Celine D.

This speaker has been recorded at an online meeting of Addictive Eaters Anonymous. You can email us at contact@AEAinfo.org
On the first Friday of the month we hold a speaker's meeting and our speaker tonight is Celine.
Thank you, Louise. I'm Celine, I'm an addictive eater. It's good to have the opportunity to do this. Some people have heard my story many times before, I hope it hasn't changed (laughs lightly). Hmm, it's nice to think of here, those early days, you know what it was like for me. And... Yeah, I think. Yeah, I believe I was born an addictive eater, beleive that I was born with addictive disease in every cell in my body. Because I was just different as a young child I remember I'm thinking about when I, you know, now that I know what addiction is. When I, when I was young, I was always probably quite, quite sensitive, but extra sensitive, I couldn't take the knocks, I couldn't take criticism. Always anxious, always afraid, never knew what to do, never knew what the rules - if the rules were there like, for example, the rules at school, unless I was reassured and told what they were all the time. I didn't know what they were, you know, and I remember even when I started school, not knowing whether I should go home or not. So I just ran home and hid, you know, this is at lunchtime. And then you know, school people were out looking for me and they don't know where I am. And I remember another time that happened. That was probably several years later, and I was sick, and I didn't know how to deal with that at school. So I just snuck off home. And again, teachers are out looking for me. And my mum found me home in bed because I was too ashamed to say that I felt sick. And yeah I was always a little bit on the outside. I was never I never knew how to make a friend at school I'd sort of be on the periphery of groups of friends and never really confident to be able to kind of I don't know make a connection there. Never liked. I never liked sport or anything like that. I loved schoolwork. Because then I could really be on my own with it, was good. When I was a young child I was very obsessed with boys, and from a really young age. I'm not sure at how old, but I remember at primary school, hiding under the hedge waiting for high school boys to bike past and there was one particular one, him and his brother. I can't remember which one of those I liked. But this tells you what what I'm like as an addict because I would hide under the bushes - wait - not interested in any other school activities before school just a boy biking past. And if he didn't come past I had a terrible day. If he came past I had a day a good day because then I could fantasize the whole day. I don't know what you fantasize when you're a child about a boy. But yeah, so I look back on I just see that that's actually a pattern that continued on. Food was very important for me way back then, you know, I was hiding food and ...just very fixated around food and always felt like we didn't have enough. And as I got older, my family situation was such a red herring. For me. It was the biggest red herring because both my parents are alcoholics. And so as I grew up in there's lots of family violence, lots of fighting dad hitting mum and stuff. And yeah, just lots of yucky things happening at home. And as I grew up and wondered what was wrong with me, it was a very easy thing to fixate on. And but, you know, now I know that actually, even if I'd had the most perfect parents in the world, I still would have been an addict because I was born that way. So yeah really really odd about food, hiding it. You don't need to hide it if you've got enough food in the house, but I never felt like we had enough. Soon as I was old enough to steal I was stealing food. I was lying. Compulsively lying. Stealing other people's food in the house... Um, but you know, I had this thing...
Because I over ate and under ate, I have an anorexic mind as well. And we had, we were Catholics, and we had yet to give up something for Lent, which I think was about six weeks ...I always gave up lollies because my grandmother would give lollies always gave up lollies and she would still give the lollies and I would just hide them in my drawer and just get them out and look at them. And then put them back. Same with Easter eggs. I remember Nana giving us a bag of chips. And there were those big crinkle cut chips ....and I would take one out and eat one crinkle and put it back in the bag and save it for later. And so days later, my siblings... some of them who came, have been here would be so angry at me because you know, three days later Celine is bringing out the bag of chips and eating a crinkle and putting it away. And then there's other times when I just binged and yeah just binged and yeah as soon as I could get ahold of, I learned how to steal ...stole from the neighbor's milk money and milk tokens. And then I stole from shops. Then I was running away at night. And yeah, and stealing food and hiding it getting food poisoning all of that kind of thing. And I was I was afraid I remember, you know, when I was running away. I was so terrified. What do you do? You know, when you're a young kid and you're out. And there's nobody else around... You know, and I was obsessed with boys. I was terrified of boys. You know, I didn't know how to relate to boys. So I just always remember this just deep unhappiness and loved animals. That was kind of a it was kind of a thing for me where I could really feel good, in a good way. And now I think I actually think that's a sense of the higher power actually, with what I saw in animals. But yeah, so you know, destined to come here because as soon as I could start to eat money, earn money I was eating, eating my money. You know, my first thing that I bought when I got a job was a set of recipe books. You know, I would sit