Reignfyre Recovery

A record of a womans recovery throught addiction. Primarily food addiction using the 12 steps of OA (Overeaters Anonymous). Also includes recovery from sex and love, drug and alcohol addiction.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Advice for Newbies!!
1) Go to meetings!!! Lots of them!!! Do 30 meetings in 30 days, or better yet 90 in 90. If going to 5 meetings a day helps......than do that! Whatever it takes!
(Go to the Overeaters Anonymous website at: www.oa.org There you will be able to find meetings in your area. If there aren't any f2f (face to face meetings) go to the online meetings. Great meetings are at: www.therecoverygroup.org they have meetings every 3 hours. Don't forget that you can start meetings yourself. OA has info on how to do that when you are ready. Also, go to open AA meetings too! There is great recovery there.
2) Get a sponsor!! (Again, if there aren't any sponsors available where you are or are none who have what you want, the recovery group above has online sponsors!)
3) Get literature!! Go to the OA website. I particularly reccommend all the pamphlets (they are also very inexpensive and I keep some at work & in my car). Get the OA 12 & 12 and a copy of the AA Big Book to start. Get a subscription to OA's Lifeline magazine (also inexpensive) and better yet order some back issues.
4) Get abstinent!! Come on, you know what your binge foods are!! Are they sugary, fried, fast food, salty, is there no way to have just one? What are the foods you crave?? Bet ya don't crave broccolli! No, I'm not talking about broccoli drowning in cheese or butter. I'm talking about good old green, raw, broccoli. See, never ate 10 bunches of it at a time have ya? Probably not a binge food then. But what about that cheese.....hmmmmmmmmm? See, you know what your binge foods are, write em down & commit to not eating them!! Don't worry if you forget some, you'll find them later! Progress, not perfection!
5) Get real about who you are. You have a problem with food. That doesn't make you a bad person. You're not weak willed either. You just have a problem with food. You might also be tall, short, blonde, brunette, have big or small bones......whatever! The point is, this is not your fault, you are not to blame, NOONE is to blame. It just is. You didn't cause this disease......but you ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR TREATING IT!!
Good luck and write you later,
Love,
Amy

Today is 60 days free of using or abusing any substance!! Whooooooohoooooooo!!!
I have really been relieved of the obsession with food. This past weekend was the first time a binge thought came up. I was thinking of having some peanut butter. It has 1/2 the fat of regular peanut butter, and as I read the label, I discovered that when they took out the fat they had to replace it with something!! That something was 3 different forms of sugar! And here I started buying this particular brand because it was "healthy" because it was low in fat! Well I should have known it wasn't healthier as I have binged on it plenty (and I never used to like p.b.!) As I read in Kay Sheppards book "From the First Bite" anything that has something removed from it, or is "free" of anything is probably bad for you (is a trigger/binge food). She was definately right in this case. Well I like Peanut Butter because I am a vegan & it is a good way to get protein in my diet. So I decided to buy some as a "whole food". That is mashed up peanut butter, fat & all, with nothing added or taken away. I don't really want to binge on this stuff as it is not sugary but, well, thick & gritty like most protein like foods. Good every once awhile, definately not a binge food. Well....I didn't throw out the other "great tasting, sugary" binge food because like most compulsive overeaters, I hate "wasting" food. What a friggin' crock!! Were starving children in Zimbabwee going to eat this? Was I saving it for the next time a hurricane hit? Civil war? Riots in the streets? Please!!! But there it sat in my fridge.....just waiting for my disease to whisper in my ear............"Pssst!!! Amy....listen, I'm just sitting here waiting for you to come & get me. Cmon......you've been good, all that hard work deserves a nice sugar high!" Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it was still there. Was I trying to sabatoge myself? I really think I just wanted it there, just in case sanity got a bit to scary. Well there I was this weekend sitting in my hottub & for the first time in almost 2 months an obsessive food thought entered my head, "that pb is still in the fridge....that would taste reallllllllllllllll good." I stopped myself cold, what was I thinking!!!! I am so happy with my abstinence and my life right now. Why would I even consider giving up everything for a bite of food I don't even particularly care for except that somewhere in my sick brain a part of me could rationalize having some as a "health food" knowing full well it would lead to an all out binge!! I sat there & thought & thought.......why was I thinking this now. I really didn't figure it out but I did try. I came up with 2 options but in my heart I know neither is quite right. One was because I was coming up on an abstinence milestone and two, I was nervous about an upcoming dr. appt. (all doctors make me nervous). Well the long & the short of it is that I DID NOT BINGE!! I didn't even consider it.......the thought came & went & the only after effects were that I wondered why the thought came & why now? Also, the offending item is in the trash......have at it maggots! It's good enough for you but not for me. My body is a temple and right now HP is living inside. No room for junk food. Oh sure.....some might say my body doesn't LOOK like a temple currently......ok, so it's a little run down. It's been neglected for 2 or 3 decades. Gotta air the temple out. Put some stones back in place. Clean off the moss & cobwebs. Get some crazy bats to move. Hell, I might even upgrade it some. A little work today, a little work tomorrow......someday it will be as magnificent as the Pyramids!! And while some may be disillusioned by the current state of the outside of it, the inside is full of HP's loving grace and it shines out of me & into the world. I know that since I have been abstinent I have not been perfect, but I have improved. I am more loving, less judgemental, kinder, clear headed, thoughtful, joyous, and less unselfish than I have ever been. I have had fear but have been braver in facing it. I have known sadness and lived through it. I was in hell and even though I am not currently in heaven, by comparison, it sure does feel like it! I am also stronger & wiser. For instance, today I went to the doctor. Of course they weighed me. When I saw the scale I did not fear it.....but I didn't give in to the disease either. Nor did I fear the results. Instead I got on the scale without missing a beat, but turned myself around and merely said: "I am on a diet and not ready to hear the numbers yet". The only response from the nurse "good for you"! That was an intelligent & brave decision on my part as I know there is no number right now that wouldn't make me crazy. And hell, I'm congratulating myself! But in reality I could have never made that decision without a clear, rational mind. And I don't have a clear rational mind unless I am abstinent. Not dieting!!!!!!!! but abstinent. Dieting and abstinence are like cats and zebras. They are both 4 legged mammels, but two totally different animals. Dieting is about forcing something, for a specified amount of time, a beginning and an end, not eating is the goal and obsessive thinking prevails. Abstinence is a light breezy way of moving through life, it is ongoing . Food becomes fuel and nothing else. My days are not full of obsession but full of recovery and sanity. That is enough for now. Blessings to all!!
Amy

