This is a posting I did for a few recovery loops. It is a synopsis of my story (again). Wanted to share it with all of you.

My name is Amy, I am a coe, fa, alkie, druggie, sex & love addict.
Yes....I AM an addict.

I have been a food addict & compulsive overeater as long as I can
remember. Food was always a primary factor of life in my family of
origin. Almost everyone in my family has addictions with food, and some
with alcohol. Obesity (morbid obesity no less) runs in my family and many
have died from it or complications from obesity (type 2 diabetes & heart
attacks, etc). Food was always a reward in my family and also a comfort.
I was a star in my family growing up. First of all because I was the
oldest. Secondly because I was smart & precocious. Thirdly because I
almost died as an infant and was not expected to live. I ranked high in
the reward food hierarchy.

My mother was ironically, thin while I was growing up. But so obviously a
food addict. She hoardes food & used food to teach us growing up. Yes, I
learned to read & write early on. Mom told me how to write my name in
ketchup on my sandwiches! However time eventually caught up to her!

I was "chubby" and a "big girl" early on. When I was 10 I went through
puberty and became almost 6' tall & got boobs. I remember walking into my
fifth grade class & having my male teacher tell the class Amy got her
period because I had breasts. That is when my classmates started calling
me fat & picking on me. Now I look back at pictures and see I was a ten
year old built like a woman with a killer bod. I should have been
modeling! But instead I got a complex (people really do become what you
call them) and I started to seek comfort in food. I did gain weight &
quickly began the "dieting". Notice the first 3 letters in that word are
DIE! I didn't know what I was doing. I figured if less food meant you
lost weight....I would eat less. I was eating as little as 50 calories a
day. I was too weak to move. When we went on vacation at the beach it
was over a hundred degrees and I sat huddled in the sun with all the beach
blankets wrapped around me. My Dad recognized I had a problem (this was
before anorexia was a recognized condition by most). My family did not
believe in hospitals or doctors, they cost money. Instead my Dad solved
the problem by force feeding me. I started eating that day and rarely
stopped for the next 29 years. Up until that point I had never been more
than a few pounds overweight....that would change.

I started to gain a lot of weight as a teen. The taunts of others caused
me to retreat further & further into the food. I would go on extreme diets
to lose the weight & then gain it all back and more. I know this part of
the story is familiar to most. But I really went to extremes. The more
weight I gained the more disconnected I became from my body until I
totally disassociated. Once that happened I really had no idea how big I
got. I was in denial that my weight was a problem despite all the medical
problems I had. Every few years I would decide to do something about it,
extreme diet, lose weight, gain it all back & more, and on and on. In my
late 20's/early 30's my job shut down & I decided to go back to college.
P.E. was a required course taught by "Killer Cripken". Well Killer was
really into health & I learned a lot and lost weight and got in shape. I
was in the best shape of my life but still eating poorly. A meal would be
4 or 5 servings of low fat ice cream. Sure I lost weight...but I was
still way into the food and obsessed with it. Still indulging in my binge
foods big time (not knowing that was a bad thing). Eventually this led
into all out binging. But I couldn't gain the weight back. What to do?
Well syrup of Ipecac solved that problem. I went to the drugstore and
discovered my new cure for all my weight problems. Now I could binge all
I wanted without repercussions. I was still thin enough for my extreme
sports lifestyle...all was well. Everyone thought I looked beautiful too.
But all was not well.

I started to realize I was gaining weight anyway. I was desperate. I had
already tried all the formal diets & big money weight loss schemes. I was
desperate. I found this OA and went to a few meetings.

I was not impressed with my first several meetings. They were very small
& full of "whiners" who just complained about being fat. This was not for
me I thought. Yet I kept coming back. I'm not sure why.

Then I started feeling particularly poorly after a bad binge. I seemed to
swell up but I disconnected from my body and ignored it. Pretty soon my
college life of fun & food would end.