at home, you know, 15 year old girl reading recipe books, I never made one recipe out of those books, because they are really complicated. And mum still talks about it now actually, that recipe I made. But I just love to read books, you know, and it's just so not normal. And so yeah, the disease then manifested in other things, and I didn't drink... I didn't drink normally either. And I tried to get ahold of drugs as well, to get a bit of that. And when I got married, very, very young, you know, it was all about obsession. Obsession with a guy 10 or 11 months obsession with a guy just a customer in the shop I worked at, and he's my husband now (laughs). But just that addictive behavior all the time ....remember, things like having a baby, I've got three sons, that when when I got married, when I got engaged when I got married, when I had a child, I loved all those things when I got pregnant. Because it was a tension on me anything to get attention on me. And yet I was a social cripple didn't know how to behave unless I was using substances. I couldn't work I was pie in the sky dreams about what I wanted to do. You know, all this, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, gonna, gonna. But I could never do really anything. And you know, so my husband supported he supported us he had bought a house before I met him and I never took I never took any responsibility for our family the things in you know, during all that time that disease is progressing in me you know, the way I'm eating, you know all of these rules around food. When I came here I wasn't hugely overweight. I probably lost a few kilos you know, going on food plan but what was this binging and then starving and the rules about food and I was never you know, I'm amazed I remember a woman that was in our program
called Amanda and she used to talk about cooking desserts and watching them in the oven and I think then she talked about burning her mouth. But I could never do that. I just cooked toast, you know if it was going to be dessert toast that was jam. And if it was gonna be savory it was Marmite, you know, it was just biscuits, toast, always buy the vegetables, fresh, full of vegetables, and then I'd chuck half of them out, you know, takeaways spending money shopping, big problem. So, you know, my husband met me I had a credit card debt, that was one of the first things he did. For me, was paid off my credit card. You know, just totally addictive in every way. And yeah, and as well as that. Which, you know, everybody here knows about is my anger, you know, the restless, irritable and discontent and, just get up in the morning, you know, when I am a mother, you know, when I came here, I think my youngest, when I first came here, my youngest child, ah my oldest child was about 12. He's 36 now. And, you know, so I'm a mother of three children. And I just, I just hate life, you know, and just a very, very angry person, but also very loving in some ways too, and, you know, still have, you know, I remember my husband saying to me, when I came here, he was actually quite angry about me coming here, because he just, he just said, ‘it's just another tangent that you're doing‘, you know, because I did all the courses, you know, I was trying to fix myself, I don't know, 15 years before I came here, counseling courses, you know, therapy. You know, some tangent and he was, he was just so angry, because it's gonna take me out of the house all those nights a week. And anyway, after I've been here for a while, and I, when I, when I got some insight - because I had no insight into any of this - when I got some insight into it, and I just said, ‘I don't know why you stayed with me.‘ He'd been with me for 15 years, at that point. And then he just said, ‘because when it was good, it was really great.‘ But he said ‘it was getting really not great.‘ And yeah, and so he put up with a lot of things that I can remember so much anger, and him having to try and fix the situation. And you know, I broke windows, I put holes in the walls. And this is, you know, me trying to be a loving mother. And then I‘d just lose it and do something and you know, the family must have been just living on tenterhooks, you know, all the time. My husband also kind of bought into that red herring thing of having two, you know, my two parents that were alcoholics and causing lots of troubles, but it was if you took them out of it, you know, I was just a, I was just a train wreck. And I just couldn't, I just couldn't manage. And so what happened for me was that I came into AA first. And my brother had said to me, ‘I think you‘ve got the same thing as me.‘ And I went to an addiction counselor, and I told him what I was like, and I never mentioned the food I never once mentioned the food to anybody, either, because I didn't actually even know I didn't know that that could cause a mental problem like I had. And he just said ...you need to go to ... he said you need to go to... come here. And he and I remember going back to him about three weeks later and said because I came here and I related and and I rang him up and I said ‘well it's not working for me because now I really want to kill myself. You know, I've been wanting to kill myself for a long time.‘ And he just said ‘you need to stop coming to people like me, to fix you Celine, I don't know any other solution for what you've got wrong with you apart from the 12 steps‘. And at that point, I just felt like I hadn't, I had no more energy to try. I just I just honestly felt like I had nowhere else to go. I didn't want to go to a mental hospital or a prison. And and I think that was when I started wanting to come. Still took another three years before the food went down because I thought I wasn't as bad as all of you; I had excuses about why I wasn't so bad and why I didn't have to do things quite the way that you do them.
