Jill H.

This story has been recorded at an Addictive Eaters Anonymous meeting in New Zealand. You can email us at contact@AEAnz.org
I'm Jill and I'm an addictive eater. That's the easy bit. But it's nice to be here. And I always feel a bit anxious about sharing. But I, I was reading a story in the big book today. And this person said, she said, ’I'm an alcoholic, I became an alcoholic because I drink.’ And I thought, you know, that is not my experience. I believe I was born an addictive eater. And I was just waiting to pick up the first one. You know, I don't think I don't think for a moment that food made me an addictive eater, I was the addictive eater anyway. And, you know, I have memories of stealing food and hiding food and having my private little stash of food from when I was two or three years old. And I guess that that was the substance that was available to me. You know, if I lived in a house full of alcohol, who knows? That, you know, I'm I'm quite sure that, you know, I spent a lot of years trying to figure out what made me eat. And I thought it was because of the terrible childhood I had. And because of the terrible town I lived in, in the terrible country I've been brought up and my awful siblings and my worse parents. And then I read about how people who had been sexually abused particularly, often became addicted eaters. And I thought I must have been sexually abused. But I have no I had no memory of that. So then I read about repressed memory. And that explained everything. And, you know, the relief for me when I came here, and, you know, heard the message that I still hear today in meetings, that I am an addictive eater, because I was born that way. And I have absolutely no doubt about that whatsoever. You know, I always, I always felt different, I always felt as though I didn't belong, you know, I was the kid who was never going to get picked for the team, you know, at school, they used to divide the class up and you’d get picked for teams, I was always the last one, you know, I just, I just didn't know how to be part of anything. And you know, all the way through my childhood growing up. I had that feeling of being ill at ease of not belonging, of not knowing how to fit in, it was like there was there was some secret to getting on with the rest of the human race. And I just didn't know what it was. And, you know, it was awful going through life feeling like that feeling of not belonging. And, you know, when I was 17, I discovered alcohol and that took away all my problems really fast. And the other advantage of that was that I know a lot of other people when they started to drink they’d put on weight, I lost weight. And it was wonderful because all I really wanted in life was to be thin. You know, and I wasn't grossly overweight. When I look at school photos. You know, I was a bit overweight at times. But in my mind, I was enormous, you know, and I always thought I'd be happy if I got thin. And like I said, I discovered alcohol and I lost a lot of weight. For many years of my drinking, and my eating. I thought for many, many years that I had control of my eating. Because when I was drinking I didn't want to eat. And, you know, the self delusion of the addict is amazing. You know, I just, I just thought because my weight went up and down in accordance with what other substances I was using. I always had that idea that I was controlling the weight, you know, it was absolute rubbish. I was just swapping from one addiction to the other.
And that was another thing I learned when I came into the program that addictions, swaps from one substance to the other. And, you know, it was amazing for me coming into the program and looking back on my life. And the things I heard, just totally rang true with my experience. I mean, I had blundered through my life, never been able to figure out why things going wrong with me, never been able to figure out why I couldn't make decisions, why I didn't have a proper career, why my relationships were always so lousy. Why everything went wrong. And when I came to, when I came to a 12 step fellowship, my whole life started to fall into place, you know, it just, I don't mean, everything got better. I mean, as it explained why my life had been the way it was, you know, I heard... Well, the big thing I discovered was that addiction isn't particularly about the substance, you know, it's a substance that brought me in, and I'm very grateful for that, but, you know, I discovered that addiction was about so much more than my eating, you know, it was about my whole personality, the way I lived, my belief systems, just everything. And coming here just made sense of the way I had been all my life. You know, and I've often shared at meetings that when I came here, there was nothing in this program that I thought was a good idea. You know, I was horrified to see God on the wall. Absolutely horrified. Well, not so much horrified, I was disappointed, because I thought it was about God, I can't go there, I’ll have to find somewhere else. And thank God, that didn't happen. But you know, the whole idea of listening to somebody else's suggestions, or instructions, the whole idea of taking my inventory, when the world had been so nasty to me, the whole idea of making amends and worst of all, the idea of doing something for someone else, was just all .. I was gonna say intolerable. But it was more that I just, I just thought, why would you do that? Why would you do any of those things? And, you know, sometimes I find, I feel as though I haven't changed much. And when I think of my attitude to the steps in this program, and the way, I thought they were all just absurd. And I don't, you know, my thinking today is absolutely opposite. Like, it's just the best way to live, you know, that, that makes me realize how much things have changed. But it happened through you know, it happened through a lot of grief. You know, like, I fought against this program. I didn't want people telling me what to do, you know, and more than anything else, I did not want to give up the food. I mean, I was an AA before I came to came here. And
