Hello, this speaker has been recorded at a meeting of Addictive Eaters Anonymous. For more information, visit our website www.aeainfo.org I'm Joanne I'm an addictive eater. Yes, it's been good not having a lot of time actually thinking about tonight or what to talk about, because it doesn't give me time to get nervous or put too much thought into it. But I did say to my sponsor later, like this afternoon, that I don't really
want to share tonight. And it was really, because I thought that I might get upset, you know, and I might sit here and shed any tears. And I know this is like recorded and hopefully, it might be decided that actually let's scrap it because
you've got me tonight. And it's funny, there was a conversation about haven't got your lippie on tonight, because driving here, I thought, I'm not like Lynette and you know, have the lippie on and get all you know fancied up, you've got the tired looking me tonight, that it's actually just just me, and I'm just tired. And you all know that about my mum with alzheimers. And this is when I feel like I'm gonna start getting teary. So I have been having some problems with my
memory. And I thought, you know, might be just a little bit paranoid, notes history in the family. So I went to the doctor and I've had some tests. And yeah my memory is not as, for my age, I should be a bit higher and stuff. And I'm recalled and go back for some more tests. So I don't know why I'm crying. I think it's just because I'm tired, because I'm not really, it's there and we experience life when we come here and are able to get on and in our, in
our lives. And know that whatever happens, everything will actually be okay, learn about living in the now and not thinking, you know, in a month's time or a year's time, you know, recalled for your memory kind of test or CT you know, actually right now. Right at this time I thought about Kay and other people that have been through things here in the fellowship. And actually, I've only got now right at this time. It's coming up 25 years, that I'll be sober
next week. And for me that's 20 - 25 years of not using any drugs, alcohol or eating addictively with food. And it's actually 28 years that I went up to Queen Mary as a family member, not knowing that food was an addiction, not knowing that we drank normally either. I used drugs, alcohol and food all together. Right from my teenage years, right through until I had my first baby when I was 20. And the drinking stop, the drugs stopped and the drinking took
off. And as a result of that I had a prem baby, which I believe is from poor diet. From there, I gave up coffee, I gave up absolutely everything. But the madness in my head and the want to eat. I remember before I had my oldest son, I went in for a checkup. And you know, I put on weight and I was getting bloated and I had a lot of fluid and stuff. And they told me that I needed to be careful with my diet and what I ate. And I didn't, I knew that that was not going to happen. And I left that
hospital. And I remember going home and just having piles of weet-bix with milk piles of sugar on top like I just knew that I could not watch what I ate no matter what anyone told me. My eating continued you know, through just to get worse. And along with the eating the mental side of it was really, really hard. I've spent a lot of time but all my life, I knew that something was wrong with me. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be like my friends. I had lots of family, good family,
and I had lots of friends. But it couldn't take away this amount of loneliness that I had. And I actually never that loneliness never went until I came in here. And I didn't know why I had that loneliness that it was within me. And when I heard was actually Leonie that shared the first time that I think it was the first or second time that I came about this
being a disease of loneliness. I just was relieved and I knew that she knew what I was experiencing and what I've been through because of those words. And I had always thought that my day would be a fantastic day, if
I didn't eat much. If I could stay on a diet, I calorie counted I know every single calorie, and everything I've tried to hold off from eating, I'd walk my kids to school, the whole time that I'm walking my kids to school, I'm thinking about the calories I've burned off, how that I haven't eated that would be real extra good because I would have been burned off all of those calories, and try and hold off. But actually,
I couldn't. And then when I started, every time thinking I was going to have one of something and I might have had one but I kept on going in and out of cupboard and just eating and that went on for the rest of the day. I just didn't stop. I just kept on eating. And I felt sick. I ate to the point that I felt sick, I'd give it a little bit of a break. And then I'd go
for it again. And just the remorse and shame around the eating and not knowing how to stop not wanting to be fat, but still not not being able to stop doing what I was doing. And then of course, my ex husband would come home, kids would come home from school, I wouldn't have been pleasant, because I'd be in a mood. I wouldn't be pleasant to my ex husband when he came in. I remember the times when he came home from work. I was either in a very good mood or not, in a okay mood or very
