April's Speaker

This speaker has been recorded at an online meeting of Addictive Eaters Anonymous, you can email us at contact at AEAinfo.org
Good evening, everyone, I am an addictive eater. And it's good to be here this evening and share my story and I will not lie when when I was asked to do it and be recorded.... I had a straight away a sense of panic at the thought of being recorded. Yeah, all sorts of thoughts came flooding in and like the first one was, I don't have nearly enough time to overthink this for a start. And then what would I say? What would people think of what I say the usual old thoughts are all still in there. But the difference today is I know what to do with them today. And, and that's, that's through the tools what I've learned here. So I was able to just pause and breathe and say, Okay, we'll be fine. So here I am completely against my own nature without any pre planned big speech of what I'm going to say all, all I'm going to do is just share my experience of, of what, what life was like for me, before I came in here, what changed, and what it's like now, and in the hope that it may at some stage help someone else along their journey. So I suppose before coming here, my, my idea of addiction was probably very narrow. To me, addiction was if you had a problem with alcohol, or drugs, or maybe gambling, I didn't really consider food, food to be an addiction as or did ... that you could be addicted to food. Although in saying that, I often would have had the thought I actually eat as if it was an addiction, even without knowing that that was a thing. Because for me, when I started eating, there was absolutely no off switch. There was no stopping, didn't matter whether I was hungry, whether I wasn't hungry, whether I was enjoying what I was eating, whether I wasn't enjoying it, whether it was main, whether it was not, it didn't matter if it was in front of me and it was edible. I ate it. And I would never ever get full. I just I just never got full of.... If it was a sport, I definitely had the endurance of an Olympian, I would say I could, I could go on forever. But it wasn't always like that. My eating was more binge eating. When I was in eating mode, that's the way I behaved. And usually that continued until my clothes didn't fit me anymore. And then something told me right, it's time for the next diet. And I would go on the hunt for the next fad diet that happened to be in style at the time to see if that would work for me. And usually it always did. So that led into a period of restricting my food. And the diets that I was on were never ever any way balanced or sensible. The main aim was for me to lose the weight. And I could do I could do that. No problem. I was good at dieting too. And that lasted usually until my head told me, Well sure you are thin, you don't need to be on a diet anymore. And then I was straight back the bingeing. And that cycle of eating went on for me for my whole entire say, teenage started teenage years, and one break through all of my adulthood until I came here into this fellowship. So I got to a stage where I knew this isn't right. The way I'm behaving with food isn't right. And there has to be there has to be some other way. And I went to my GP and I admitted the way I was behaving with food and they used the word binge eating. And I was referred on to a counselor and a dietitian and went through that route and around about the same time just through a simple Google search I came on the AEA website, and there was a tab and it said is, Is Addictive Eaters For You? or something like that. And there were 15 questions on on the site. And to see if you could identify as being an addictive eater. And when I read through the 15 questions needless to say, it was a yes to nearly every one of them. And then, the website also showed me that there was an online meeting that I could go to. So I thought, I'll try this, see what it's like suss it out see is it for me or not. And my very first meeting, I stayed on at the end, and I got some phone numbers of members. And I made phone calls to those members. And the days after the meeting, and they shared their story with me. And the advice I got was, Just keep coming back to the meetings. Because at that stage, I wasn't sure if it was for me or not, you know, I heard people sharing things like what the one thing that stands out to me the most is I heard people talking about eating out of the bin. And I thought, Well jeepers! I am definitely not as bad as these people. I've never eaten out of a bin in my life. But you know, what, came to me since that and from keeping coming back to the meetings that, the reason I never ate out of the bin is because I never allowed food to get to the bin. I behaved like the bin, I ate everything that was in front of me, and even if my children would leave, they‘d not eat everything that was on their plate, I would eat that too. Because you know, one of my tricks when I was dieting was if it's not on your plate, and you're eating off somebody else's plate, it doesn't count! So like I had all these notions. But in coming here yeah, I recognized that through time after keeping coming back to the meetings, I was told to try and do what you can identify with people, don't don't be like, looking, looking look for the similarities. And there were so many similarities. So thankfully, very soon I totally accepted, yes, this is the place for me, I totally identify with all the