Lynette C.

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 Lynette and I am an addictive eater. I‘m an addictive eater, who, you know, hasn't had a problem today with the food, enjoyed my breakfast, you know, had my lunch and had my tea... organized takeaways, Friday night takeaways for the family. And, you know, that's been the end of it. And you know, that's pretty, a pretty amazing thing to say, for somebody who through and through is an addictive eater because I spent a very, very long time. absolutely obsessed with food, unable to not eat, and struggling and battling and believing that I should be able to fix myself. So, you know, to me, it's incredible, that I've had a day that is being free of that, you know, and I guess I had never heard of that happening before. I never knew anybody. I had plenty of friends and people I knew who who struggled with food. But you know, and we jollied each other along a bit, you know, to try and stop putting on weight or lose weight or whatever. But I had seen one woman who had had a dramatic weight loss. And I just did not understand how that
was even possible. I didn't really know her. But that is the only thing that I saw that ever let me know that it was possible. And I did you know, battle and struggle away at that for a very long time because I
thought that I should be able to fix myself. I had an idea of why I was like that. And I blamed particularly my mother for that I thought that I hadn't been loved enough hadn't, you know, I had all these unfortunate things that meant that I was you know, wounded and you know, just that's why I ate like I ate and yeah, so I had in the back of my mind that, you know, there was this this place. But I didn't I thought that it would be coming and feeling a bit sorry for myself and I never imagined an actual solution that gave me freedom. I didn't know that existed but I so I thought that people who came to places like this were very weak and hopeless. And so I thought that I was better off out there struggling away with the ideas that I had, like you know, trying to heal myself doing going to counseling doing endless personal growth courses, and you know, taking advice and, and I did watch all of those people there, you know, suggested for me, and it never gave me, it never helped my weight and it never gave me any freedom or peace that I knew that I you know did want... and... so eventually I did come here. And I knew straightaway that what was here was completely different to anything that I had come across, because I could see that there was an actual solution that these were people who hadn't just had a little, you know, a little tough time with the food. These were people that knew that screaming, compulsion, and craving and inability to you know, not eat. And they were calm, and free and not doing it. And so that was, you know, a total shock for me, and the first meeting, I came to, I bought the book, big book, I clearly got the message that, that that was how you got there. And I left the meeting, and the next day was Christmas Day. And the next day, I was going away for about 10 days. And so I knew that I wasn't coming back. But I knew I was coming back the minute I was, I was back, I thought to myself, ‘They'll think that I'm not coming.‘ But I just knew that I was and and, yeah, so I came and very quickly, I you know, within a few days, I knew that I wanted to be back in another meeting, and that it was, you know, a good, a good place to, for me to be and and so that's never changed, I have always wanted to be here. And
I didn't find it easy to ask somebody to help me. But I did hear that that's, you know, was part of what people here needed to do to get well themselves. And so I did feel free in the end to, you know, to ask for help and
yeah, that's saved my life really. And amazingly, I, you know, I just kept talking to my sponsor, and I,
you know, did what she suggested. I had a very strong will in my heart to do what she suggested and, and amazingly the... well, I just, I didn't have to eat, and I had never not eaten before. And so, you know, it had just never had happened, despite all of the things that I tried. And so, you know, in the meetings, I you know, I kept hearing about, you know, a Higher Power and I thought, ‘Well, yeah, okay, I'll accept that‘ because, you know, it's happening. I couldn't deny what was happening to me; I could function in life without eating. I could be at the park with my son without thinking ‘Okay enough. We're heading home!‘ you know, because I wanted to eat
so that eased and has never stopped easing and it's never come back. And but the other thing that eased was just this huge amount of, you know, feeling inside me waking up with that, you know, just all these feelings of frustration, anger, you know, things not being where I wanted them to be, and taking it out on the people around me and... So, quite quickly, those life things were the, you know, topic of what I was actually talking to my sponsor about. And yeah, fairly soon on, there was sort of a big event with our business. And actually, my life prior to that I didn't know it, and I haven't even really had the words for it. But, you know, I was just trying to keep ahead of life, and I was actually scared of a lot of life. And I was just keeping in front of it really, with a pretty good cover, most of the, you know, most of the time, but inside, there was a lot that I struggled with. And so that became the stuff that we were talking about. Probably my sponsor had a lot more of an idea about that than me...
that would probably, you know, the questions that she might have been asking me or whatever, you know, it became apparent that I was...