angry. Kids had to walk around on like they were walking on eggshells because it was just tense. They didn't know wether they were going to say something or could do something that tipped me off. And if they did, you know I could fly into a rage and rages looked like, you know I have pulled curtains off the walls. I have smashed things, I have taken to things with a mop. Just like I had this beautiful vase that my godmother, my auntie gave me for my 21st birthday, I smashed it in a
rage. You know, and she's not with us any longer. I had things that I really, really loved. And I smashed them. And then and I never wanted to be like that. But no matter how much I tried, I went to anger management courses, I went to self esteem courses, I went to a hypnotist. I went to groups. I tried affirmations. I tried lots and lots of things, counseling, but nothing could take away that anger that want to eat and the feelings of how I felt about
myself. And then, I came here and when I was up in Queen Mary one girl up there talked about this fellowship said it was people that ate the way that I did. Actually, no, that's not true. Because I didn't tell her how I ate. She I don't know she must, she just talked about this fellowship. And I was pregnant
up there at the time. And I didn't think that it was abnormal, thinking that it would be fantastic when I go up yet pregnant because somebody will manage the food and I won't put on any weight. Of course you're meant to be putting on weight when you're pregnant. I felt so self conscious that people were looking at me everywhere I walked, I was sneaking down to the shop and having a newspaper in my arm and hiding things in that newspaper to get back to the room so that I could eat
alone. Because I thought that everybody was looking at me and thinking oh my god, look how fat she is. It was just like that. And that's an example of what it was like every single minute the day. So there was no freedom. And it was really sad. Because I used to go to bed at night crying at night thinking tomorrow's going to be different tomorrow, I'm going to be different to my kids, my life is going to be different. Things are gonna change, I'm not going
to eat that way. I'm not going to yell at the kids, I'm not going to do. Pretty much I wanted to have really good self esteem and be like a saint - wasn't going to happen. And when I came here and learning about this fellowship, I was absolutely amazed that people were talking about what it was like with the eating. The thoughts that they had, the way they felt about themselves was on the scales and off the scales if those scales weighed light. I felt better. And I thought that
was the answer. And that was the only thing that was wrong with me. Well, it's actually not true either. I thought I was seriously mental or had schizophrenia, but if I could be thin. Those things would come right. And I just seen that. It worked in people here, people were just free. You know, they had a smile on their face. They weren't struggling every single day. They weren't crying and sad, but my first few meetings I just remember sniffling through
the whole thing. Just crying because one with relief, but most of the time with sadness because I didn't know how not to be the way that I was. And I, I kept on eating, but I kept coming. And I kept on eating because I It wasn't completely beaten. Although I thought I was with food, I thought I was but I still had some buts, and still
had some more attempts. But I kept on talking to my sponsor, I kept on coming to meetings, and I kept on getting down on my knees, and praying to a God that I believed in, but lost faith in and thought that it was not going to work for me, because I had no other options, I kept on, I kept on coming and one day, which I didn't know it was the last day of my eating... But I remember standing in the kitchen, I remember my little
kids. You know, I had four kids little kids in the background playing around was like I was in a tunnel, and I could hear their voices their muffled voices in the back. Because I was completely focused on this food, because in the kitchen on the
bench. And I did not want to eat because it flashed before me that life was not going to change, that it was always going to be like this nothing was going to change for me that I wasn't going to be able to carry my children that I wasn't going to be able to get through a day without yelling, or smacking or doing something or feeling the way I did. And I wanted what people have so badly. I just
wanted it so much. And I had that obsession to eat so much that I was crying for the fact of wanting it, but crying for the fact of not wanting it. So for the first time, and the only time I actually never ate that food on the bench. And I rung, I talked to my sponsor, that was like that obsession, that overwhelming obsession that was with me all the time was completely removed. Like 25 years ago, I have not had the obsession to eat at all from
that time. I mean that that is really amazing that I believe my higher power has completely removed because I could not do it. I absolutely could not do it. So no matter what happens, if I forget you will! Haha! It will be alright, it will okay. I'm not going to worry about it. And I layed down to have an x-ray today because of I've got a mucked up spine, relax,
release. That's what I did. And you know if I wake up tonight that's exactly every night when I wake up, I think of you and I think of that, you know and I know about you know meditation stuff, but those words those just those simple words have stuck to me. For me. And it means I think about you a lot. But it's helped me so much through so many things. Thank you.