My name is [
Anonymous]. I am a compulsive overeater. I weigh and measure three meals a day from the GreySheet with nothing in between but black coffee, tea, or zero-calorie diet soda. Abstinence is the most important thing in my life today, or else food would be my master.
I have been in and out of the rooms of GreySheet since 1989. I am fortunate to live in a city with face-to-face GS meetings, but I didn't know how fortunate I was until recently! I would get abstinent for anywhere from 1 meal, to 3 days, to 62 days, and then I would eat.
At first, I was all gung ho about the program, but as soon as I reached goal weight or started feeling feelings, I was out of there! I was the type that could not bring myself to attend a meeting after eating or purging, so I would drop off the planet for months and then years at a time between short lengths of abstinence.
I would live in fear of running into someone abstinent at a grocery store, so I often switched stores or shopped in the middle of the night. I would ignore phone calls from my sponsor or others as soon as I ate. Several times, I left a meeting and went directly to a drive-through and then didn't attend another meeting for months or years at a time.
I had a university class with a GSer, and I sat behind her and picked her apart in my head like a crazed lunatic. I vilified GreySheeters who stuck around and worked their program no matter what. I projected all my anti-establishment views onto them and said "They're all a bunch of women trying to run my life." Of course, they are actually the sweetest, most nurturing ladies (and men) I could ever have to be my dearest friends!!!!
As a rebellious teenager in early abstinence, I told myself I didn't need to follow such a "rigid" program, that I had enough control exerted on me by my mother, and I wanted to be free of all that.
I did an honors research thesis at the university on "unrestrained eating." I even administered food to test subjects to conduct my research and got the psych department a giant refrigerator/freezer. My whole life was getting food and finding ways and means to get more food.
I needed a part-time job while I was a student, but I was terrified that if I worked in a restaurant, I'd lose control and be fired. I was already disciplined at two other jobs for eating on the job or vomiting in the restroom and not cleaning up after myself and clogging the toilets. The place where I ate on the job was not even open to the public, but I was eating enough that it affected my job performance on the phone.
In 1991, I got abstinent for just under 60 days. My friend and I did it "together." As soon as we got in an argument, I was out the door eating again. She remained in the program. Then, she was hit by a van on her bicycle and killed. I blamed the GreySheet. My disease told me the most insane things.
I moved away to another city for five years and tried to put my friend and GreySheet completely out of my mind. I lived in a colder climate where I could cover up my body and not think about how I would look in shorts. I wore men's clothes a lot.
Of course, I had tried other things:
- a psychiatric hospital at age 16 for bulemia,
- avoiding restaurants,
- keeping no food at home,
- eating only one meal a day,
- eating 8 small meals a day,
- budgeting $10/day on food,
- eating only 3 frozen dinners a day,
- diets, pills, powders, liquids,
- group therapy,
- one-on-one therapy,
- "fat as a feminist issue",
- "intuitive" eating (as if I were being breast-fed!),
- "it's not what you're eating, it's what's eating you",
- being fat and proud as my God-given right to my heritage as the descendent of Eastern European farmers. (Just call me "Fraulein!")
- defining my own abstinence,
- using the GreySheet without a sponsor
I tried strict vegetarianism for several years. I was vegan but I was 65 pounds overweight! I thought eating whole grains and low-fat would help me lose weight, but it only increased the physical craving for more carbohydrates. I wasn't eating fresh, green vegetables. I was eating more starches and sugar.
I married a cook! When my husband and I moved to a warmer climate, it was difficult to stay in denial about my size. I hoped that moving to a city more body-conscious would shame me into getting skinny again. I went from a culture of baggy flannels and jeans covering my fat to scantily clad, tan, college kids and trendy restaurants lining every street in the city!
My disease immediately went into high gear. I was obsessed with the restaurants. I went from being an overweight person who grazed all day long to episodes of binging and purging again, buying and hiding food, eating and driving recklessly, lying about what I ate, stealing food at work from people's drawer stashes.
This disease lies in wait, doing push ups, waiting for that next moment when it can pick up right where it left off. This disease is progressive, incurable, and fatal. I longed for the days when I "only" weighed 140, and then it was 150 - 180+. (I'm 5' 4".)
I tried to recall that magic diet or exercise routine that had made me lose weight before. It was actually one diet after another with more weight gain in between, because I was not practicing
A Way of Life. I could see that the older I got, the harder it was to lose weight, and the faster I gained the weight back.
I was diagnosed with hypoglycemia, manic depression, irritable bowel syndrome, migraines, severe gum loss, insulin resistance, etc...
In 1998, I tried to get abstinent again. I could not do it more than 60 days.
