I've Only Got Now
Addictive Eaters Anonymous
Joanne L.
Hello, the speaker has been recorded at a meeting of the Digdividus Anonymous. For more information, visit our website www.aenfo.org. I'm Gerry and I'm on Digdividus. Yeah, it's been good not having a lot of time actually thinking about tonight or what to talk about because it doesn't look like time to get nervous or put too much thought into it. But I did say to my sponsor later in the afternoon that I don't really want to share tonight. And it was really bad because I thought that I might get upset, you know, and I said he wouldn't shed any tears. And I know this is like recorded and hopefully it might be decided that actually that scraper because you've got the meat tonight. And it's funny there was a conversation about having got the liquid on tonight because driving here I thought I'm not likely to need some, you know, have the liquid on and get all, you know, things that you've got the tired looking meat tonight that actually just me and I'm just tired. And you all know that about my mum with Alzheimer's and this is when I feel like I'm going to start getting teary. So I have been having some problems with them one evening and I thought, you know, might be just a little bit paranoid. No, it's history and the family. So I went, you know, went to the doctor and I had some tests. And yet my memory is not as for my age, I should be a bit higher in stuff. And I'm really cold and throw back for some more tests. So I don't know why I'm crying. I think it's just because I'm tired because I'm not really, it's there and I, we experience a life when we come here and are able to get on our lives and know that whatever happens, everything will actually be okay. Learn about living in the now and not thinking, you know, in a month's time or a year's time, you know, record for your new kind of test or CT, you know, actually right now, right at this time, I thought about Kay and other people that have been through things here in the fellowship. And actually, I've only got now more at this time. It's coming up 25 years. It'll be so the next week. And for me, that's 20, 25 years of not using any drug alcohol, well, even addictically with food. And it's actually 28 years that I went up to Queen Mary as a family member, not knowing that food was an addiction, not knowing that we drank normally either. I used drugs, alcohol and food all together, right from my teenage years, right through until I had my fierce baby when I was 20. And the drinking stop, the drug stopped and the meeting took off. And as a result of that, my head, a friend baby, which I believe is from poor adult, from me, I gave up coffee, I gave up absolutely everything. But the madness in my head and the want to eat, I remember before I had my oldest son, I'm even in for a checkup. And, you know, I put on weight and I was getting bloated, you know, I've got to flow it and stuff. And they told me that I needed to be careful with my diet and what I ate. And I didn't, I knew that that was not going to happen. And I left that hospital. And I remember going home and just having piles of wheat books with milk, piles of sugar on top. I just knew that I could not watch what I ate, no measure what anyone told me. My eating continued through just to get worse. And along with the eating, the mental side of it was really, really hard. I spent a lot of time. But all my life, I knew that something was wrong with me. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be like my friends. I had lots of family, good family and I had lots of friends. But it couldn't take away this and I had loneliness that I had. And I actually never, that loneliness, never went until I came in here. And I didn't know why I had that loneliness, that it was with me. And when I heard, it was actually the only that she had the first time that I, I think it was the first or second time that I came, I got this being a disease of loneliness. My guy, I just was relieved and I knew that she knew what I was experiencing and what I've been through because of those words. And I had always thought that my day would be a fantastic day if I didn't eat much. If I could stay on a diet, a calorie counted, I knew every single calorie and everything. I'd try and hold off from eating. I'd walk my kids to school. The whole time that I'm walking my kids to school, I'm thinking about the calories I've been off, how that I have a nature that would be really extra good because I would have been burning off all of those calories. I'd try and hold off, but actually I couldn't. And then when I started, every time thinking I was going to have one of something and I might have had one, but I keep going then and out of covered and just eating. And that went on for the rest of the day. I just didn't stop. I just kept on eating. And I felt sick. I actually point what I felt sick. I'd give it a little bit of a break and then I'd go for it again. And just the remorse and shame around the eating and not knowing how to stop, not wanting to be fat, but still not being able to stop doing what I was doing. And then of course my ex-husband would come home. Kids would come home from school. I wouldn't have been pleasant because I'd be in a mood. I wouldn't be pleasant to my ex-husband when he came home. I remember the times when he came home from where I was either in a very good mood or in an okay mood or very angry. My kids had to walk around like they were walking on each house because it was just tense. They didn't