The next thing I knew I was being rushed to the hospital. I felt so
embarrassed knowing all this fuss was being paid to me & how awful I would
feel when they found out nothing was wrong with me. When I first arrived
at the hospital the nurse said it looked like appendicitis and it was no
big deal. So imagine my surprise when the doc sat down on my bed and told
me I was dying....and he didn't know why.

He had suspicions...but he wasn't sure. He needed to do exploratory
surgery...but I was too ill and would die on the operating table. We
would wait and see if I stabilized enough to do surgery. In the
meantime...I could not eat, drink, have ice chips...NOTHING! Anything
that activated my digestive system could kill me. Talk about a food
addicts nightmare. I laid in that hospital bed for a month with NO FOOD,
NO DRINK, NO NOTHING to comfort me. I was in agonizing pain. They would
do an exploratory surgery only to have me crash. It was 3 exploratory
surgeries before they could finally find out what was wrong. My extreme
dieting, rapid weight loss & weight gains, caused me to get huge
gallbladder stones. On my last binge one released & got stuck in the
pancreatic duct. No bile could get out. It built up and built up until
it leaked all into my internal organs....digesting them. By the time they
got all that cleared up....it was too late. My Dr. tried to give me pep
talks, saying the only thing keeping me alive was my will to live. I told
him I would die then, because I was done. He wanted to do one last
surgery, thinking maybe he missed something. I said no, I want to die.
They gave me my own room so I could be comfortable.

Then, I didn't die. It was a miracle. Later the doc told me he had never
seen anyone as sick as I was live. He said, "you are a miracle". In the
meantime none of my very good friends came to visit me in the hospital,
NONE. Only family, and these people I had just met in OA. They didn't
even know me. But they traveled pretty damn far to see me in the
hospital, to cheer me up, and bring me gifts. I never forgot that.

The Doc told me I could never compulsively eat again or overfill my
stomach as I was now prone to pancreatitis. Every time I did, could be my
last. No alcohol either, nada.

As soon as I was able to walk & drive, I went to the nearest supermarket &
bought all the food I could and then had a few drinks. No, I didn't learn
a thing.

Except that these OA people understood me. I kept going to meetings, for
31/2 years. I was very active in service and made lots of friends. I did
a lot in OA, including gaining over 200lbs hitting my top weight of 450.
I was never abstinent and very rarely worked the steps. But there was
some hope, understanding, and companionship. Eventually though I gave up
hope. I dived back into the food and left OA. I put away all my OA
books, tapes, and literature, but I didn't throw them away.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Several years later, still heavy, I was listening to Howard Stern on
satellite (I know....this gets weird. Saved by Howard Stern!) I was
listening to a celebrity talk about her ex-husband (they had their own TV
show) and Howard asked how he lost all his weight. The celebrity outed
her husband as a 12 stepper who went to OA. Well, this was a real break
of anonymity but it probably saved my life. I went to an OA website that
night & looked for a meeting. To my dismay I found all meetings in my
area were gone. But there were these Internet meetings. I went to one
that night & asked for a sponsor. One person told me she was a sponsor
and I grabbed her. That was my first abstinent day.

Tomorrow will be my 6 months anniversary of abstinence. I have lost over
a hundred pounds. I am now around 230. I might be stalled for awhile as
I just had knee surgery and I need to let that heal. But the real miracle
isn't the weight loss. It's the abstinence and the clarity of mind that
has come with it. I am very grateful for my sponsor, for OA, for the 12
step program. for TRG, for all the loops, especially the newcomer loops.
I am grateful to still be alive and to be in program. I really need to
hear about others recovery. I especially need to talk with people who
have lost a lot of weight, have a lot of weight to lose, and those who are
keeping it off. There are so many problems that come with obesity that
some just can't understand. I am sending this to all my new loops. Thank
you all for being here and making this program work. My name is Amy, and
at meetings you might know me as Reignfyre.

Blessings to you on your journey,

Amy