Épisodes

  • 102. An Inside Job
    Jan 1 2025

    After 25 years in the Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) program, life looks vastly different. My wife and I are about to celebrate our 20th anniversary, and we have a 17-year-old daughter. I now serve as the dean of students at a religious seminary—an unexpected outcome from working the FA program, considering that I neither liked deans nor religion in my earlier years. My journey with food addiction started when I was a young girl, using food – particularly sugar – as a coping mechanism or a reward. Despite growing up in a stable household, I wrestled with self-doubt, insecurity, and body dysmorphia. I believed I was overweight my whole life, but childhood photos proved otherwise. The turning point came when a friend introduced me to FA, and though skeptical of 12-step programs, I decided to give it a try. The program helped me recognize my addictive relationship with food and allowed me to build a spiritual connection with my higher power. My sponsor's loving guidance provided structure, helped me with my food choices, and encouraged me to practice daily meditation. This simple, yet transformative, practice has helped me stay abstinent through many of life's challenges. Today, I live with gratitude for the gifts of FA, knowing that my life—once filled with fear and shame—has been completely rearranged from the inside out.

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    31 min
  • 101. 700 Pounds in my Lifetime
    Oct 23 2024

    I came to Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) fifteen years ago weighing 211 pounds. Despite countless diets, fasts, and exercise routines, I couldn’t maintain weight loss until I found FA. Beneath my career ambitions, I was plagued by shame and self-loathing, constantly trying to project whatever image people wanted—determined, fun, or athletic. For confidence, I relied on drugs, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and, most of all, food. In my twenties, I replaced meals with liquid protein supplements, which led to hospitalization, a two-week coma, and the loss of a kidney. Even after that ordeal, I continued fasting and restricting my food intake during the week, and bingeing and purging on weekends - all to suppress my anger and rage. I was an out-of-control food addict, destroying everything in my path—my relationships with colleagues, friends, family, my bank account, and certainly my own health. My therapist, after determining I had probably lost and gained 700 pounds in my lifetime, admitted she couldn’t help, but she suggested I try FA. I didn’t want to go to a meeting—my life was very busy, after all. But I was desperate and broken, so I went to a meeting, and I found hope. Today, I no longer obsess over food or body image, I’ve mended relationships, including with my husband, and let go of the shame that once consumed me. I no longer compare myself to others, and instead focus on what’s right in my world. FA and the 12 steps have given me the tools to live life on life’s terms, and for that I’m deeply grateful.

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    28 min
  • 100. Finding Safety in Recovery
    Oct 2 2024

    This food addict’s story was about fear, which led her to go to the food. It was a drug that made her feel safe. Although her family looked normal from the outside, her dad was an alcoholic, and she did not realize how cunning the disease of addiction was until later in life. As early as five years old, she was uncomfortable in her body. There was a constant desire to be thin, leading her to avoid eating all day, just to come home and binge. High school consisted of drinking and smoking. After one year of college, she married her high school boyfriend, had two children, and stayed clean for a while. Her marriage ended in divorce, leaving her a single mom and broke. She knew alcohol was a problem, so she joined Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) at age 39. Despite seeing her sister suffer from bulimia and anorexia, and ultimately die by suicide, she continued to eat addictively. After getting sober, she finally realized food was also a problem. She eventually found Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA). Underweight when joining the program, she has now been at a healthy weight for almost 20 years. She is available for her relationships - showing up as a mother and a grandmother. After obtaining several degrees, there is joy in her career. She now has a kit of tools that helps her feel safe and live free from food addiction. She hopes others can experience that miracle too.

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    22 min
  • 099. From Fear to Freedom
    Sep 18 2024

    A food addict from New South Wales, Australia, I am the youngest of three who grew up with a strict, abusive father and a hardworking, protective mother. My childhood was filled with deep-seated fear, including night terrors, fear of the dark, and fear of my father. Despite having a large, extended family around me, I felt totally alone and alienated. As a child, I was trained by Olympian swimmers to be on the national team, but I got scared and quit the sport. Then I found dancing and went off to the UK to study ballet. Once again, fear led me to drop out. I realize now that opportunity frightened me, so I kept saying "no." Amid personal struggles with identity and acceptance, including abuse and familial disapproval, food was my constant source of comfort. At times, I would wake up at four in the morning and start cooking before leaving for work, only to start cooking again when I got home. My eating grew worse, and I started using bulimia and extreme dieting to control my weight. Thankfully, despite initial skepticism, I attended a meeting of Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), which provided a pathway to recovery and self-discovery. I have embraced my true identity as a gay man and embarked on a journey of healing and personal growth. I never thought I would live past forty, but today I am sixty-one, with dreams and hopes for the future. I thought I was too damaged, too broken, and too far gone, but FA proved me wrong. I thought it wouldn’t, but this program absolutely works.

