OUR EXPERIENCE

All Stories

These are the stories of how some of our members came to find a solution to their food obsession in Addictive Eaters Anonymous.

Some suffered from anorexia, bulimia or binge eating, some didn’t know how to stop emotional eating, and some exercised compulsively. Many of us have experienced different combinations of these conditions during our time as active addictive eaters. However the disease of Addictive Eating manifested, whether we did not know how to stop eating, or how to start, we were unable to sustain any control over our eating behaviours. Even if we did manage to control our eating or weight for a period of time, we were not happy, and inevitably slipped back into old food patterns. In these stories of recovery you will hear the solution, we in AEA have found to the food obsession: Surrender, and a peaceful, joyous way of life based around the Twelve Steps of AEA.

This way of life is available to you, too. We suggest you read these stories of eating disorder recovery with an open mind. Focus on the similarities, rather than the differences. Whatever your problem with food, AEA can help.

Paralysed by denial, now living free

I didn’t think I had a problem with food. I just needed to get my life together. I was a recent college graduate and uncertain about my...

I love our way of life

I started dieting when I was 12 years old. I wasn’t overweight but I felt pudgy and I wanted a new boy at school to like me. Somehow, I...

I am no longer looking in from the outside

I had a sense of isolation and loneliness which had been with me from childhood. As an overweight child I went on to be an obese adult. I...

I have also been relieved of depression

I believe I was born with this disease. As a child I ate more than what I was comfortable with on many occasions; eating the biggest...

I was spiralling out of control

I don't have many memories from my childhood, but the memories I do have relate to food - picnics with bacon and egg pie, my mother’s...

Fourteen years of bingeing hell

I have noticed and been aware of food as early as I can remember. Even now, as an adult, I can recall different types of food at friends’...

Finding the answer

I have lived in New Zealand for the last twelve years, after being born and raised in Somerset, England. My parents ran a playgroup in...

A new way of life

I have a sneaky feeling that I was born with a twisted and gaping open mouth! That I came from my mother's womb already upset, irritable...

I had to surrender

“As far back as I can remember, I was fascinated by food.” This is what I heard the young woman who carried this message of recovery to...

Don't quit before the miracle happens

I didn't know I had a problem with food, not at first. I was an active child and not yet overweight, but not as petite as my family so I...

To get well I had to give up the food

I was 37 years old when I found our Twelve Step fellowship. All my life I had a number of secrets of which I was very ashamed. The first...

Constant obsession lifted

My earliest childhood memories are of me eating food in secret. Up until the age of twenty-three, when I came into recovery, I went to...

Freed from obsession

I was born in 1976 to working class parents in Birmingham in the United Kingdom. As far back as I can remember, I always felt like an...

From madness to hope

For as long as I can remember, I have loved food and always felt different from my family and other people. I never knew why. I remember...

Today I have a different life

It is Sunday evening as I write this and I am reminded by another member that I haven’t had to eat addictively today. I haven’t had to...

I didn't know what was wrong with me

Right from a young child I have always loved food; I loved gatherings because of the food. As I got older I would steal food and money to...

A life beyond food and addiction

I don’t remember being obsessed with food when I was very young, the way I was to become. I remember starting to eat at any opportunity I...

A new way to handle life

I didn’t think I had a problem with food until I was fifteen years old and at high school, but now I realise that I was born with the...

A progressive disease

I wasn’t an overweight child, but from as young as 5 years I can recall comparing myself unfavourably with two painfully thin twins in my...

Freed from my secret life

I came to my first meeting because my obsession with food was driving me crazy mentally, and because I was afraid I would not be able to...

After ten years of depression, my life had hit rock bottom

I remember being ‘different’ around food for most of my life. This included things such as being the person who had two cream buns at...

Freed from food and exercise

I've had an eating problem as long as I can remember. I would steal food, and money to get food. I was ashamed and had no idea why I did...

From self hatred to sobriety

Growing up, I always felt different as if I had been born on the wrong planet. I thought the reason must have been because I was adopted...

That first meeting planted a seed

My obsession with food was present from a very early age. I remember competing with other family members to eat as much as I possibly...

A sense of belonging

I wasn't born with an 'off' switch where food was concerned. My eating from a very early age was abnormal. I wasn't interested in the...

I've got freedom from eating and thinking about food

From an early age I knew I was different with food. I only have one sibling, a brother, and we were brought up just the same, but I could...

My case wasn't different

I first went to a 12-step fellowship specialising in food addiction over thirty years ago. I’d like to say I’ve been sober since then,...

Diets and fasting never stopped me bingeing and vomiting

There was never a time I did not have a fascination for food. I regularly stole money and stole food thinking that it was normal to want...

AEA Stories

Our membership is diverse with people coming to the fellowship from a variety of backgrounds, and these stories represent the experience, strength and hope of individual AEA members. Any opinions expressed in these stories are those of the individual authors, and not necessarily those of AEA as a whole.

Please see our Meetings Page for details of face to face meeting times and venues. We also have regular AEA Web Events where AEA members share their experience, strength and hope online. Participants can join the web event from their phone, desktop, mobile and tablet devices. All are welcome. See details of the next AEA Web Event.

Our primary purpose is to recover from addictive eating and help others to achieve sobriety.