And I remember saying to someone that's in the room tonight. You know, I was trying to justify something and she said ‘you don't really need to worry‘ she said ‘it‘ll either get worse or it will get better‘. And that was a relief to me. And it got it got worse. And when it got worse, I knew I knew where the solution was. And I think one of the things I've been thinking for new people is that for me, I initially came and then went away for a few months, and then came back and stayed. And that was probably, that would have been about 24 years ago that I stayed and I've been coming to meetings regularly since then. When it got to the point of surrender, which was when I really didn't know... And I just was, I was prepared to do what everybody else did. I was I was here in the room, in the rooms, and I had a sponsor. People knew me. And I mean, people could tell how well you are, you don't know it yourself. So I was here and just think, thank God for that. I finally became honest with other people. It's one of my big red herrings was that I'd felt so different my whole life that I didn't want my friends that weren't here to think that I was different. I wanted them to, I was always trying to make myself out to be normal, or, okay, even though I didn't feel like I was. And when I just started outing myself to my friends and just said what I did, and including the weighing and measuring in front of them. I just started to change. And I think that's where I started to have some freedom from the food. Y'know when I was prepared to actually just be an addictive eater, and do what I needed to do. So for me, there's so many things I love about this program, I was an atheist when I came here and yet I live the spiritual program, all of you have taught me that, the literature and all of you have taught me how to live a day at a time, a spiritual program. And, to me, my most favorite thing, when I hear people share is when people talk about God, because it's our own, it's our own conception of a higher power, personal for me. But it when people talk about God, I completely relate to that. And, you know, so I, I, one of the things I really love is that, you know, because we've got quite new people in our fellowship is that I know that those new people can have as good a day as anyone here. No matter how long they've been sober, it's just that don't pick up the first one, get your head on the pillow and don't pick up the first one and come to a meeting. And you know that all of us have a daily program or a moment program, you know, living right in that moment, as we're, I've been given my peace and the freedom. So for me where the food is now, I do think ....because I'm an addictive eater, there's probably a degree of bondedness always, you know, we've got fruit on our trees at the moment and for afternoon tea today had a very big pear. If there's a bowl of pears, I'm going to pick the big one that's how I know, I'm bonded a wee bit (laughs). But if the food just doesn't call me, I'm just not interested in it. I was out at lunchtime today with my son and husband and a son's girlfriend and they all had a an Italian meal. And I just, I just loved it, I love the atmosphere of that place. It's our favorite place to go. And I had my cup of tea. But I just I'm just not interested in food. And it's a miracle. It would say that the things that I think we always have Achilles heel and my thing is fantasy, still, the fantasy living in a fantasy world, or that thinking coming in. And I've been taught here, you know, those spiritual tools of, you know, not listening to my thinking, because the program, the problem centers in the mind. So the not listening to my thinking and just observing it and if I just do that, it just goes away. And then I can get on with doing what I need to do. So for me about I'd say that, probably that three years ago, my sponsor I'm so so grateful for my sponsor, who knows me very well and said she felt that there was something that was missing in my recovery. And she said that she told me that for her it was that was deepening her spiritual life, you know, enlarging it enlarging that spiritual life. And so I started doing meditation. And every day, I think it was about three or four years ago. And I would say in the last year, probably about a year ago, when I had a really difficult situation at work, that became even more important for me in so there's a lot of stuff that I do around... I don't like to call it mindfulness, actually, because I'm not thinking, it's just being in the present. And, you know, when either that troublesome thinking comes in, I just need to start observing my surroundings. And live in that present moment, and that goes away. And that that's been massive for me, I can even see the shift in myself, and how I am with other people. I would say that it's been a very long time since I have abused any anybody, I still make mistakes with impatience, but I I'm not, I'm just not, I just don't have anger. I don't have any problems in traffic or road rage, or I just don't, I just don't just don't get angry like that. And I'm given the tools here, if things come up to annoy me, that things come up that do annoy me, you know, I have the tools here, which is the pause, the pause and actually trying to help someone else. Probably been the biggest thing that has helped me with my relationship with my husband. We've been together for years now. And it's been lots of changes with us both recently he's retired. And, you know, I've been taught here that, you know, if I've got a problem there I just need to look for a way to help him. It's very, very easy. Yeah, so I, people that I really like being around other people that see service as important in their lives and I'm very lucky to have a service job, I've just moved into a leadership role from working on the front line and the work that I do I'm now in charge of quite a lot of people. And, and I see myself as a servant, and I love it. I love it because I can, I can go to work. And there's not one moment of my job that I think of Celine because I just can't do that. And I just really love that where I can just walk around my workplace and see what I can do for other people. It's just it's very good for an addict like me. I have an hour's drive to my work and to meetings actually, if we were having face to face meetings and for me that's really important to put something on... if my mind is busy to keep me focused on the present. I would say as far as fear goes, fear is always about future, you know, the past stuff that think I've lost, or the future that I think I should have. And again, or for that... um just keeping in the present is the answer for me. So the things that have really, really worked for me is meetings as treatment. Lots of meetings. I'm having difficult time -  more meetings. And my sponsor, huge, hugely important for me it I see it's almost like, you know, I know who my sponsor's sponsor is. I know whom was... the other people, my sponsor sponsors, most of them I think, and I just know who those people are here. I mean, they're all here. And I just just so so grateful. So I think that's me, I hope that's the same as the other times I've been asked to share. I'm just very, very grateful for what we're given here and yeah, out of out of having out of being desperate because I was I was gonna lose everything. I have a really, really good life. I'll keep coming. Thanks.