Kate S.

This story has been recorded at an Addictive Eaters Anonymous meeting in New Zealand. You can email us at contact@AEAnz.org
My name is Kate, I‘m an addictive eater. ‘‘Hi Kate!‘‘ Thanks for the opportunity to come and share my story. I found out about the 12 step fellowship when I went to the doctor, and I went to the doctor to get the slimming pills. And I wanted the slimming pills because I wanted the particular swimming pills because I'd tried them before and they...I felt happy on them, and I didn't feel like I wanted to eat. And I always felt like I wanted to eat. And I hated the fact that I wanted to eat. Because I wanted to be anorexic, I didn't want to just be slim, I wanted to be skinny. And but I thought that I was weak, because I would always give in to eating and had all these really strict rules and would starve. But then eventually I'd given and I would eat. And then eventually, I just couldn't even really starve very well. So I started vomiting when... after I, after I ate anything. And so when I went to the doctor to get those slimming pills I was probably about maybe 26, something like that, mid-20s and I probably had been vomiting for maybe, I don't know, about six years maybe. And so I thought that if she, if she knew about all the vomiting that I was doing, the doctor would think it was better for me to take the pills. And because I wasn't actually overweight, I was maintaining a ‘normal look‘, normal looking weight, not... I didn't look anorexic, I just looked normal. And so I didn't know how I was going to get the slimming pills because of that. So that's why I told her about all the vomiting that I was doing. And so she didn't give me the pills that I wanted. But she did tell me about a 12 step fellowship. So I wasn't very happy about that, because I didn't get what I wanted. So but I must have rung, I must have rung the place. Because the next thing was two people came around to see me, to visit me and shared their stories with me. And then the next thing I remember I was going to a meeting. And at the time, it was just all too... I don't know what the word is. But like it was almost like it was too open minded for me. Like it was too outrageous. It was too out there, I couldn't handle the whole idea of being in a group of people and talking about food. And my problem with it. So I didn't go back for a few years. But one of the things that I used to control my weight, and to try and put off eating as long as possible was drugs and alcohol. And I loved the effect. I love to be high. And at any opportunity I would take, I would use drugs and alcohol as well. And eventually I found myself in the Salvation Army program for alcohol dependency. When I was in there, they said if there's anything that could lead you back to the drinking, you should address it while you're here. And I knew for me that was food, was my like secret. And I was still binging and vomiting at that time while I was in that treatment center. And so I started talking about the food there. And that's when, again it came up about this 12 step fellowship. And I started going to meetings again, but I didn't really have a very good attitude about it, I was kind of quite angry about having this problem with food.
Which because because I suppose I was ashamed of it, and I saw it as a weakness, I wanted to be better than that. And, but when I came along to meetings that that second time, the people looked a bit better! I thought!  Though they dressed better!! (laughs) And they looked nicer. (laughs) Maybe I don't know whether I don't know whether being a few years older, and having gone through the treatment center or something may I was starting to be a little bit more open minded, I don't know. But that's what it seemed like to me. And so I was quite happy to keep on going to the meetings, because I quite liked what I saw, except I thought that everybody's tummies were too fat. Because anything over anorexic was too big for me, I didn't want to settle for normal. I wanted to be really thin. So I had lots of wacky ideas. And as well as that, as well as wanting to be really skinny. I also wanted to eat all the time. So the two things don't really go together. Anyway, I did. I had been coming to meetings, basically ever since that time since I went back again. But I was a long, long way away from being ready to start getting well. But I didn't understand that at the time, I thought I was ready that this was the start of my new life. And that so the 12 steps of this program of recovery; the first part of the first step is admitting you're powerless over food. So I thought ‘Yep, okay, I totally admit that‘, because I always eat more than I want to eat. I can never seem to control, you know, I‘ll make up all these rules - I‘ll break them all. And also, things like, break, you know, like I‘d break commitments and things like that, you know, so I can be alone, so I can eat all the time. And just it seemed like food had just taken over my whole life. I wasn't interested in people or a career or anything like that, and spent all my money on food and all of that sort of thing. So or drugs and alcohol and all of that. So my life wasn't going anywhere. So I felt like I really had a good understanding of step one, I was powerless. So part of the solution is to take up a food plan, which is surrendering the food. And, of course, you've got to eat to live to fuel your body. And that was the thing, it was the change of the way I think so I'm eating to fuel my body, not for the pleasure of eating or mucking around with food. Okay, I can understand that, that‘s good. And you know, the food as God intended it to be, you know, just natural food. ‘Yep, yep. That's good.‘ But then when it went to actually doing it, to living on a food plan, oh my gosh, I was completely hopeless. I was so furious! And I just want I just wanted to like I'd rather be dead than...you know like, I suppose... I thought I knew what the obsession for food was because I thought about food all the time. But I was always in control of everything. Like when I was going to eat, what I was going to eat, how much da da da... so I‘d make up all these rules and then I‘d break them but so I‘d make up another rule. So I was always planning and everything. But then when I went on a food plan I just had to do this. Just have that, have it at these times, had that much, no changes. I don't know what it was, but it just drove me mad. Oh my gosh, I had so many tantrums.
