Serena L.

This speaker has been recorded at an online meeting of Addictive Eaters Anonymous. You can email us at contact@AEAinfo.org

I'd like to invite Serena to please share her experience strength and hope with us. Thanks Serena.
So thanks, Meirion. My name is Serena, I'm an addictive eater. And thank you for having the meeting to come to. I'm an addictive eater, I'm powerless over food. And I found a way out of the obsession around food and weight with Addictive Eaters Anonymous, and I was thinking of a line there earlier from The Big Book of AA. And it says, ”We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous and free.” It's in The Family Afterward. And when I first started coming to meetings, and I heard that line, I just thought that was just, that was just lovely, and just so full of hope, ”We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous and free.” And when I came through the doors of Addictive Eaters Anonymous, I certainly wasn't free of food was not free of the obsession. I was looking at some photos today of a birthday. I had about about six months, five, six months before I first went to a meeting. And I was looking at the people who were at that birthday and I I wouldn't have been able to tell you without looking at the photo, who exactly was at that birthday. But yeah, so those people but I also saw plenty of pictures of food and the food that I bought for that birthday. And I can remember where I bought it. And I can remember that just being so important, what food was there. And I remember where I bought it thinking ‘I'd love to work here, I'd love to work in this place where they make cakes.‘ And I even thought, ‘I wonder what I'd have to do to work here?‘ And I have no qualifications in in cookery or bakery, I have no business qualifications. It just would have been madness for me to work there. Because I wouldn't have been able to, but it was the food, how can I be close to the food? Just so... so attracted to it. And you know, and I and it wasn't just having an interest in food, I had a double life with food - there was food that I ate in front of people. And then there was all this other food that I ate in secret. And I went to great lengths not to let other people see what I was eating. I‘d eat it in the car on my own, I‘d eat it in my bedroom. I‘d eat it going around the city on my own. Yeah, because I just I wasn't comfortable to eat the way I really wanted to eat in front of people because the volumes were just I knew they were too big. And along with this obsession around food and wanting to eat was the obsession to be thin, how can I eat and be thin? And kind of hard to do! But that was it. How can I eat be thin? And how can I, how can I be cool? What you know, I want you to think I'm cool. And I want you to like me. And so a lot of a lot of thinking about me. And I I relate to the alcoholics in The Big Book of ...in The Big Book. Yeah, the Big Book, because they talk about, you know, having that craving that when they'd start one or two just wasn't enough and that was my experience too, I‘d start eating food I'd be saying ‘I'm just going to have another slice of toast, I'm just going to have a slice of tart‘ and and it just wasn't enough. I'd find myself going from tart to toast to something savory to something sweet and I‘d go until the food ran out or until I thought people were coming back into the kitchen. And I wasn't proud of myself. It's not what I wanted to do. And along with that eating my weight would go up! And then I‘d try and do something to manage the weight and it might go down a little bit but it never went down enough. So there was just that that battle in my head between wanting to eat, wanted to weigh less than I weighed. And, and thankfully that battle just became intolerable. And and thankfully I didn't think it was great at the time, but thankfully the ways and means I had of trying to manage the weight, I just couldn't do them anymore. Just the motivation wasn't there to exercise. And I just felt hungry all the time. And I got to a place where I realized this thing, whatever this is, has me absolutely beaten.
I just knew I wasn't in a rush. Times before I thought I was in a rush and I‘d dust myself down, and I‘d try again. And this was different. I knew I was in a hole, and I was going down and down and down. And I could imagine that if I lived to be 80, it‘d be the same, only worse. So that experience led me to picking up the phone to members of this fellowship when I saw a notice that said, ‘Is food a problem for you?‘ Because yes, it absolutely was a problem. So, and thankfully, I got to meet people who'd who'd found a way out, they told me their stories, and I knew they'd had it as bad as me and some had had it worse. But, but they weren't where I was anymore. And they talked about getting a sponsor, putting down the food doing the steps, you could see they were doing service, something that happened and and I didn't know if this would work for me, and but I was attracted. And I got great releif out of coming to meetings, those first meetings that I went to I found them intense. Just because it was like letting the cat out of the bag that I admitting that I had a problem that I could not manage. And yeah, and, and I came to see that, yeah, I do have this disease, I have this mental obsession, this physical allergy, where my body is react different to people I know who seem to have no trouble around food. And that spiritual malady, talking about being restless, irritable, discontent, unless I had the food, and I related to all of that. But it didn't stop me eating; that knowledge didn't stop me eating. And, thankfully, through more eating, I got to a place where the the willingness to ask a woman to be my sponsor was there, even though I was full of fear, asking her absolutely full of fear, but I was more afraid of going on the way I was going on. And that, you know, that was, that just changed everything. And I believe for me, that was like, step three, just letting somebody else help me and show me what had worked for her. And I heard last night, a person say that God brought them to AA and AA brought them to God. And I can relate to that, I really believe that my higher power brought me to this fellowship, used my vanity to get me through the doors and, and helped me through other members. Just unblock stuff. You know, the stuff that got unblocked in doing these steps. The resentments I had, that I didn't even know I had against people who actually had done nothing against me. But I had resentments against them. And, and just for that stuff to just fall away, and to get to have a new relationship with the people. It's just, it's just been powerful. And, and I didn't know if I could be sober for a day. And I just remember my sponsors saying, ‘Can you can you try it? Can you try it for a day?‘ And, and that just about seemed possible, just maybe if I tried it for a day, I think we come here and we, we go to meetings, we ask a sponsor for help we do a little bit of prayer, we might do a bit of meditation, and try and, you know, help someone else try and keep in touch with members. And I do that all imperfectly, all imperfectly, but I found that through doing these things and doing the steps that that obsession around food and and weight is taken away. And and I've just had a remarkable year and my little daughter is one and I'm going to be finishing up my my leave and going back to part time work and just the year that I've had has been powerful and emotional and physical and it would not have been possible without without this program without the steps without sponsorship without members. And one of the great benefits of this year was just being able to make more phone calls and be available for more phone calls just been lovely, lovely talking to members. And I'm just one of these people, I just need to hear the message every day, be it from a member from meetings both
because of a head that'll come up with fears or come up with resentments or get in a twist. And I believe if I was to stay in that long enough, the thought of food would look attractive and and I don't want to ever know what it's like to addictively eat again, I don't want to ever know what it's like to self destruct and feel like I'm losing, losing my dignity. And I just wanted to finish with another little bit in The Big Book. It's on page 100. And they‘re promises, they're not the classic promises we read out, but I have found this to be true in my life. And it says, ”If you persist, remarkable things will happen. When we look back, we realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God's hands were better than anything we could have planned. Follow the dictates of a Higher Power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no matter what your present circumstances!” So thank you for listening to me and thank you for a place to come.