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    31 min
  • 098. Su única amiga era la comida
    Sep 7 2024

    Una joven adicta de los Estados Unidos con raíces en América Latina vivió con mucha inestabilidad en su juventud. Buscó consuelo en la comida y los laxantes. Por las extrañas acciones que practicaba con la comida desde muy pequeña, y la incapacidad de parar de comer, ella subió de peso. Cuando se sintió rechazada y perdida, encontró la recuperación en el programa de Adictos a la comida en recuperación anónimos (Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous). El sentimiento de “¿Qué importa?” fue reemplazado con un estilo de vida y una actitud mental sana. Esa estudiante de medicina que luchó por tantos años ahora se percibe como una estrella a sus propios ojos, y a los ojos de su familia.

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    28 min
  • 097. Extreme Eating
    Aug 21 2024

    For years, I blamed everyone for my struggles with weight and food addiction – my parents, my wife, and my job. After I joined Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), I realized it wasn’t their fault. My practice of eating large quantities began in childhood. Teased and friendless, I would sneak away to eat alone with the lunch money my mom gave me. This pattern escalated through high school with food, drugs, and alcohol, and in adulthood, I frequented drive-thru’s, mindlessly consuming meals meant for four. My career facilitated my food addiction, enabling me to binge on the company’s dime. As I ate massive amounts of food, my weight escalated. The real wake-up call came with the birth of my children. Multiple people began telling me, “You aren’t going to live to see them grow up.” I could barely care for myself, much less care for my children and family. In FA, my life quickly began to transform. Only a few weeks into FA, my wife said, “You seem calmer.” I had started at 398.6 pounds (180.8 kilos), and the extra weight fell off in the first year. I not only lost weight, but I began recovering from all of my addictions – including social media – saving my marriage and allowing me to love my children truly. I still have problems today, but I now tackle them with phone calls, writing, and prayer. FA has taught me to live a balanced and fulfilling life, always learning and adapting.

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    31 min
  • 096. Foxhole Prayers
    Aug 7 2024

    At a young age, I was completely focused on food and how to get it. Gaining weight by third grade, I went on my first diet – with my mom! By twelve, after a painful friendship breakup, I was binge eating and purging in secret. In college, despite quitting drinking, smoking, and pills through sheer willpower, bulimia was a battle I simply couldn’t win alone. College amplified my struggles; the affluence of my peers left me feeling inadequate, and my father’s death during my sophomore year led me to more unhealthy behaviors and depression. Feeling completely ungrounded, I found daily tasks difficult, and my life was truly unmanageable. I spent my days literally going from dining hall to dining hall, eating my way through the pain. A turning point came when I heard a recording from a recovering alcoholic that mirrored my story with food and how I ate. This realization led me to Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), where after several starts and re-starts, I am grateful to now have over 20 years of abstinence from food addiction. This freedom has transformed my life, allowing me to leave grad school (the right decision!), start a business, share in a wonderful marriage, and embrace motherhood thanks to a profound change in my attitude. Through my recovery in FA, I have found a spiritual path, a peaceful foundation, and a life I never could have imagined.

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    29 min
  • 095. No Amount of Food Could Cure This Food Addict
    Jul 17 2024

    Despite growing up in a home full of love, this budding food addict was in a cycle of sneaking, hiding, and shoplifting food from as early as age six. She came to learn that no amount of love could have prevented her food addiction and no amount of love could have cured it. Her parents and siblings were moderate eaters, and they tried to help curb her addictive behaviors around food. She had dreams of waking up thin, just for a single day. As an adult, her husband was her “eating buddy”, and their social life – dinner parties, holidays, and vacations – revolved around food. Despite turning to nutritionists, doctors, a hypnotist, commercial diets, and intense exercise, she still ended up weighing over 290 pounds. The real turning point came with motherhood. At that time, the physical and emotional toll of her food addiction had relegated her to a role on the sidelines – a spectator in her own life. Then she found Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA). There, meetings gave her a place to share secrets she had never told before about the way she ate. She heard hope for a better life. She got started with an FA sponsor and lost 160 pounds. It is now ten years later, and she hasn’t seen those numbers on the scale since. Today, she knows she is not alone, and she is no longer living life on the sidelines.

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    30 min