binge at night. Then the subtle insanity would start, and I'd tell myself, “I’ll eat just one little bit; one piece isn’t going to hurt me” or “I’m not that fat, I can eat some of it.”  I avoided acknowledging what it was like every time I binged. I wouldn’t think about the next morning when I'd be walking around in a food fog with a hangover and headache. I didn’t remember how my clothes got so tight I couldn’t button my pants because my stomach was so bloated from the night before.

The following year, I joined a diet club. Over the course of seven months, I lost 12 pounds. I still binged (plus now I was occasionally purging) and couldn’t be honest about what I had eaten each day. After weighing in on a Saturday, I would eat whatever I wanted that day and try to cut back the next day. But the week went by quickly, and I would panic about the upcoming weigh-in. I felt anxious every time I went there. I knew it was not a safe place for me after I heard a member share how she had gotten out of bed to eat the night before. The leader looked at her and said, with such judgment, “You got up in the middle of the night to eat?” I quit the diet club shortly thereafter.

When I got up to 182 pounds, I realized I had spent more than 16 years gaining and losing the same 10-15 pounds! I decided to try a Twelve-Step program for food. I attended four meetings but was very confused about what abstinence meant. I was told I could define my own abstinence and food plan, and that I was to eat three moderate meals a day with no sugar. They said if I was hungry in between, I could eat a piece of fruit. I tried it, ate what I considered three moderate meals, and managed to lose 17 pounds. However, when I was feeling cold at a football game one day, I had an insane thought that it would be okay to have a hot, sweet beverage. That led to allowing myself one piece of a Halloween treat. By Thanksgiving, I was bingeing almost nightly.

In a short time, I gained back 15 of the 17 pounds and weighed nearly 180. I realized that although that Twelve-Step food program worked for some people, it was not a solution for me. I had heard of FA from a few friends but had balked when I learned that they didn’t eat flour or sugar. My thought was, What would I eat? I didn’t know what to do. 

I am a firm believer that God puts people in my life at just the right moment to say just the right thing. A friend, who is an FA member, was visiting from out of town and had been feeling like she was on thin ice with her abstinence. She and I decided to call each other every weekday morning and discuss what we were going to eat that day. I did well for a couple of days and then confessed to a binge. This went on for a couple of weeks. 

Then one weekend I had one of my worst bingeing experiences. I was so miserable and depressed. I woke up around 4 a.m., got out of bed, got on my knees, and begged God to take away my food obsession. I talked to my friend and told her the truth and explained that I was going to FA that night. I had packed a flour product for lunch, but something happened before lunch. I picked up the phone and called one of my customers, who was a member of FA, and told her what had been going on. She talked to me for 30 minutes. When I hung up the phone, I took the flour item from my lunch and threw it in the trash. That marked the first day of my abstinence.

The FA meeting was so close to my house I could practically throw a rock from my backyard and hit the church building. I attended the meeting and was given a newcomer’s packet. After a frustrating search to find a sponsor, I almost had a break, but once I “Let go and let God,” I found a sponsor.

Thus began my journey. I immediately began to feel better. My clothes were still tight after a couple of weeks, but mentally I was feeling great. I couldn’t wait to get my 90 days so I could share. I took three service positions the moment I had 90 days (yes, I am an addict!), and joined an AWOL to study the Twelve Steps. I had worked the steps many times through AA, but it was a whole different perspective doing them in an AWOL and finally surrendering the food. It has been a slow process of releasing the weight, but a rewarding one. I thank God that I was given the gift of desperation.