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Some of my earliest memories of food & the nightmare that continued into adulthood;

At four years old, sitting on the stairway with my two brothers watching my parents fight. We were moving, packing boxes everywhere. My mother was telling my father as soon as she could she would leave him someday. This was a big turning point in my life, it was the end of my innocence and my childhood. My two younger brothers weren't old enough to understand what was happening. My mother had declared war. She soothed us by taking us to the store and we each got to pick our own cereal. My youngest brother picked BooBerry. Andy picked Count Chocola. I picked the pink one (for girls) Frankenberry. I ate the whole box.
I was with my friend (actually the only other girl in my neighborhood....I hated her). I was probably seven or eight. We were at her church (my family did not attend). We had made crafts & now it was lunchtime. There was a wonderful punch and sandwhiches I had never had before. I loved it......I asked for seconds. The woman I asked acted like a had said I wanted to cut her head off. She said if there was any left after everyone had had some then maybe.
Halloween, we always netted a ton of candy. We lived in a neighborhood of 365 houses and we hit everyone. Our father was on the board and so we were treated different. We got special candy, full size candybars from those in the know. The candy was so voluminous. We kept our own candy but froze the chocolate. We had unregulated access to all our candy.
For years we grew pumpkins in the backyard. They grew like weeds in the Virginia soil. Our freezer was packed with pumpkin pies, the only thing mom knew to make with pumpkins.
Christmases.......mom baked a dozen kinds of cookies, several dozen of each kind. Most were frozen.......I ate a lot of foods frozen from this early training.
We were poor and on a strict budget for food. There was never enough meat. The only vegetables we ever saw was corn on the cob & canned veggies. We lived on potatoes & ketchup. The only food we had in abundance in our household was ice cream. Dad worked part time at the Highs down the street. Apparently we lived off of the ice cream he stole.
Mom taught us all how to read & write before kindergarten. She taught us to write our names by spelling them out on our sandwhiches........in ketchup. We had to know our names to get the right sandwhich. I started asking for the long form of my name to be written.
I was on a self imposed diet. I was a preteen. My mom had gotten McDonalds for the family, I froze my food knowing someday I would be off this diet. One night I literally felt insane. If I didn't eat the food in the freezer (sandwhich, sundae, fries) I would die. I called mom at work (she had left Dad by now & was working) and explained to her how wrong I felt and that I needed to eat this food. My mom was nonplussed, "so eat it" she said. Even then in my own way I was trying to explain how wrong I felt inside regarding food.
I was in Pennsylvania visiting relatives. There was a hayride which should have been pleasurable. The truck was on a steep hill and tilted and I was on the side that was tilting down. A kid started making fun of me for being fat. My brother came to my rescue. I don't remember eating that day.
I was 14 and on summer vacation....waiting for high school to start. I was dieting.....I was eating 1 can of string beans or 1 can of chicken noodle soup a day. I sat in the house with a heavy wool blanket around my shoulders, huddled over my precious food. I did not want anyone to talk to me while I ate. I did not want them interrupting my communion with the only thing I loved.
Still 14 and at the beach. It was over 100 degrees outside & the sun was directly overhead. I was laying on the blanket with half of it wrapped around me. I was freezing and could not warm up.
I was standing in the vacation house my Dad had rented. He was holding me down and forcing food down my throat to make me eat. At least he recognized I had a problem (although anorexia was not a word in the American vocabulary at the time). Unfortunately his method of force feeding me did not serve me well. I did start to eat again, more than I had ever eaten before.
