What it was like, what happened and what it is like now

I woke up each morning, beating myself up for bingeing the day before. The feeling of hopelessness and despair was like a heavy blackness. I felt ill as though I was recovering from a hangover. It was a hangover but from food rather than from alcohol. I lived with mental torment most days because I was unable to live with my dishonesty and I could not control my eating or my behaviour.

After many years of searching for some sort of connection with a Higher Power which I vaguely imagined might be able to help me, I encountered a woman who had found a solution to her eating problem through the 12 Steps. Religion, philosophy, and books hadn’t solved my problem. Nothing had worked until I finally turned up at a 12 Step meeting for addictive eating. Following in the footsteps of my sponsor I put into practice what she was doing and eventually was able to find the solution and at the same time discover a connection with my Higher Power.

These days I am very clear that it was necessary for me to go through the torment of many years of addictive eating and weight obsession to reach a place where I was totally beaten, and thus able to surrender. For a long time now I have been free of the obsession to binge, starve, vomit or control my weight. It feels as though I have had two lives: one of trying hopelessly to control my eating and one of freedom from addiction.

These days, my dependence is upon a Higher Power and practising the 12 Steps in my everyday life. My whole outlook has changed. Sharing my experience of what it was like when I was eating addictively, what happened and what has happened as a result of practising the 12 Steps is how I live my daily life.