I was finding myself thinking about food every time I drove home from work or from a meeting. I would pass a fast-food place or a sugar and flour shop and start to think about what I would eat if I weren’t in Program. I wasn’t hungry and I wasn’t having a craving. I was just thinking about it.
One night coming home from a meeting, I passed three fast-food places in a row, and I spent the entire time mentally making out my possible menu for each place. I realized what I was doing and began to talk to myself in a very negative way. I scolded myself, using verbal abuse and negative talk. I was angry at myself for thinking about food. I should have known better with 155 pounds off my body.
My sponsor suggested that I stop the negative talk in situations like this and ask God for help. Instead of this self-abuse, she suggested that I ask God to change my thinking and also tell God how grateful I am that I have a solution to living and don’t need to pick up the food. Simple solution…talks to God instead of beating myself up over my thoughts. I can do this.
For the next few days, I did catch myself going to verbal self-criticism and then making the switch to asking God for help. I was able to take this action and found myself having a better drive home. While I was driving, I began to tell God what I was grateful for.
Then one night I was coming home from taking down wallpaper on the house I am going to move into and was wishing I had someone to help me. On the way home, I drove past a frozen dessert shop. My mind began to race about what I would have if I could, and I was off and running. I stopped and asked God for insight into my reaction. Suddenly I had an awakening. I realized that I was feeling lonely. I was driving home and not looking forward to going home to an empty place, and I was thinking, once again, that food could make me feel less lonely. Until my mom passed away, I always had her to go home to. She was there to talk to and to just be with. I was missing her and feeling alone, which was why I was thinking about food!
Before FA, I thought that food could help with loneliness. Most Friday and Saturday nights, I ate my loneliness away. I was too overweight to go out with friends and always made up excuses for why I couldn’t go out: laundry, my mom needed care, or I wasn’t feeling well. I desperately wanted to go out, but I was too ashamed of myself. I found comfort in food…it temporarily took the loneliness away.
After my realization about the connection between food and loneliness, I made an outreach call and to talk to a fellow FA member about my sudden awareness. I was able to go home and write a gratitude list of all the people I do have in my life. I may think I am alone, but I am not. I have people all over the country to call day or night, and a family to reach out to. It was a great relief just to understand what I was doing. I know now that the food won’t do it, and that I have a program and tools to cope with loneliness. I realized that I was always looking to fill my feelings of loneliness with food, but actually, the food actually was preventing me from dealing with the loneliness.
Today I drove by a flour and sugar shop on my drive home. I smiled and thanked God that I have a conscious contact with Him day and night. When I feel lonely, I reach out to my fellowship, and just knowing God is always with me gives me great comfort. I truly am never alone, I may feel like I am, but it is only a feeling.