March 16th of 2016 is the date when I started my life all over again. That is the day when I flew into Austin for a weekend visit with my son and never returned to my home in Virginia. It was a three-day tour where the shipwreck of my life crashed onto the beach, and I began the process of gaining a new peace and transforming my life.
I married my husband when I was only sixteen years old, mostly to escape my abusive home life in Virginia. We eloped to Mississippi where he was in college, and we were married three days after my sixteenth birthday. I got pregnant on our honeymoon. We moved back to Virginia with my newborn son, and over the course of the next five years, we had two more children.
Alas, the honeymoon did not last for long. I discovered that my husband was an alcoholic, and that I had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. As I look back, life was extremely abusive and difficult during these years. Yet, I hung in with the marriage for decades. After I had my fourth child, social services entered the picture and my husband was given an ultimatum: either stop drinking or lose his family. He stopped drinking, but he continued to be excessively controlling and emotionally abusive. That is when we both turned to food as our primary vice. Over the next 30 years, I would gain and lose the same 40 pounds three times, while my husband grew to over 300 pounds. I became a regular participant in a Twelve-Step program for overeating, and this worked for me until my husband retired and his health started to deteriorate.
To cope with my role as his primary caregiver, I continued to turn to the food as my only comfort. For our daily pastime, my husband and I would sit watching television with baskets of junk food besides our chairs. During this time, I gained 80 pounds, and though I tried several diets, nothing seemed to help with the weight. I was stuck in an abusive marriage, and I was out of control with the food.
On March 15th, 2016, I said goodbye to my husband and boarded a plane to Austin. I had no idea at that moment I would never see him again. My son and I had a tumultuousness weekend. I broke down in tears six or seven times. My son was extremely concerned, and he helped me reach out to a professional therapist and a pastor, both of whom advised me against going back home. We called my husband and told him I would not be returning.
I had left everything in Virginia, and there were several times in the first few weeks where I packed up my suitcase and started to go back to my husband. That’s what I did, as an addict; I was addicted to the pain and insanity and would rather turn to that than embrace God and sobriety. However, my son back in Virginia told me not to return to the dysfunction. I am blessed that all my Virginia children repeatedly advised me to establish a new, independent life in Texas.
After three months, my son in Texas told me I needed to find an apartment and move out of his home. He was throwing me to the curb, and I was frightened to death! My husband had kept a tight control on all our money and I had nothing to start over with, but I worked through the fear, and with God’s help, I found an apartment two miles from my son and his wife. I was given furniture and everything else I needed.
I was 210 pounds when I arrived in Texas. As I looked into the mirror of my new apartment, I realized that I had the opportunity to truly start over. I remember thinking during the bondage with my husband that if I ever gained my freedom, the first thing I would do is take control of my food.
I started Al-Anon that June to learn how to deal with my new freedom, and there I met a lady who told me about Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous. I discovered that my new home was only ten minutes from a weekly FA meeting. I visited the meeting and found a sponsor that night. After that, I called my sponsor every morning. I worked all the tools of the program. I attended three meetings a week and began to lose weight. I lost 80 pounds, and I have now kept it off for two-and-a-half years.
As I worked my program, I thought I had found a way to gain control over the life-long addiction to flour and sugar. I began an AWOL and learned the Twelve Steps. I learned not to eat over pain and to use the steps to enable me to face my issues. I also learned that was I personally unable to control anything; instead, I had to turn my will and life over to the care of God. I could only truly obtain balance and peace if I surrendered to a power greater than myself.
The dramatic change in my size intrigued my son and his wife, and in January, they both joined the program. The following year, one of my daughters joined FA. We had all medicated our lives with sugar and flour, and now, we are all active in the program.
I am blessed to be in FA. I eat three beautiful weighed and measured meals each day. I no longer feel pain in my hips or limp around on bad legs. At 73, I feel the best physically I have felt since I was in my twenties. I have regained emotional stability. The sugar fog and blues are gone, and I can think clearly and calmly. Life is still a challenge, and things with my husband are still a mess. We are legally separated, and I watch from the sidelines as my children deal with his troubles. Yet, I have a peace beyond understanding. Through the FA program, my fellows, a great sponsor, and a supportive family, I have a new lease on life. Content as a single woman, I am now settled and unafraid. At this time, I feel I have shed the cocoon of medicating pain with sugar and flour and emerged into sane and happy usefulness. FA is a critical component in my healing and now a lifetime pursuit.