just the way that I was behaving, and how, you know, I didn't always know what to do, which meant that I tried to cover up; I lied, you know, I told lies quite quickly, rather than, you know, there was a lot of fear about the situations that I was dealing with, and that's what came out of my mouth, you know, and, yeah, I listened here, I heard very early on about that, you know, program of honesty that, you know, the poor, unfortunates who were incapable of being honest. And, I thought ‘Oh, I don't want to be, there's a risk of me being like that‘, you know, I could go on covering. Or I could just give over to this, you know, to, ‘I don't know, and I need help‘ and, and so, somehow that, I got the help to, to put those things right, to make a phone call and say to the person I least wanted to admit to that, you know, that I had lied and this you know, this was the situation and but, you know, I was given the help to say those things and to front up to people I didn't know and, you know, well and be honest about the things that I've done and and I survived all of that. And I guess I must have felt better for that too. And yeah, I just got the picture that you know, it was part of the way out and yeah, so that was a long kind of list by the time we started you know, working the steps, going through the steps, making the list, doing my step five, and then, you know, eight and nine, and I'm smiling now, because it's incredible that I had had been able to write all of that stuff. And yeah, I didn't I didn't do that on my own for sure. But yeah, there‘s, you know, still been a lot of years of the phone calls about you know, that life stuff and some of that's been, you know, the battle, which I see now has been what has helped me grow that relationship with my Higher Power that connection because I've needed it.
Because there's been you know, other things in my life that I haven't been able to do just like I couldn't stop eating, I haven't been able to
you know, to do cope with other things and but, you know, here I am living, married with children. And all of that brings. And as I say, you know, I didn't marry Charles Ingalls, and I don't live on the prairie
and I'm not Mrs Ingalls. And you know, I had a very set idea of how I think, think things should be. And turns out, they're not like that, and I can't make them like that. And I'm not like that. And most not like that. And so, you know, life's going to dish up whatever, it you know, dishes up. And I had, you know, all my old ways still of of trying to cope with that.
And yeah, it's turned out that you know, that's where I've needed a spiritual solution, as well.
And yeah, I've just kept listening to how everybody here has, you know, what, how things have changed for them. And I call on that all the time, and out there, of what I hear others, others do and how things have been for them. And you know, that there has meant that things have changed. You know, I heard here very early on that that ‘It‘ gets better, and that ‘It‘ is everything. And that's, that is what has happened. I notice... yeah, I noticed that things have never stopped getting better.
Yeah, I mean, particularly in the area of me being married. And you know, my sponsor has heard a lot of phone calls about how, how things are at various times. And it's, well, let's just say in the last week or so, there was you know, you know, circumstances, and I noticed that how I was ringing my sponsor was different. And I am so happy about that, because what I noticed was that in the past, I would be ringing saying, ‘Oh, you know, this has happened! This is what he's doing!! He said this! This is, you know, wrong. What am I going to do about that?‘ And I would be right in there, I would be hurt, my feelings would be hurt, I would be worried about what was going to happen. And I have had, you know, hundreds of times, that should tell me that it always passes. It passes particularly well when I don't get involved. Or when I just remember that, that passes, and that usually not because I've done anything or tried to make something happen, you know, it's, it's always been fine. And yeah, this week, I just felt separate from what was going on.
Just noticing, not worrying, not bursting with wanting to stop how things were just, ‘oh, it's like this, you know, at the moment.‘ And that was one of the most incredible things that I, you know, heard and made a difference to me was,
you know, it's like that, ‘It's like this, at the moment.‘ It doesn't mean it's going to be like it forever, or, you know, anything. And that made a difference to me, you know, because in my mind, I can look one way into all sorts of things and think this and fear that, and, and it's not really either. It's never been real, wasn't real before I came here. But my thinking can do weird old things. And so, you know, that's what's getting treated today. Something else I thought that's, you know, kind of got better was just relating to myself... A few years ago, there was something that happened at a meeting, where actually, somebody asked me to do something, and I suddenly had this mind block and couldn't do it. And that started this whole little roller coaster of weird thinking in me. You know, probably nobody else noticed and that was over and, you know, but, you know, I had all these sort of inadequate feelings, paranoia of what other people were thinking. And it really affected how I was with other people, and for a ridiculously long amount of time. After that, well, since then, I've actually heard exactly the same thing happened to three people! And I didn't think all of those things about them, and you know, I heard those people got over it very quickly. I heard somebody else, you know, talk about it. But I wasn't you know, I hadn't talked about it. And you know I don't think that that would happen, you know, would happen tomorrow. It's getting better. All of that is getting better. You know, and in so many ways, and it's not because I've got clever or I have all the answers. But, you know, I keep coming here, I hear from other people, I can check things out with other people, when something comes up I don't have all the same reactions. There's been something recently that I thought you know, since lockdown, you know, online meetings coming back to face to face meetings that is, you know, been something that's been a bit off for me. And I spoke to my sponsor about it the other day... because I thought of something that I could do about that situation, I wasn't blaming anybody else. I wasn't making anybody else wrong. I wasn't just keeping with it. I actually thought of something that would change things for me and by me doing something. And yeah. So I have every hope that and belief that things will continue to get better. I just believe they can‘t not here... you know all the time that I'm sober and when... So I am very grateful. I have just looked at the clock. So I will finish there, but ah thanks.