Dublin Event Speaker

This speaker was recorded at an Addictive Eaters Anonymous event held in Dublin, Ireland in January 2023. For more information, visit www.aeainfo.org
Thank you. I'm an addictive eater. And it's great to be with you all. Thank you very much for the meeting. Thank you for asking me to share my experience. I was never told that I was born with my mouth open. But I was told that when I was about one and a half or two years... I was young I was I gotta to be less than one. I would my grandma used to watch me she used to babysit me. And so she would set me up on the couch. And I would roll over because I was so fat. I couldn't just sit up straight. So I got the nickname Fluffy. And that was my name as a baby Fluffy. And that's fine. Babies are chubby, they're growing. That's normal. But I carried that along with me through my life. I just knew, ‘Oh, yeah, I was Fluffy. I'm Fluffy.‘ Even when I grew up, and that wasn't the case. That's what I heard in my head. And when I got older, I had I guess I had chubby cheeks. As I I'm thinking I'm, I was probably 12 or so around that age. And I was at soccer practice and another parent came up to me and they're like, ‘‘Oh, you look so good. But your cheeks are still chubby!‘‘ and normally kids would just let that go. But not me, I carry that around. And yes, I am the Fluffy girl with chubby cheeks, in my mind. So I was always conscious. I don't know about always, for a long while I was conscious of ‘I don't want to be too big. I don't want to abuse food. Obesity is a problem. I need to avoid this, I need to be conscientious.‘ But I never really thought I had an issue with food, which is what the what we're talking about today is we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were addictive eaters. And I would have told you, I didn't have a problem with food. I didn't even notice those things that I was carrying around with me until till I got to this recovery. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I think a big moment is when after I graduated from university, I no longer had school to be my structure. I did not have a job. I had ended a long term like seven year relationship with romantic relationship. And I was out of my mind, I had no idea what to do with myself. I felt horrible for taking the privilege and the hard work my parents had done to get me an education, for the grant money that people donated, so that I could go to university. I felt like a failure to all of those people. And so I needed something to feel okay with myself. And I thought I didn't think, I CHOSE FOOD.
I chose food. And let's see what I would find myself in the middle of the night eating from the cupboards, I would find myself falling asleep waking up then going to eat more.
I would drive I would try to drive to work in the morning and I would stop off and get a donut.
People do that. Right? That's normal. 
Just drop off and get a donut. 
But it wouldn't end for me it would be one and then another and another and it would sometimes it'd be two hours before I actually got to work. This is after I got a, I eventually got a job. But it would be two two hours later I got to work or sometimes I just wouldn't even make it in that day. Because I would be so full of shame. Like how could I do this?Be so irresponsible eating like uncontrollably. Why? Why am I not being yeah, responsible? It was the shame and the guilt is so heavy. It's a lot to carry. And the thing is, once I started eating it got it felt a rush for like five minutes it felt really good. It was like if ‘I'm going to be miserable, at least I'm causing the misery.‘ That's fine. But then after that, it was worse. It was like the remorse was more than more than I don't even know how to describe it with words. I heard someone say it's like the tiger was out of the cage. And that I feel like that was really true for me. It was like once I had ignited this something inside of me that was like ‘‘YEAH, F*** YOU!‘‘ (laughs)
Then it was like, it just made it stronger. Yeah. And so I went to the dentist, okay, so what happened to me was I went the other direction, I would have these these binges. And then I would just say, ‘‘Okay, I'm never doing that again.‘‘ So I'd write lists of everything I ate. So I could track everything, you know, the book talks about an insistent yearning to get control over it, to control and enjoy it. So I would have those moments of eating, eating, and then I would write a list. So I could have these roles, I could have track, I could, like balance, you‘re suppose to eat this amount of veggies and meat, and none of it was veggies for me! But I would just write a list to try to try to keep control and it didn't get control. So I just decided‘ I would just restrict restrict, restrict restrict, I lost a lot of weight. I don't know the pounds the the weight in stones or doesn't doesn't, it honestly doesn't even matter about the weight. What matters is the way I was just hated myself and my life and my relationships with others were crumbling, because it was like, all of this tornado was happening inside of me. So if someone just asked you, ‘‘How are you?‘‘ I would be like, tornado onto them. Like throw up explosion it was just like, yeah, because I was like that inside. It couldn't help but come out when someone just said, ‘‘How are you?‘‘ So I went to the dentist, because I was nervous that I was this underweight that I would start to lose bone strength in my teeth. And I was very concerned that I would have nice teeth. So I talked to the dental hygienist. I said, ‘‘Hey, I‘m, I am losing weight. Do you think there's a problem with my teeth?‘‘ And she said, ‘‘No‘‘, actually I did not say, ‘‘Am I losing weight?‘‘ I said, ‘‘My teeth, are my parents say that my teeth are getting weak. Do you think there's a problem?‘‘ And she said, ‘‘No. But I have noticed that you've lost a lot of weight. And I, I go to a group because I have a problem with food. I have an obsession, and I eat compulsively. And I go to this group and find help. If you ever want to go, here's my number.‘‘ And she gave me her card. And I wasn't going to use that I don't have a problem with food. Remember? I didn't think so I didn't. I didn't concede to myself I was an addictive eater. I thought it was all of this, like that I was a failure. I thought I was just too afraid to live. So I didn't even when I went to my first meeting, I didn't think I had a problem with food. But I had nothing else to try. Like, I literally wasn't living day to day life. So I I just went. I just went and there are people there who talked about eating the way that I was eating, they talked about thinking about chocolate the way I did, they talked about helping others. That was my favorite thing. That the way that they they helped others and helped each other. And they were really committed to this program. This and so I just started going back, I went back to meetings for a year and a half, never didn't make a commitment. But I just went back to see what it was like I got my own food plan because I went to a nutritionist and I was going to do this on my own. Go with my own ideas. I tried that food plan it did not work. I just pretended like one food item would fit into three categories. You can rationalize a lot of things. So that's how I worked my nutritionist food plan. And the insanity in my head got worse. I was doing things I never thought I was breaking the law. I was stealing food. It was yeah, punching my car radio I mentioned recently. So finally I I was wandering. I was walking around a parking lot by myself on one holiday literally didn't know what to do. I would just been eating and I couldn't stop. And so I called the number of somebody at the meeting. And she said, ‘‘When you're ready, you're ready.‘‘ And I was like, okay, she said, ‘‘If you're if you're ready. There's the meeting tonight. Come to it.‘‘ And and I hung up the phone and I went I went back inside. I was supposed to be I had an appointment to meet with my dad and I wasn't there. But when I went inside, I met my dad and I was like ‘‘Sorry, dad. I'm having a hard time and I think I need some help.‘‘ And he said, ‘‘Well when you're ready, you're ready.‘‘ And I was like, that was God to me that was God in my life... so I went to that meeting. And I don't know why I'm getting all teary, it's so unnecessary
 I went to that meeting and I started the program of Addictive Eaters Anonymous, and I'm probably the slowest person to get through it, no I don‘t that's my ego. I'm very slow moving very slow moving, but I just take the action today no matter how I feel afraid, afraid to sit here and speak to you afraid to be recorded. I'm afraid to let someone else tell me what to eat. I just take the action today. And God shows up in my life I'm I'm sober today been sober for like three and three quarters years and I'm living a functional life I don't usually explode on people but when I do I have a program that helps me to be better afterwards (laughter). So yeah, I just hope that I keep taking the action so I could stay here in Addictive Eaters Anonymous, in the life of service and love and with my higher power so that that's all for me. God bless and thank you.