Just over like, I don't know what it was. It just was terrible. Just was all like tied up inside. I‘d just get so furious and I‘d just go running back into the food. I just and then of course I'd feel so much better. And just the relief. But then I'd have that.. horrible... You know, like, that's the, that's the old life, I don't want to live like that, I don't want to have this small life, where it's just me and the food and I'm not interested in anyone or anything or doing anything. But to get away from that life, I have to give up the food. And when I try and give up the food, I go mad completely mad. And I just hate everybody and everything. And so just kind of, I don't know, just got lost in that craziness for a long time. Just not able or willing to give up, just give up the food. And my sponsor said to me that addiction swaps from substance to substance. And that you can be addicted to work, gambling, to sex, drugs and alcohol. And I smoked cigarettes, which is classed I guess, as a drug. And, but I always thought, well, I'll get the food under control, and then look at the cigarettes. But you know, time was going on and on. And I just, I just was keeping on picking up the food all the time and wasn't really getting any time up and wasn't really getting anywhere. And I started thinking, well, maybe my sponsors, right, maybe I'm not going to be able to give up the food while I'm still smoking. So I started mucking around with the cigarette patches and things thinking, you know, ‘how am I gonna stop this? you're not gonna, you know‘, like I thought if I could go three weeks on a food plan, and not smoking cigarettes, that will prove to my sponsor and to me that I'm willing to get serious and go to any lengths to get well. So I got one day. And I rang my sponsor and asked her if she'd help me because I didn't think I could get another day. And when I rang her, I said, ‘can I go on the cigarette patches?‘ And she said, ‘Yes.‘ And to my mind, that's not a real surrender, because a real surrender is you put down everything, and you just have the pain. And so to me, it's like, it‘s the cheats way out the easy way out. But that was the best that I could do. And I'm grateful that she said yes, because I did go on the patches for three months or a three month program. And so I stayed on my food plan and had the cigarette patches, didn't have a cigarette and then eventually had the last patch, went off the patches, stayed on my food plan, and I have been able by the grace of God to just have my food plan. And not no drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes, not eating one bite more or one bite less, since that time. And so that was kind of the first half of the first step. And I, in a way, I sort of feel like it happened to me, which I hear, you know, people talk about in this fellowship, and when they share that I can absolutely relate to it because I feel like my experience was very similar. And that
I can pinpoint a period of time - a day - where I feel like that shift happened where I got that willingness to get serious. And that was when I went to the dairy one morning with the usual thing of going to the dairy getting all the food for the day. Was gonna last me all day had eaten it in half an hour. Felt sick. Sweating. Bloated. Nine hours of work ahead of me, how am I going to get through the day? The only solution I could come up with was to keep eating and just not enjoying the eating just doing that and just realizing that there was not going to be an end to that. That was going to, that was going to be my whole life. I mean, by this stage, I was in my mid 30s And where had those years gone?! Just gone in a flash, another 30 years could go in a flash and I would be exactly the same. And so somehow, it really hit me that I was not going to change. And, and that scared me. And I think that's around that time that I got that real willingness to, okay, you know, maybe I really need to look at the cigarettes and in that turning point sort of came. And then you know it all, you know, that willingness sort of came. And so that's kind of like the first half of the first step. And then somehow, I sort of feel like steps two and three come into that being restored to sanity, just having that experience of being able to see that, ‘Oh, I could not change‘, I wasn't going to change, and needing you know, to get serious and ask for help. And I feel like, that was some kind of a spiritual change of attitude that I so desperately needed, and could not seem to get, you know, I could pretend for a short period of time, but I'd always go back to my old ways, but that shift that I didn't have to go back, that to me was a gift from God. And that was around steps one, two, and three, God doing for me what I couldn't do for myself, and enabling me to take the first half of the first step. But then there's the other eleven and a half steps. And so you know, that step two, and three is ongoing every day, you know, and, and the, the rest of the steps, is, very much still about that attitude of surrender in all areas of my life. And I am as bad at that as I was surrendering the food. But oh, my goodness, where would I be if I wasn't here? You know, I've got the job, I‘ve got a job, I've been there for 11 years. I could not keep a job before I came here. I was getting fired all the time. And it was getting worse, because of my attitude. And I didn't have friends, I wasn't able to make friends. And you know, I have a whole fellowship of friends, you know, people who care about me, and you know, I have a beautiful husband, who's very patient, and, you know, loves me for some reason, which I'm grateful for (laughter). You know, and I have a really lovely life. And
