When I was a kid, Halloween was one of the greatest opportunities for a binge. My mother always got Halloween treats, to hand out to children in the neighborhood, that nobody in my family particularly liked so that my sisters and I would not binge on our own stash.
Every year, she put the candy in the same huge brown wooden salad bowl (I can still picture it). And every year, I remember eating all of the candy I collected in a pillowcase after walking around the neighborhood for hours on end.
Immediately upon arriving home, I would start with my favorites, and then eventually resort to the things I did not like but couldn’t help eating. After that, I always headed for the treats that were left over in the bottom of the salad bowl. I still remember the nauseated, stuffed feeling I had every year, and the bafflement as to why I ate so much of what I didn’t even like.
As I got older, the Halloween tradition continued. But instead of trick or treating, I spent a lot of time in stores buying all of my favorite items in bulk and on sale. At that point, my disease of food addiction had progressed until I was “mainlining” my drug and buying only my favorites—sweets with such a high sugar content that they stung my mouth and made me feel sick. I ate them anyway, and bought as much as I could. Sometimes I think I stole it.
But the clearest memory I have of Halloween is my second year of abstinence. I had lost over 100 pounds and had the clarity and sanity to leave a crazy relationship with a guy I had been living with for about two years. I moved back in with my mother.
On Halloween that year, my mother was out at a party and I was alone in the house. That year, for whatever reason, she had bought the good stuff that I actually liked in the past. The break-up and resulting move I had just been through was particularly traumatic, and I was crying a lot and talking and talking to fellows on the phone constantly about it (I needed a lot of help to let go).
At one point during one of the many conversations I had that night in my mother’s living room chair, I realized that I was alone in the house with the salad bowl sitting in the hallway. There had not been one single trick-or-treater, so the bowl was full. And although I was uncomfortable, sobbing a lot of the time, obsessing about this crazy guy, I had not put my hand in that bowl and reached for anything. In fact, I had not even thought about the bowl. Instead, I was using the tools of my program to get through. I was asking God for help, being honest with my fellows, and taking the right action, despite my feelings. (I will spare you the details of the following seven months during which I went back—and went back— and went back to that boyfriend until I finally surrendered).
I had not noticed the full bowl until I began talking with a fellow about my gratitude for abstinence. In that moment, I realized that despite how slowly my mental and spiritual recovery was progressing, I was alone with the bowl and had not turned to the food for relief. I had a good laugh with my friend, and went to bed. That was the end of Halloween 1995, and one more abstinent day.
Today I no longer associate Halloween with food. This year, my husband and I will go to a party with our two children, who adore getting dressed up and visiting decorated houses. That crazy boyfriend is long gone, thank you God, and the joy of my life in recovery is so much better than the food ever was. I am so grateful to no longer be alone with the bowl.