Alan M.

This speaker has been recorded at an online meeting of Addictive Eaters Anonymous. You can email us at contact@AEAinfo.org
Alan, would you like to share your experience strength and hope with us tonight, please? Thanks, Claire. Good evening, everybody. My name is Alan, I am an addictive eater. Gosh, well, I am so grateful today to be free from the obsession of the food from the sugar from the way that my disruptive eating was slowly eating away at me. But more than anything, my gratitude today is I'm free from that obsession of having to make life suit me - a freedom from the thinking, the freedom from the fear, freedom from actually just having to force life to suit me and the only way that I could actually live it, while I was in my own thinking. I first came to AEA with my belief that the food that I was eating and the sugar that I was having was a manifestation of another addictive behavior that I was never going to get free of until I absolutely was prepared to give all of it up. Until I was actually prepared to give up all of my addictive behaviors anywhere that my brain would go to give me an easy solution to the real problem. And I came to realize while I've been in AEA I've came come to realize that in actual fact, food was my memory of the first substance that I ever took to change the way that my brain worked, to numb the feelings to to make life just that little bit better. And at first, you know, I was only seven years old, but remembering it is quite plain. And what I found after that was I didn't have control over the food because it was obviously put in front of me at seven years old, you know, there was an occasional treat but, I wasn't in any way shape, or form spending the money. So my addictive behaviors turn to other areas to get that relief to get that freedom from the pain of everyday life. And I would go to any lengths even as a child to make life easy, to make life easy.
I would not go to school. I would give up any effort had in anything, I would
not challenge anything, I would be totally dishonest with people. I would take from anybody, anything that helped me make my life easier. I couldn't live it, you know, I just couldn't live my life. I was either living in a high or living in a low. Never be able to, be able to live life on life's terms as a simple as a simple solution. You know, while I was in my own thinking, my head was full of my own garbage. It was full of insanity. And whenever things got too much all I did was turn to the food and turn to the other addictive behaviors. The this addiction with food actually came back when I started to earn my own money. And I started to have that little bit of freedom over my own decisions. Once my own decisions started with food again, then it went absolutely mad. And I I kind of slowly but surely over the years, you know the sugar became more of a problem, more of a problem. More of a problem. And I read all the labels on the foods. I went from cane sugar into, into the substitutes for sugar, I wasn't able to give it up in the coffee, I wasn't able to give it up in anything else, I still needed that sugar. Even though all the professionals were telling me that I would say the diabetic nurses, the diabetic doctors, that I was slowly but surely putting my health my health at serious risk. It wasn't just the risk; I was in danger of losing limbs, I was in danger of losing my life. And that just wasn't enough to stop the food that just wasn't enough to stop the food. Because well, because food was the solution. As long as I was using food as my solution to the real problem, I was never going to get any freedom from it at all, I was never going to be able to give up. And I actually had to be at a point where I think the food was not the thing that drove me to the point of despair, the actual way that I was living my life was the thing that drove me to absolute despair. I remember there's a story at the back of the big book, which talks about being in a place where I was, didn't want to live anymore, but too scared to die. And that's literally where I was, literally where I was, was, I knew that if I was making my own decisions in life, if I was trying to live life on my terms, then I was either going to die, or I was going to spend a long time in prison. And that's, that's when I, I gained a new sponsor in a different in a different fellowship. And he very, it became very quickly clear to me that I was never going to get sober from any of it. And I was never going to get any of the promises or the program, until I actually surrendered all of my addictive behaviors, absolutely everything that I could use to alter my mind, I had to be willing to give up. I couldn't keep any of it. And what actually happened was, was that sponsor started to share with me little things, about actions that needed to be taken. So he started to share about not actually when, when the obsession of self came in, when I wanted to make things life easy. I had, I was told to take action on that and reach out and be of service to other people, to help other people. And even when there weren't people to be helped... to get outside, be prepared to pick up a litter picker, go and pick the litter or from outside, just as long as I was being of service to other people, I'm helping the world in God's eyes. Then the freedom from that self obsession, would leave quicker than anything else.
And that's what I started to experience was slowly but surely then free...  then obsessions were leaving far greater than they ever had done before. It was also sort of suggested that I came to meetings and was sharing about the solution in meetings. Not actually sort of getting present. The real recovery in this program is made in them personal relationships, personal phone calls, that's for being.... to be on the phone to sober members, the ones that I've always been scared of, and sharing with them, sharing with them what is honestly really going on in your head. And once I started to take these actions once I started to be prepared to do what was suggested, without my thoughts, I slowly but surely started to experience a freedom, a freedom from the food. It wasn't a freedom from that obsession to start off with but there was certainly that freedom from needing the food, from wanting to turn to the food every time that life got difficult. And I think I came into the program originally thinking life would be you know, my life was like 'that', you know, and I wanted to stop it from being like 'that'. Up and down, up and down high peaks low troughs. But what this program gives me is it gives me a program where I really realize that life is like 'that', life is a life of high peaks. It's a life of troughs. But it's how much time I spend, or how much time I want to spend in them high peaks. And how much time I used to spend in the low troughs. And what the programme gives me and the fellow members is a way of bringing it back to that even keel as a as an immediate thing, and just not being in my head about that just not living in my head about it. And, and bringing it back to that that level playing ground, which, which you know, is free from that obsession - it really, really, truly is. And since that moment, life has become a life of service, you know, it's become something that I never thought I would have something that I only dreamed of, but was never able to do, I'm able to be there for my community. I am able to volunteer for different groups in this area, I'm able to spend every evening evening, at a 12 Step meeting, I'm able to take calls from other people just be there for everybody else, living build relationships instead of always wanting to just go from zero to everything in one go, and never actually any growth. And that's the experience - that growth. And I'll finish off with a couple of things. I've got .... behind me. And that's because I'm moving next weekend. And I'm moving on Friday the 13th. Which you know, if you'd have suggested to me in addiction that I would move on Friday the 13th that would never happen. But today, I know that you know, it will be fine, it will be absolutely fine. In God's will as long as I'm living in God's will and doing God's will, that things will be fine. And I bless God today that he always sends me reminders of how insane my thinking can be when I'm doing it for myself. A couple of weeks ago, I was very fortunate enough to be able to watch Les Miserable, at the theater it's a beautiful production. But halfway through the first half a young couple in front of me got up and they left the actual theatre about three quarters of the way through and my head wanted to go into judgment. It wanted to judge them for leaving. You can't do that.
How much have you paid for them tickets? Where are you going? Are you going to the bar? Good grief, you paid a lot of money to just to go to the bar, would
you rather drinking alcohol? And at the interval, they returned. And anybody who doesn't know it, there was a young girl in the first half of the show, who's singing on stage a young girl called Cossette. And they were the parents of that young girl. And they'd been backstage to pick her up after she'd done a piece and brought her back to the front of the theater. And she just sat in front of us and I just I was just able to laugh at my own thinking, just the absolute craziness that goes on in my head. And thank God for the ability to sit there and enjoy the rest of the production, which is basically a production about redemption. And it was just the most beautiful experience. So life is good. I really, really appreciate everybody that's in this program. I love sharing my life with God. I love the fact that God leads my life and God is the main principle in my life and not me. So thanks for asking me Claire and I'll leave it at that.