I was a teen and old enough to walk to the local Highs. Most of my peers went to buy cigarrettes & soda. I went to by ciggarettes, four times the amount of soda, and large amounts of food. At first I worked a paper route to be able to get ready money. I would collect from a few houses before we went out and then never pay the paper. Sometimes I would steal from my mother. Then I started to go into various schemes. When a friends mother had to throw out thousands of chocolate bars that were past their expiration date at her work she kept them. I made it a daily practice to steal hundreds of bars from her (which cost me nothing) and sold them at school for a dollar a bar. The chocolate tasted horrible of course, dry and gritty. But I didn't eat it, I used the money to buy large amounts of food after school. Every day I would get a huge sub (18" long) filled with pepperoni & meats. By the time I finished putting the works on the thing had more calories than any human would need to eat all day. But still I also had 4-5 candy bars, slurpees, potato salad, & a 6 pack of mountain dew in the bottles. This was my "snack" after lunch at school and before supper. The lady who made the sandwhiches got to know me very well as she made them everyday for me. A red headed Irish woman, I saw her more than my own mother at the time.
I was now in my 20's & severely obese. I weighed upwards of 400 lbs, probably closer to 450 but that is a guess as the largest scale I knew of went to 400 lbs. I would come home from work and beg my youngest brother (who was now a teen) to go to the 7-11 for me & buy me my usual. A 6 pack of mountain dew (nectar of the gods!) 5 candy bars & a dozen doughnuts. Those would be my desserts after a large supper. We would usually get a 2 for 1 deal for pizza.......2 huge pizzas for $10. I & my brother Andy would practically eat 1 apiece with my youngest brother grapping a couple of slices.
I was living on my own. I was still huge and I could barely walk. I had to go up 2 flights of stairs to my apartment. By the time I made it up after a day of work I literally couldn't move. I didn't have enough energy to cook or clean. Maggots were the only visitors in my apartment when, out of desperation I would cook a box of spaghetti because I was starving and had no money. The leftovers sat & till the fat white squirming things came. The entire apartment smelled sour. I had broken the toilet with my fat ass. There was 3 inches of water in the bottom of the tub due to a drain clog which I was unable to bend over & fix. By this time I was in my mid twenties, walking with a cane. Thank God I had credit cards & there was a new delivery service. They would pick up food from one of fourty restaurants & bring it to your house. They would stop at two for an extra $5. It was charged on the credit card so what was the big deal?? I got at least two meals, usually 3 or 4, from 2 restaurants most nights until the credit cards were all charged up. I ended up going bankrupt, and losing the apartment.
There was to be a get together in the bosses office on the 3rd floor. I was too heavy to walk upstairs but I was required to go. So about 1/2 hr before the time I made my way upstairs. I made it up there....but then the boss wasn't ready to have the get together. I had no choice but to stay until he was going to have it as I knew I could not make it up the stairs once again. I stuck out like a sore thumb. Later that day my boss came downstairs to talk to me. He said he needed to talk to me. He said I had to get my shit together, I was too fat to climb the stairs. I was mortified and turned to more food to ease the pain.
I had that job for 81/2 years. Did I mention that we had all the free sodas we could drink while we worked? I went through at least a couple of sixpacks of canned mountain dews a day, and then stole some for home.
This is enough memories to last me for today. Is there any question I am a compulsive overeater and a food addict?

Friday, August 11, 2006

57 Days!

Today is 57 days of back to back abstinence and the start of my blog. I will eventually post my story which will contain my adventures in addiction and recovery. I have four addictions that I have struggled with for nearly 3 decades. The first and foremost addiction (the mother of all addictions) food. Running a very close second and only losing by a nose is sex and love addiction. Third, but not far behind....drugs. Last but not least (oh we can't forget about you Mr. Barleycorn) alcohol. From this little bit of information you will probably not be suprised that I have never gambled. I think I would probably be bankrupt after sidling up to a one-armed bandit within the week. Thanks for reading my thoughts and my stories. Come back again!


Amy