Serena L.

This speaker has been recorded at an online meeting of Addictive Eaters Anonymous, you can email us at contact@aeainfo.org
My name is Serena, I'm an addictive eater. And thank you for having a meeting to come to this evening. I'm an addictive eaters, means for me that I'm powerless over that first one, and that on my own I have a head that would bring me back to picking up that first one if I don't have a treatment. And prior to that treatment is coming to meetings and hearing that message of recovery. Sponsorship, steps that's all that's required for treatment, but also trying to have a relationship with a higher power. Some days that can be pretty, pretty light in that relationship. Even this morning, I was saying to God, ''God, could you please pray through me, would you help me pray here'', because I was I was being a bit moany in my head. And, and then I got a phone call from another member. And it just it just helped. It just helped, that connection with another addictive eater. And for me, that was that was a sign of my higher power, just making this make it a bit lighter at making this a bit easier for me. And I was told that I wanted to do a bit of a reading that was that was okay. And I said to myself, Okay, what what did I read? I thought, Okay, I'll read something on page 33. And then I looked at page 33. And I thought, well, that's not... I don't know, I want to read a different page. But what I did read on page 33. It's in the chapter More About Alcoholism. It said that certain drinkers or eaters would be greatly insulted if called alcoholics. They're astonished at their inability to stop and the page before it talked about an alcoholic who was trying to stop and here it says he gathered all his forces. He attempted to stop altogether and found he could not and that was that was my experience. I believe that I was born an addictive eater. It didn't show I think for a lot of years but into my teenage years, I started becoming unconscious of... I suppose how I looked how I look compared to other people started becoming a little bit conscious of what I ate compared to other people. And certainly then into my 20s it really it really took off as in wanting to weigh less eating in secret, going to a weight loss club in secret not telling my housemates that I was going and being concerned about my weight, but not sharing that concern. And then finding myself binge eating, finding myself starting to eat, saying, I'm just going to have my breakfast but find myself having more toast and a slice of tart, or the biscuit or more biscuits and, and for me just that one or two wasn't enough. And I'd always think ''I'm just going to end with the next one or the next two.'' And just so often I couldn't, one meal might blend into another meal. And it might stop when I'd hear someone who maybe coming into the kitchen or going back into the house, I'd scurry to try and not have the evidence of what I had done visible. Or if I was on my own, it'd stop when the food would run out or just sometimes the engine, the end of the binge would stop but I wasn't really trying to stop. And that's just a little vision of what it used to be like. And over the years I've found that it just got worse the binge just got closer the volumes of food got bigger. And just, you know trying to trying to not to eat and making promises to myself that I couldn't keep. Swearing I was never going to do it again. And yet I'd find myself binging again and even saying things to myself like ''you're gonna have to stop going home to your parents if you eat like that every time you go home'' and there were things that I thought would make me stop and they didn't make me stop... not being able to fit into clothes I thought I should be able to fit into didn't make me stop and being worried about my health didn't make me stop. Knowing better did't make me stop, having a wedding to go to didn't make me stop binge eating. They just didn't have the power and like the the examples in the book when I really, really, really tried to stop binge eating. I just found I couldn't. And I was, I don't know if I'd use the word astonished. I was baffled by it. And I was disheartened by it. I was frustrated, I was upset. And in the end I felt like I was losing my dignity, I felt I was self destructing. And I had, I had no way out. And I had to get to a point where I did realize this pain and I didn't know what was happening. And thankfully, at that time, I got back to meet... I got to see a flyer that said 'Is Food A Problem For You?' And I didn't find the number the first day I thought, but with more, more looking at it, and probably more eating, and I did make that phone call, and I got to speak with a member of Addictive Eaters Anonymous. And within a really short time of talking to her I knew she got it, she knew what it was like to be like me. And that was my first experience of that. And out of that, I got to meet someone who shared her story with me 12 Stepped me and got to start going to meetings and hearing about a way out and hearing about sponsorship and hearing about putting down the food, you're invited to do the 12 steps and and hearing about this disease and I balked at that at first I balked at calling this a disease I thought that was a cop out but I had to concede that it actually fit... it's symptoms, was progressive. And it just seemed to fit me that obsession of the mind about the food and the weight.... I was physically different I heard people talking about spiritual malady and that word malady actually sounded a bit old fashioned but I really feel it's so apt for me that I was eating because I the spiritual malady, the spiritual malady, as I see it today was that self-concern, how would I cope? How will I manage how does this affect me? What will they think of me? ...resentments that I wouldn't have even known I've had, fears I didn't know I had, I just felt hungry. And thankfully, I got to a place again through more eating that... that I asked a woman to be my sponsor and and started doing the rest of these steps. And it just felt like things were thrown up in the air and I might just be okay. And that was the beginning. And thank God I've been just given the grace to keep coming back and more has been revealed more about I suppose um in the last number of months just about how still how self seeking I am I want other people to approve of me, I want them to approve of my decisions I want them to like what I do, and when I think they don't, I get very uncomfortable. And it's how to, you know for me in this program, then learning to live with that discomfort, learn to try and trust my higher power, rather than trusting what I think people think of me. And that has been times when that's been really really hard and I really had to rely on on on members who have recovery, who have that trust in a higher power and ask God for help with it and ask God for the courage to do the things that I find really hard. And I've been and I have been helped here and I have been helped to... to that, that even in times when I feel really really uncomfortable or really really upset o''r really really worried that the miracle of this program is I haven't had to eat over that. And that's a miracle because I'm the kind of addictive eater I'd call myself a pathetic addictive eater who ate over anything or nothing. So for me to, to not have to eat over things I find hard... That's that's down to this program.... and how are things today? Yeah, I get I get to come to work I get to enjoy my colleagues we have one of our colleagues is going to be celebrating her 60th birthday soon and some of my colleagues have gone out and I'll be joining them afterwards. And I, I'm looking forward to their company. And, you know, I believe that I won't you know, I don't I expect that my higher power'll be with me and that I won't need to pick up that first one. And you
You know where I'm where I am here there's a kitchen you know, there's plenty stuff in it and my head doesn't say, you know, ''have one.'' And that's, that's a miracle. So I'm an addictive eater. This program has given me a way out, keep needing to hear this message because I still, I still have that head that needs needs help and gets this year. So thank you for listening to me. I'm looking forward to listening to other members. Thank you.