stories here. And what I was attracted to most was the recovery that I heard here, the lives that people were living here, the peace that seemed to be in people's heads, I wanted that. It was really attractive to me. One thing I always remember at the beginning, one thing that I was really surprised at was the speed at which people talked was so slow and controlled. And like, to me, my head was just always going 24/7 around the clock overthinking. And, you know, I just wanted what I saw here, I wanted the peace of mind and the contentment that was here. So I was prepared to just simply follow the steps of the people that were here before me what the steps that they took to get that recovery. So the first stage of that was asking somebody to be my sponsor. And, and that's what I did. And I was given a food plan. But thankfully, I was told that the food plan is not the solution here alone. Food actually isn't the problem. And the food plan isn't going to be the solution. And I found that to be true, certainly as a part of it, but a very minor part of it. The real solution here for me lay in the 12 steps, coming to meetings of course, and following the guidance of my sponsor and other sober members, but the 12 steps really, were were where I found the most recovery. And the reason I say that is because I got to really find out an awful lot about myself that I never ever knew before coming here, a lot of truths, there was a lot of searching done and and, you know, I just had to put in the work and, and take the guidance and listen rather than thinking that's what I can do now, rather than me constantly thinking, I can just listen. Listen to other people. And that's that's had a huge, huge impact on me. And one of the biggest things that I discovered about myself is I always had a huge fear of not being in control. I needed to be in control of absolutely everything. And I would keep myself awake and round the clock overthinking everything. And that was something that that something that I am working on changing, definitely don't have it perfect and I never expect that I will have. But it's something that I'm continuing to work on. And
you know, actually, only this morning, I was speaking to my sponsor about you know, I was saying that I would rarely watch TV, but when I do, what I would like to watch is real life medical programs, so as that I can be prepared for any eventuality that may come my way I'm going to know what to do. And I'm going to have experience of it. And that's like, this disease is so subtle, it can come across in so many different ways. And I wouldn't have known that at all, before coming here. So yeah, that the the 12 steps has, has really changed, changed my life. And today, for me, food isn't a thought in my head, ever. I have a food plan, I follow what's on the food plan. And as I said, you know, before I knew that addictive eating was a thing, I remember thinking, Well, drugs, alcohol, gambling, you can give up all those things, you can‘t give up food! And of course, there's nobody here has given up food entirely you have to eat to survive. But what I have given up is my control of food, I don't, I don't get to make decisions around food anymore. And for me, needing to have control over everything... it's remarkable how quickly I took to that, and how much of a weight that it was lifted off people both physically and mentally. So yeah, that's that's what what has changed for me and like life today. Like before this, I was living on painkillers. I lived with a constant headache. And that's gone today. I don't, I don't take painkillers at all. I didn't that was something else that was revealed to me here, I didn't actually realize how reliant I was on painkillers. And, and that's completely gone, I don't need them anymore. I don't have, I don't have headaches, I was on blood pressure medication for 20 years before coming here. Within, I would say maybe six months of being here, my doctor was able to take me off the blood pressure tablet. And that's not just from the change in my eating, which I know was a factor. The big part of it is the change that has happened im my thinking. I sleep at night now. I never did that before. Because I was always planning and I always had to be always had to be on my guard ready for what may come my way the next day. And I don't do that anymore. Because I don't have to, I realize now that I'm as powerless over tomorrow, as I am of food. And I can relax now and hand over in the morning and say, Whatever comes my way, that's what's meant to be. I don't have to overthink it, I don't have to plan what the outcome should be, might be could be. That's all gone. And today, I can say that I have the peace of mind that I saw here and the members when I came to my very first meeting. And thankfully the only thing that I did was keep coming back. That's all I had to do. I had to just keep coming back and listen, listen to the message that's here and the solution that is here. And that has certainly certainly changed things for me. So I am a very grateful member and very grateful to all the members who are here this evening that have helped me along that journey and of course, my sponsor, because I couldn't have gotten the peace of mind anywhere else that that I've gotten here. So I'm very grateful. And if that's your first meeting or you're fairly new, as was told to me just keep coming back. The solution is here. So I'll leave it there. Thank you.