Mina M.

This speaker has been recorded at an online meeting of Addictive Eaters Anonymous. You can email us at contact@AEAinfo.org
Mina, would you like to unmute and share with us tonight, please? 
Yes, thank you, Claire, my name‘s Mina and I‘m an addictive eater.
And thanks to everyone for being at the meeting, and for the meeting being possible. And it's nice to see everyone and welcome to the newcomers. And
yeah, I am an addictive eater. But I sort of think back to what it's been like for me with food and um and in recovery, like my earliest memory, I do remember being in nursery, and it was Christmas time. And we had
a Christmas party. And I don't know if it was a happy memory, or not a happy memory, but I do remember, just being round a table with people, you know, Santa, there would have been gold coins and presents and I think it was a joyous thing. You know, I remember enjoying it, but I just remember the feeling inside of just feeling a bit different. But I look back at photos of that and I think ‘that was such a happy time‘, you know, I had my little hat on.
And kind of growing up, and you know, coming from a home, that there was addiction, um alcoholism and I lived in quite a lot of fear a lot of the time. And I remember, you know, a lot of photos for me in my childhood I've always got a bar of chocolate or I‘m eatin‘ and I just remember the sense of comfort that I got from from food. And it did give me a sense of ease and comfort and I absolutely loved chocolate. Chocolate was my go-to for everything. But I was not the type of person who could eat and not put on weight, I could literally look at food and I would put on weight. You know to think of what it was like I must have been an absolute nightmare around food because I always remember having, always on a diet, my neice commenting that I was always on a diet which I was. 
Always trying to cut out food groups like becoming a vegetarian, very obsessed by my way and my appearance and y‘know never feeling clever enough, never feeling pretty enough, never feeling good enough and always turning to food. I can kinda remember when I started to question ‘Why did I always have to say yes to food?‘ 
I remember being in a relationship with someone who has now actually died of addiction, a drug overdose. And I was in my teens. And we'd arranged to do things at the weekend. And you know I was really trying to get out of this relationship and he‘d say ‘‘Why don't we get some food?‘‘ And instantly I would say yes. Because I was powerless over food and anytime food was mentioned or food was a possibility, my answer always had to be ‘yes‘. Because I always wanted and needed to eat and I felt like that would just make me feel better. And for a long time. It did. It did make me feel better. 
But I remember being about yeah ..17 and being you know obviously very self conscious about my weight, both of my sisters are quite overweight and uhm you know I always looked at people who were overweight and just I remember saying things like ‘I never want to be a size 14‘ or ‘I never want to be overweight‘ and looking at myself in the mirror and and not wanting to really be around people because I always felt like quite fat and... and joining fitness clubs, joining in like Weight Watchers and Scottish Slimmers and not really feeling like I belonged in those places because I would reach my target weight pretty quick when I was younger and then just sort of have to leave. And I remember I was thinking ‘I think that there's something spiritually wrong with me.‘ Like I think it's a little bit more than just I eat too much or or I need to go on a diet or I remember yeah being 17 and going to my doctor, erm I was in Weight Watchers at the time. I was, I was a perfectly healthy weight but I couldn't stop eating. And this was yeah, this was when I was 17, and just saying to the doctor, you know, ‘I can't stop eating, can't stop eating apples, can't stop eating food.‘ And he just burst out laughing at me and said, ‘‘You don't have a problem.‘‘ He says, ‘‘You know, I have a problem with people who have a problem. And the moment you walked into this room, I could see you didn't have a problem.‘‘ But I knew I had a problem. And when the doors shut, I remember thinking, go back in and tell him that you drink too much. But I thought ‘no, I don't want to get myself into trouble!‘ And, and it took you know 10 years before I came into a 12 step program after that, and that was just lots of dieting, lots of weight gain. Lots of trying to control my food, you know, very suicidal as well, never actually, I've never actually attempted suicide. But my thinking quite often would be you know, ‘you just need to kill yourself, get this over and done with‘ and, uhm but I know now that that is actually, it's my disease. And then long story short, came into AEA, didn't want this program at all, and then... tried to leave AA and then realized, actually, I need I need to be in AA. I was in AA for a couple of years. And went traveling, and met a lady who's in this fellowship, I actually spoke to her this morning. And she shared with me that she was in a food fellowship. And I asked her if she would take me to a meeting. And she did, she took me to a meeting and I asked her to be my sponsor. And that lasted about three months, that food plan lasted about three months, and I just didn't want to stop eating I fell pregnant. And I started eating again. And it took me two years and two pregnancies to get to a point of you know, having to get on my knees, asked to be sponsored, asked to have a food plan. And not want to eat. My desire to, to not eat became stronger than my desire to eat. And I knew because I hadn't stuck around in AA for like, the two years I went out drinking that I had to stick around in AEA, no matter what. And, you know, my experience has not been smooth. It's been nobody's... nobody's blame but mine. And I see that, you know, I was still trying to control my food and my life. And, and, and, you know, run the show myself. And I briefly went through a phase, I think it was last year when I actually wanted to walk away from AEA, wanted to walk away from the program, sponsorship but and a... haha ha. And I tried to, I tried to just say, ‘I'm going to try another way.‘ And I knew really, really quickly that this works for me, stick around Mina. You know, there's one good thing you can do with your life, it‘s this. And to have a sponsor today, to be on a food plan and to have been taken through the steps and to stop fighting things, you know, stop fighting my food plan. Accept I am completely powerless over food, I don't make the decisions about food and being completely fine with that. And, and you know get along with a sponsor, you know, be in a fellowship with people. And, you know, follow this path, this path that has been laid out for me that I believe my higher power has, has, you know, has shown me the way. And still continues to guide and direct me in recovery. And today, I actually really love being sober. I love not eating genuinely like... I love the fact that I do not eat today. I've had a couple of days this week where it's been pretty full on and and when I've sat down to have my meal, I‘m just still I'm thankful that that's all I can have and that I can't eat any more, any less. Because I am an addictive eater to the core and anytime I feel moments of stress or just yeah... just uncomfortable or pain, I can see how powerful my addiction to food could be. So I'm grateful when I, you know, I phone people, I come to meetings and I weigh and measure my food and I connect with God and... and as yeah, it's a, I love the Serenity Prayer I love that, you know, it‘s a ‘‘we‘‘ program. So I am very glad to be here, glad to not be eating today. And thanks for asking me to share.