I didn’t know what a food addict was. I thought I was weak willed, maybe even a child of a lesser god. I wasn’t the type of addict who hid food; if I had it, I ate it. I once bought a mailbox—the kind you find in the country on a post—and put a lock on it so I could hide all the foods I obsessed over. I gave my husband the combination, and he was strictly instructed to lock up his favorite foods, which of course were flour and sugar items. I thought it was a perfectly good solution for my problem.  In hindsight, it was a desperate attempt to control my eating.  Who but a food addict would need to lock away food from themselves?

When I thought about the word “addict,” I thought about my former father-in-law, who hid beer all around the warehouse in which my husband and I lived in Germany. He must have had two cases worth of beer bottles hidden in unsuspected places. He hid beer in the tool case or in a boot inside the closet—even in the umbrella container right beside the door. In part I thought he was ingenious for hiding his stash like Easter goodies; in part I pitied him for his addiction. As a family member, I worried about his health and his mood swings, which went from jovial to depressed.

I never realized that as a food addict, I also had unusual behaviors that I needed to hide, which ultimately affected my health and mood. The bigger my body became, the more damaged my inner self became. The more damaged my inner self became, the larger my girth became, until I reached a number I couldn’t live with…300 pounds. The number scared me.

A friend of mine introduced me to FA.  I joined, thinking that I could ride the wave of sobriety by being with others on a similar path. I really wanted to lose weight; I just didn’t want to give up my food. I made several attempts, but I found that when the weight started to come off, I wasn’t prepared to go through the feelings that came up. I left the program and discovered again that I couldn’t control my weight. I was miserable. Having been in Program, I was no longer innocent about my choices. Every day that I overate, I was aware that I was destroying my health. I was creating the perfect Petri dish for misery.

I had to be ready for FA. I had to prove to myself that there was no solution but to do it—one day at a time, one measured meal at a time. I had to be ready to give up my “best friend”— food, my comfort and my assailant both, and be willing to make a change.

I came back into Program six months ago with the willingness to be honest with my food and do whatever needed to be done to live an abstinent lifestyle. I have followed the food plan, reduced my weight, and realigned my thinking by using the tools and following the Twelve Steps. I have a community of people to support me and I reciprocate with service.

I admit that sometimes my old friend, food, calls to me with a subtle, seductive voice that only I can hear, but it’s usually only a signal that I’m feeling out of control.  Whenever I feel out of control, I’m usually inside my own head, listening to the lies my addict mind tells me, just like the lie that Jim, the alcoholic salesman in the AA Big Book, heard when the thought crossed his mind to put an ounce of whisky in his milk.

My neutrality around food grows, and I’m losing weight at a pace I can emotionally digest.  Losing weight for me is not a race to get to goal weight, but a journey to live a sane, balanced life in which I don’t have to hurt myself with food or unhealthy thoughts.