know whether they were going to say something or do something. They tapped me on. And if they did, you know, I could fly into a rage and rages look like, you know, I have poured curtains off the walls. I have smashed them. I've taken two things for them or they're not just like. I had this beautiful vase that my godmother, my auntie gave me for my 23th birthday, I smashed them in a rage, you know, and she's not with us any longer. I had things that I really really loved and I smashed them in anger. And I never wanted to be like that. But no matter how much I tried, I went to anger management courses, I went to self-esteem courses, I went to a hypnotist, I went to groups, I tried evanations, I tried lots and lots of things, counseling, but nothing could take away that anger that I want to eat and the feelings of how I felt about myself. And then I came here and when I was up in Green Mary, one girl up there talked about this fellowship, said it was people that ate the way that I did. She said, no, that's not true because I didn't tell her how I ate. She, I don't know, she must, she just talked about this fellowship and I was pregnant up there at the time. And I didn't think that it was abnormal, thinking that it would be fantastic when I go up there pregnant because somebody will manage the food and I won't put on any weight. Of course, you need to be pruned on weight in your prune. I felt so self-conscious that people were looking at me everywhere I walked. I was sneaking down to the shop and having a newspaper in my arm and hiding things in that newspaper to get back to the room so that I could eat alone because I thought that everybody was looking at me thinking, oh my God, look at our fetches. It was just like that. That's an example of what it was like every single night of the day. So there was no freedom in there and it was really sad because I used to go to bed at night crying at night thinking tomorrow's going to be different. Tomorrow I'm going to be different to my kids. My life's going to be different. Things are going to change. I'm not going to eat that well. I'm not going to yell at the kids. I'm not going to do pretty much. I wanted to have a really good self-esteem and be like a saint. It wasn't going to happen. When I came here and learning about this fellowship, I was absolutely amazed that people were talking about what it was like with their eating. The thoughts that they had, the way they felt about themselves was on the scales and off the scales. If those scales were blind, I felt better and I thought that was the answer and that was the only thing that was wrong with me. Well, no, that's actually not true either. I thought I was seriously middle of your head's schizophrenia, but if I could be thin, those things would come right and I just seen that it weren't in people. People weren't this free. They had a smile on their face. They weren't struggling every single day. They weren't crying and sad. At my first few meetings, I just remember snuffling through the whole thing, just crying because one with relief, but most of the time was sadness because I didn't know how not to be the way that I was. I kept donating but I kept coming and I kept donating because I wasn't completely beaten, although I thought I was with food. I thought I was, but I still had some buts and still had some more attempts. But I kept on calling my sponsor. I kept on coming to meet hands and I kept on getting down on my knees and praying to a god that I believed but lost faith in and thought that it was not going to work for me. Because I had no other options, I kept on, I kept on coming. And one day, which I didn't know it was the last day of my eating, but I remember standing in the kitchen, I remember my little kiss and I had pockets, little kids in the background, playing around. It was like I was in a tunnel and I could hear the voices, muckled voices in the back because I was completely focused on this food that was in the kitchen, on the bench. And I did not want to eat because it freshly formed me that life was not going to change, that it was always going to be like this and nothing was going to change from me. I wasn't going to be able to period my children, that I wasn't going to be able to get through a day with that yellow and smacking or doing something or feeling the way I did. And I wanted what people had so badly, like I just wanted it so much. And I had that obsession to eat so much that I was crying for the fact of wanting it, but crying for the fact of not wanting it. So for the first time in the only time, I actually never ate that food on the bench. And I talked with my sponsor, that was like that obsession, that overwhelming obsession that was with me all the time was completely removed. Like 25 years ago, I have not had that obsession to eat at all from that time. I mean that is clearly amazing that I believe my high power has completely removed because I could not do it. I absolutely could not do it. So no matter what happens, if I forget you all, it won't be all right. It will be okay. I'm not going to worry about it. And I laid down to have an X-ray today because it didn't make that spawn. Relax, release. That's what I did. And if I wake up tonight, that's a secret. Every night when I wake up, I think of you and I think of that. And I know about meditation stuff, but those words, those simple words have stuck to me for me. And it means the fact that you were long. But it's helped me so much through so many things. Thank you.