Henrik T.

This speaker has been recorded at an online meeting of Addictive Eaters Anonymous. You can email us at contact@AEAinfo.org
I'm Henrik, I'm an addictive eater. Thank you for asking me to share, thank you for the meeting and welcome to all the new ones.
My childhood was I was I have a sister who was one year and a half older than me. And then I have two smaller brothers. And I I was I was a very silent child as as I was young in my childhood. And I can see in the in the back that I have had some ways around food that was not normal. I I stole money from my my mother's purse in a very early age and bought pastry for the money and a lot I bought, as I grew older I got a job with delivering newspapers very early in the morning and I came after the the the the other guy who delivered the morning bread and pastry and so I stole that as well, and I I can see that this was I've done a lot of searching for finding people I could say sorry to for this but... I also stole my mother's cigarettes and my father's cognac, cognac. I liked whipping an egg and then put a little dash of cognac in, in a very early age. So I I grew up and I was Elvis fan and I had to I was very obsessed with my hair and I should look like Elvis and I was completely white hair, uh didn't work actually. But one night, I changed from Elvis to Rolling Stones helped by my big elde sister who took me to concerts. And I became a hippie and it was in the 60s, I found that that the drug of no-choice was some hashish and and then after a while some some some pastry and sweets and so on, this was this was my favorite way of getting getting high and down to little with with with with all kinds of foods. Mostly bad food from places I could at night time find and draw out a box and have this awful pastry.
Yeah...
I joined the hippie trail to defy history and I as long as I had some some drugs I didn't feel any fear. But that journey I got very sick by dissentry and I felt a new form of fear. Fear of not having supplies enough not getting food. And yeah, many years after I returned again to, to this Tibetan doctor who cured my, my, my stomach because and, and I was I was inspired by by... I had some spirituality actually, a New Age spirituality. I, I was attracted to meditation and correct eating and so but I didn't have any self discipline. So, every time I set up a rule for for how to eat I broke it and I ended up in the grill bar or somewhere else. I got out of school and my father wanted me to to have an education, but I just took a job as a construction worker, I made started to earn money and, and I did the opposite of what he said all the time. So, I turned from this silent to child to be to be a very provocative hating child and smoking hashish and taking drugs and of course, he didn't like that. But I moved away from home and lived in different communities, collective communities where there was party all the time and a lot of of things was going on. I again made such a one night transformation to be from being a hippie to be to be some someone that an aethiest without any belief or spirituality and and I got my, my eldest daughter at that time and I the relationship with her mother was not very good, and we ended up splitting up and and I, when I was 35, I started an education as a construction architect and then finish that and I could see that my my, I had been used to drink a lot of beers at working working place. And I couldn't do that any longer. So,
I start to, to eat and to to restrict the eating and at the same time, I was a heavy smoker and
I told myself I could switch when I shift between hashish and alcohol, I was I could for a month stay without one of the drugs, but I needed drugs all the time. And actually it got worse being being educated and having more and more responsibilities. So I wanted to save the world. So I got a job as a development worker in Nepal and I I was very angry, I was in an area where there was no food, there was no electricity and there was no there was no hashish and there was no booze. There it was a dry area. And so I had to, to to stop. And I was feeling very, very bad. Stopping without any kind of medication. And I was I'm exercising on mountain bikes. And so in a very hard way, I was hit by two strokes shortly after each other, and I, I had, I got paralyzed in one of my side, my left side and I couldn't speak, I lost speak. So I know that being an addict, a food addict is dangerous. It's my high cholesterol was one of the reasons and the other reasons might be plenty, but I can see that my whole life has been without any kind of discipline or so. So I couldn't say no to, to anything and I was really destroying myself and and yeah, I got I got the, my company ended the contract and sent me home and and that was in year 2000. I hurt all over. Yeah, I started with with some some in Nepal I started with some acupuncture and some of those new age techniques and so and I when I came in, when when my, when I came home to Denmark again, I was I was putting that on, in a way because I heard people share about serenity and talked about serenity prayer and I realized that that I was a heavy smoker. I was a heavy drinker and I had so many things I was setting to to and and I found these 12 steps of fellowship where where I could, I could starting with with cigarettes and alcohol and shortly after that, I could see I had had a problem with with the food. I started another food fellowship by
I was my life was a mess. And I was yeah, I I didn't know what to what to do. And I was desperate. So, um, I
tried to do as suggested, but I couldn't, I couldn't actually feel that the physical reality as Dr. Silkworth talks about was was dimishiand so I couldn't feel that I had a new way of being spiritual, because I still was using the food and it took me a long time to find out what what how to surrender and in in when, when 2019 when I got to my first AEA meeting in Copenhagen and I could feel that this this this way of working the program on was was talking to my to my the healthy things in me... and that this fellowship was was had to had some this food plan and so was the... I really liked to be a member here in AEA, I really needed to because I know this is a disease that kills, and I want to live I want to surrender all my my addictions to a higher power as I understand the higher power, and having a sponsor and working the steps and helping others is the solution.
Slowly getting more and more mature and growing up after all this years of of of powerlessness over my addictions shows me that there's a way out and I hope you all can find that way and with that I pass. Thanks for listening Misha.