you know, I use I remember, I used to think when I was in AA, I was so angry about the fact that I couldn't control my food, you know, and I I used to yell at God and say, you know, ’what do you want from me?’ You know, ’how dare you want me to give up everything else? Isn't the fact that I've given up alcohol enough for you?!’ You know just just demented and I think I when I fortunately I lived on my own so I could probably afford to yell and shout at God more than people who lived with a family might want to but you know, I used to yell this stuff at God, you know, it was ’haven't ya, haven't ya taken enough from me?!’ That was my attitude. And I you know, I tried. I tried managing the food addiction through AA because I thought it's the same program. It's exactly the steps, exactly the same program. It's all addiction. You know, I must be able to do it through here because I did not want to come here. You know, I mean, I find even today, you know, I can whip up a bit of glamour about drinking, but there's, you know, I was a very secret eater, I wasn't somebody who publicly loved food, I was terribly ashamed of it. And I did, you know, I did all my eating in secret. And, I did not want to, well, I didn't want to stop eating for one thing. But I didn't want to, you know, tell anyone about what was happening. You know, so I led this absolute, you know, when I think about it, I mean, I think what a, what a hard way of life it is, you know, to have that desire, all the time and to be eating and hiding it. And I spent quite a lot of years, quite a few years coming in and out of food fellowship. And I eventually, I found the meetings here, where some of you people here tonight, were, were there already. And I heard you know, I knew that it wasn't working through AA and whether it should or not, it wasn't. And that I needed to come here. And I came to a meeting and, you know, heard people talk about recovery from food addiction, in a way that I had never heard before. And it was partly that, you know, the people in that room were a normal size. I don't know, I don't think I thought they were thin. I think I thought they were just a normal size. And it was very reassuring to me that they were were a normal size, but it was far more than that. They were they had a peace about them you know, that I could see that. They had some peace in their life - something for all I know, they might have gone home and kicked the cat and all their family, I don't know. But it sort of seemed to me that they were they just had a peace about themselves. You know, I had no peace in my life. You know, I was such a bad tempered person, I had always been a really bad tempered person. And as as the food got worse in my life, I think I got a whole lot more bad tempered, you know, people were always in my way. I was very suspicious of people. I was very angry. I mean, I remember I used to wake up every morning, and pray to be kind and loving and gentle with everyone. And I’d get out the door in the car and start tooting the horn at people who were in the way. And I’d get to work and I I'd start yelling at people. I mean, they must have thought I was really insane. You know, when I went to make amends to that those people you know, none of them said, ’no, no, no, you weren't like that.’ They knew exactly what I was talking about. I was just crazy. And, you know, I look back and I think it must have been awful for them. You know, looking at this person who just who just yelled at them... just, you know, it's still sometimes in the day when I think about just how awful that must have been to people. But, you know, it was you know, it was I had dreaded making amends to people and I discovered through making amends to people of just just how kind people can be and how tolerant they are. But you know, it makes me very, very grateful not not to be like that today.
Yeah, and anyway, I came here and I saw - sorry, got sidetracked, that happens. But you know, to see people here who weren't like I was was amazing. I you know, I can still remember that first meeting and leaving that meeting with that little bit of hope. You know, because I saw those people you know, in whom the problem had been solved, you know, they talked about the way they used to be and they just they were just calm. And I loved that you know, I loved that calmness about them. And 
you know that they weren't like I was was... it was wonderful. And I totally embraced the program. And I got sponsored and got a food plan and thought all my
Christmases had come at once, and then somewhere along the line, I decided that my case was different. You know, I think it's, it's very much a trait of addicts to think that their case is different. And I thought mine is different and I decided that, you know, I could make some exceptions in my food plan when it suited me. You know, I, I found it very humiliating to ring my sponsor, and, you know, say I'd forgotten there’s a penny or something like that. So, you know, to solve this problem, because I hated admitting that I've done anything wrong. I just decided I wasn't going to talk about those things anymore. And there were a lot of little incidents like that, I remember, I used to go visit the parents, and they couldn't cope with me cooking. My mother couldn't cope with me cooking my own food. So I just decided when I visited them to just have what they had, because it was pretty similar to my food plan. And, you know, those little those little lies, those little deceipts. They just, I guess they just chip away and they got bigger and bigger. And the more I did that, the more I thought, ’I can't possibly tell anyone what I'm doing’, because it just, you know, it just became a much bigger accumulation of lies about what I was doing. And, you know, I had a service position that I think quite a lot of people looked up to me, you know, and I was living this life of deceit, you know, was it just to me, it just got blacker and blacker and blacker. And I realized that being a bit of a drama queen, you know, I would have to go to my deathbed. And I might make a deathbed confession of what I'd been doing. But, you know, it certainly wasn't going to happen before then, in fact, I thought it'd be really good to make a deathbed confession. You know, and that's how I thought, and, you know, I lived with it. And, you know, the enormity of living, living with lying like that, and hiding, what I was doing was just, you know, it was just crazy. I remember after I, you know, I finally got to the point where I couldn't do it anymore. And, you know, and I had to go and talk to my sponsor about what I've been doing. And several people said to me, ’you look 10 years younger, what happened?’, you know, and that was, you know, carrying that burden. And I often think of that, bit in the big book, where it says, ’half measures availed us nothing’, you know, and I never had in all those years had a moment's peace of mind. I mean, I think there were times in those years when I was probably eating on the foodplan, quite, you know, may have been weeks or months, I don't know, but I think there were times, but you know, in the back of my mind, I always reserved the right to go and eat when it suited me. And, you know, because of that, I, in my mind, I was eating the whole time. And I never had any peace of mind. In all those years, I never had any peace of mind. And you know, what happened was that I just, I just got to the stage where I couldn't do it anymore. It was exactly like I'd been with my drinking, you know, except it took me a lot more years to get to that point where I just could not do it anymore. It's just just just completely exhausted by it, and I couldn't do it. And, you know, I had to admit, I had to admit defeat. I just, I had nothing left in me that I could carry this on anymore. And, you know, the book says ’who cares to admit complete to admit complete defeat?’ And I tried for years, not to admit defeat. And today, you know, I just feel so very, very grateful that I got to that point where I couldn't do it anymore. And I went and I told my sponsor absolutely everything I could think of, that I had done.