and, you know, like, there's a thing about, there‘s a saying that goes, ‘the world judges you by your actions, but I'm judging myself by my intentions‘, or, you know, something like that. And so, you know, it doesn't matter how I feel, I can get up and go to work. Whereas, I used to think, ‘well, you know, like, if I felt bad, I couldn't show my face outside the door of my house‘, or, you know, that sort of thing. So, I've kind of learnt through working those steps a little bit better, how to live life, and get on in the world. Be part of. And I think that the attitude, the biggest attitude problem is that the world revolves around me. You know, thinking constantly about myself, and being so distracted by the thinking that I'm missing, how I'm treating other people. And, you know, that thoughtlessness that goes along with that. And so, you know that so, for me, I feel like that's a various state of degrees of getting better. But I see here, amazing changes in people who really have that spiritual change in attitude where they genuinely don't come from a place of self centeredness in the extreme and I don't always I don't know you know, with my hand on heart, if I can say that, but I know that I have an absolute chance of that happening if I'm here, and that I have no chance of that, if I'm out trying to manage life on my own. I know that I need to be coming to meetings, because that's where the solution is. And that's where people are talking about the solution, and focusing on the solution. And I need to have a sponsor, somebody that I'm being honest with, about what's going on in my life, and who knows me, and can pull me up on things that I need to, you know, you know, I can justify my behavior. Sometimes I need to be, you know, pulled up, and ‘hey, that's not good. You, y‘know need to put that right.‘ And yeah, so I just know that the solution is here. And I've done lots of fourth steps, to the point of navel gazing. And I had an absolute obsession with the fourth step, thinking that I hadn't done it fearless and thorough, thoroughly. And that's why I will, you know, like, I was, I expected somehow that I was going to be perfect. Because I was in this program, trying to work these steps that I wasn't, you know, like, if I had if I had defects of character was because I haven't done the steps properly! But I understand, you know, you don't, I'm not gonna ever be perfect, and, and doing fourth steps all the time, looking at myself, and my life is not going to help me. And my sponsor said to me, ‘you can do another fourth step, but I only want to hear anything that's different.‘ So I did a huge fourth step. And at the end of it, there was nothing different, there was nothing new to talk about, talked about everything, I just wrote it down in a different way, but it was all the same thing. So I don't need to do any more fourth steps, that obsession has been, you know, satiated, whatever, I don't feel like I need to keep doing that. Thank you, God. But, you know, today, I have to take it to the extreme to get that out of my system. And the sixth and seventh step. I feel like, you know, the step it separates the men from the boys and I absolutely can see why that is because, you know, do you really want to change? You know, like, being really confronted by behaviors and things where
like watching TV is one for me, you know, take the taking the iPad around the house with me while I'm doing things, you know, just constantly having it on. And not you know, not even really knowing why but just because I enjoy it, but just taking things to the extreme. And you know, like is this how God would have you live if it's getting in the way of being available for other people? Or you know, is it keeping you in that self centeredness? And you know, okay, well, are you willing to give it up and do something about it? You know, six and seven is kind of things like that. And yeah, so and I suppose eight and nine I've made amends and done to the best of my ability and and believe and hope that if I need to make more amends and when I do that I will end up that I will always do that, because I don't want to go back to living in addiction again. And step ten is the I see is having that regular contact with my sponsor, and being honest about things like in step six and seven that come up and and being willing to follow direction and make those changes. So that's probably the areas that I find the hardest six and seven and ten and then step eleven and making the time to try and improve my conscious contact with a Higher Power. And and yeah, I guess the challenge there I find is making the time you know, giving God the time. Why I have such a good life, why would I find it hard to give God the time? But yet I do, I want to do everything, want to be out doing everything. And then step 12 you know, just being willing to anytime, anywhere. You know if it can be useful, sharing my experience, strength and hope with others. And it's always so lovely to be able to do that, somebody rang me not long ago, asking me for my experience on a a particular area. And oh my gosh, it just was just was so fantastic to be able to share that with her. And to when she was talking to me about what was happening for her just being 100% there I could totally identify with her. And this fellowship is the only place in my life that I've found where everything that all the experiences that I've been through, I can actually share them with other people and just have that real sense of purpose and that nothing is wasted, that what you go through can actually help other people.
Yeah, so I don't really know what else to share except to say that God willing, I'll keep coming. And I feel very fortunate to have found this program and this fellowship.