Then, I tried again in 2000 and couldn't get more than 1-3 days!!! I'd go crazy and order my husband on a drug run to get my favorite 'x' food. Then my favorite 'x' food was being phased out of existence, and I was driving to multiple convenience stores at night, risking life and limb, trying to find it, yelling at clerks for not having it. If I could mainline this drug of choice, I certainly would.
I tried to "detox" off my favorite 'x' food and found myself substituting by eating a large amount of sweet or starchy vegetables that are not on the GreySheet.
I bought exercise equipment that gathered dust, and I sold comfortable furniture, dirt cheap, hoping that I would be more active not having a place to relax! No such luck.
I walked to work to exercise, and I got chafed thighs.
In 2001, I saw a GreySheeter at my office cafeteria, who I had no idea worked at my agency of thousands, who has been abstinent back-to-back since 1991! She is my age, and she completely shattered the myth that I still had more time to waste in my disease. She had not aged at all, and she had this sparkle in her eye, with love and acceptance. For some strange reason, I didn't feel judged or get defensive. I just felt completely exhausted and desperate.
I told my husband I needed to try GreySheet again. He was very supportive. Many times when I have tried to talk myself into eating, he reminded me that I said GS was the only thing that ever worked for me. He was also no longer willing to buy food to enable me or appease my anger and temper. I was (and still can be) VERY difficult to live with, especially during detox.
I got a food sponsor and started calling my food in every morning. She slipped.
I got another sponsor. She slipped.
I committed my food to qualified sponsors on the GreySheet phone list, until I could find a permanent sponsor.
What a gift!
I believe that when the student is ready, the teacher appears.
I began attending 2-3 GS meetings a week.
I had to stop attending my other 12 Step meetings for awhile, because they ate 'x' before, during, and after the meetings, and I could not handle fellowshipping in my favorite restaurants afterward. I grieved the loss of friends with whom I had relationships largely based on eating and hanging out in restaurants.
I found a handout about GreyNet at our local meeting and joined. How exciting to expand my support system online with 1,000+ more GreySheeters across the world!
I heard about phone meetings and began attending! This is a great tool for me when my disease tells me I've heard everything from my local community.
I got extremely angry in the first 90 days.
I'm surprised I wasn't on the nightly news for stabbing a coworker with a pen or running over the person dressed as a bumblebee, waving in front of a new restaurant that opened next to my apartments.
My sponsor suggested praying and writing about it. I didn't write until the pain got so great, I had no choice. I wrote "I hate this." and "I hate that."
Somehow, the anger passed.
I celebrated one year in April 2002 and cried and shook.
The only thing I can attribute that to is the desperation to be willing.
I kept thinking what my dear friend says: "
Keep the Hell green." A longtimer mentioned that he had to find other reasons to stay abstinent besides the weight. "
We came for our vanity. We stay for our sanity."
Then, without warning, the disease flared up again.
I must have had the "what next? . . . poor me!" syndrome.
I felt so sorry for myself for appearing normal to everyone on the outside and having a disease.
I wanted to be treated special.
I had to get on my knees and pray for God to remove the obsession.
I had to make sure I didn't keep money on me, because I was afraid I'd drive through a restaurant. I wanted to sneak over to their sign and spell obscenities with the letters on it.
I wrote a list of the foods I thought I couldn't live without. I don't know if that was a good idea, but I finally got it out of my head and put it on paper. This list of foods was shorter than the list of foods on the GreySheet, and some of them are not even sold anymore. This list looked pathetic, and it took all the power away from my obsession.
Then I made a gratitude list. This list was much larger and included such things as:
- a conscious contact with a power greater than myself that's not the disease (when my "antenna is up"),
- the new-found emotional intimacy I have with my husband,
- the giddy feeling I get when I wake up abstinent, and
- the bond that I've developed with folks who understand this disease and care about me as a person, not as a hostess or doormat.
I hung on to my scrawny butt, and the feelings passed.
Whew! What a relief!
I'm a baby in this program, and everything I do for the first time in abstinence is a brand new experience. I rely on those who came before me to pave the way. They remind me that my feelings are not about what I'm eating.
My disease is quick to lie to me, by saying, "
I'm tired . . . I'm lonely . . . I'm inconvenienced . . . I am entitled to eat . . . " - insane mental twists.
My best thinking got me here. I have to remain connected to the GSA Fellowship and read AA literature to stay focused on my recovery.
I must remind myself of what life was like before.
I still get angry and resentful, but it's much less often.
The feelings pass, and afterward, I feel so much gratitude and relief that I didn't pick up!
Today I get to live a full life, not an empty shell of an existence.
I get at least 4 hours between meals to do other things with my time!
What a blessing!
Thank you for supporting my abstinence!
Love,
[Anonymous]
On April 12, 2006, [Anonymous] celebrated five years of back-to-back GreySheet abstinence!