You know, and I also feel very grateful that you can't get kicked out of this program. Because, you know, I felt that I didn't deserve to be here. And it took me probably 3 years for that feeling of not deserving to be here to wear off, you know, and I'm very aware today, you know, I'm not here on merit. You know, I just feel very grateful that that I have been given a second chance. And I feel very grateful that I stayed. Because if I had left during that time, I'm not sure that I would ever have come back. You know, I would have found that so humiliating, so embarrassing, so crushing so, whatever, that I'm not sure I ever would have come back. But, you know, I was here and you know, eventually, I was able to talk about what I did, I had to make a lot of amends all over again. And, you know, that was, that was really good for me, because I had to go back to some people and say, ’hey, you know, that amends I made to you 10 or 15 years ago, I skipped out some bits’ so now I had to go back to those same people and make the rest of my amends and, you know, again, I was, you know, I am endlessly amazed at how, how generous other people are because, you know, I didn't... I wouldn’t say I did’nt deserve, I'll just say that people were really, really generous when I made amends. And, you know, I had to go back to being a newcomer and I hated that. You know my sponsor treated me as if I was in day 1 again. You know, where as if I’d had my way, I think I would have just been someone who's done a few things on the side. But yeah, I, that desire to eat was taken away from me, you know, I, I never liked to say anything like, ’I gave up the food’, because it wasn't me doing anything. I didn't give up anything, that desire was taken away by a crowd a ... a power greater than me. You know, I totally believe that today. You know, and I haven't had to eat since that time. And if the desire to eat hadn't been taken away, I don't know whether I would have stopped eating. You know, I mean, it's pointless speculation but but, you know, it does leave me absolutely knowing that, that God has done for me what, what I could not do for myself. And God has done so much. You know, all that anger and bad temperedness I mean, I occasionally get like that I have an issue with some neighbors over magnolias that irk me from time to time. And, you know, sometimes I get I get bad tempered about things. But, you know, I know I'm not gonna break out into you know, into a wall of outrage. You know, I love today, one of the big things that's changed for me and I know for a lot of other people here, too, is getting more involved in meditation. And, you know, I love that I love the practicality of, of meditation of, of just being able to stop, you know, when I when when I do have those negative emotions, which don't actually happen all that often, but when they do, just being able to chop stop and take stock and breathe quietly, and, you know, there's always something else I can do and you know, and that someone something else is, you know, the best something else I can do most of the time is to do something for someone else. And that is something I hated doing. I just couldn't see any point and why would you do something for other people when nobody's done anything for me?
And that’s just crazy thinking. And, you know, I know I have a peace of mind in my life today, you know, I don't have that turmoil, I don't wake up angry in the morning. You know, if there's a problem in life, I can talk to the sponsor, I can talk to God, I can talk to other people in the fellowship. And you know, there was always a solution to everything, and I love one of the things I really love today is living my life, knowing this is not really about having one day at a time. But knowing that whatever happens in the future, it will all work out alright, everything will be fine. God's running the show, and I don't need to worry. And, you know, I remember somebody years ago, who always used to say to me, ’Jill, what if the sky should fall?!’ Because, you know, that's what I was like, I was always worried that the sky will fall. And, you know, to live knowing that, you know, if the sky does fall, there'll be a solution. But just to know that everythings alright, and there will never, I mean, just to have that, I have got that certainty that whatever happens in my life, there will be a solution for it. And there will be someone who can help me. And I thought how many people out there in the world live knowing? I mean, I don't know whether other people live with all that uncertainty and doubt, and fear. But, you know, it's wonderful not to live with that fear today. And I know it's all you know, it's all because of you people and this program. And, you know, having these steps as a way of as a way of living and having a sponsor, and, you know, having having God running the world it just um, just gives me a peace of mind that I never had before so. Anyway, I'm very grateful to be here and thank you for asking me to share