I spoke to my father today. He is an alcoholic. He quit drinking only months ago. I found out this week he was in the hospital for heart problems, a partially collapsed lung, and his skin cancer on his lip has returned. I’m sure these health issues are in direct relation to his alcoholism and smoking history.

I am sad about his health circumstances on many levels. He is my father. I have wonderful memories of him and I up to about the age of five or six, when he disappeared out of my life (POOF!) until I was seventeen.

I’ve heard about his wild party years, his bar brawls, his cross country trips on his motorcycle. I would always laugh, smile and wink at him when he told me about the good old days. Those were some fun and fantastic days for him, for sure! No cares in the world, a 24 hour party and always a woman willing to keep him company.

For me, those years weren’t so cheery. I struggled in school, I struggled with my sense of self and I struggled to understand why I was left behind without a father. My self worth – well there wasn’t much. My addictions to food began in those early childhood years – primarily because of his actions.

As I talked to my father today, I asked him if he had thought about joining an alcohol support group to ensure that he was with like minded individuals. I’ve often read that you have a higher success rate at beating your addictions if you have support. He told me he didn’t need that. He could “quit drinking anytime he wanted”.

We all know that is bullshit. He is a life long alcoholic and has quit and restarted too many times to count.

I told him I would always be here for him if he needed to talk if he felt the need to drink. And I meant it. Even though he has never been there for me, I still want to help. Some people call this stupidity. I call it the generosity of the human spirit. Don’t get me wrong, I am no doormat – but I am a loving person and I will help those I know if they need it.

Sometimes when I think of our relationship I feel like an empty shell. When I allow myself to remember the wonderful memories I shared with him as a child, I get very upset. It’s almost like that person does not exist or is merely a figment of my imagination. I’m not really sure if it was really me and him. Did those moments happen? I was happy once upon a time, right?

I’ve often refused to let myself feel many emotions because of these circumstances. I’ve often thought about how different my life would be today if he hadn’t been an alcoholic and my mother hadn’t divorced him and if he would have stayed in my life.

What if I was raised with a two parent household and had the support of a father figure in my life?

Would I have had more self confidence as a child?
Would I not have turned to food and actually allowed myself to feel emotions?
Would I have not been the chubby child in school and not been picked on?
Would I have been more of an extrovert and tried harder to make friends?
Would I have had friends to even say they were my friends?
You know, REAL friends that are always there with no strings attached?
Would I have stuck with basketball and volleyball after elementary school
and played throughout my school years and been successful?
Would I have had a parent that showed up at teacher's conferences to hear
how good I was doing?
Would I have had a parent that would have been there for me to set boundaries?
Would I have actually had a parent that gave a shit what I was doing and
wasn't busy working two and three jobs at a time?
Would anyone have even cared?
Would I have had high aspirations for myself and attended a good four year college?
What about getting a scholarship?
Would I have joined a sorority?
Would I have had the big wedding and reception I always wanted?
Who would I be without all of the hurt and all of the pain that I feel in
the pit of my gut?
Would I be the same person I am today?
Would I be struggling with my weight?
Would I be happy today?
......

There’s obviously no easy answers to any of this, but I can tell you that alcoholism is not a fucking joke. It destroys lives. It destroys families. It destroys little girls – like I once was.

I can’t live with the what if’s in my life any longer. I have to put that to rest. I have to live with who I am. I am a work in progress. I am a deserving person. I am worth it.

I struggle only a handful of days out of the year, and most days I come out on top. Often, I think of that happy little girl who loved her father and who enjoyed riding high on top of his shoulders and trips to pick strawberries from the patch. Then I think of the sad little girl who arrived after that. I just cannot reconcile the two.

So I keep on fighting the fight.

I’m not ashamed to be the person that I am today.

There once was an addict that I knew. He was an alcoholic that had to drink at least a case of beer a day to function. He was conspicuously missing from most of my childhood, but would reappear at random times for no apparent reason. He was very charming and had the the type of personality that almost hypnotized you into liking him despite all of his many faults. He could tell some fantastic tails of bar room brawls and cross country travels, and while doing so make you believe every single word.

That addict is my father.

There once was an addict that I knew. She was a food addict that had to eat to maintain her feelings and to prevent herself from feeling any emotions in life. She was mysteriously missing from most of her childhood, but would reappear at random times when necessary. She was very sweet and outgoing, but her personality was inhibited by her food addiction, which lead to a dislike of herself. To keep herself numb and from experiencing life, she would also live vicariously through intriguing novels, which assisted her in never really having to get to know anyone in real life.

That addict is me.

For the first time in many, many months, last week I spoke to my father on the phone. He sounded different. At first I couldn’t place what the difference was. Then it hit me. He was sober!

I asked him, “Hey dad, how are you doing? You sound good.”

He said, “I’m doing real good. I stopped drinking the first of the year.”

At first I didn’t know how to respond to this. He had stopped drinking from time to time in the past and it had never lasted long. This time he was going on 7 months. That was miraculous in itself.

I said, “Dad, I’m so proud of you.”

There was no awkwardness or strange feelings tied to my response. I was and am truly happy for him. There was no regret in my tone, no ill-wishing towards him in my head, even though I probably am justified in both.

I realized how we are a lot alike in our respective addictions. Even though I am not an alcoholic and REFUSE to become one, I am a food addict. No matter how well I document my foods or portion sizes or how well I eat, I will deep down always be a food addict. I am probably a food addict primarily because of the choices my father made during my childhood.

There are many differences as well. I like to think that the differences between us are what makes my personal world turn. In each turn, I am given new life lessons that I can learn and grow from.

I no longer let the addictions of others dictate my life or my own personal dependencies.

I no longer blame the ghosts of the past for how I react or feed myself.

Do you know an addict? Are you one?

There was a time in the beginning of my life where wonder and bliss ruled. Every new experience held joy and taught me a new life skill. I was truly happy and content; I was loved. I only knew about love, acceptance and understanding. My world was a small corner among the corn fields of northern Indiana – and all I cared about was going to the fair, playing with my lu-lu doll and being with my family. Weight didn’t matter.

I have fond memories of kindergarten and learning new things. I can easily smell the newness and cardboard of my crayon box I carried to school that first day by just remembering. And then I remember that he left. He was just gone. He started a new life with some other woman and her children. Occasionally I would see him on weekends and easily drift asleep in the car as we passed the night lights of the airport as Steely Dan played on the radio. The blue and purple lights were always my favorite. Weight still didn’t matter.

As the years rolled by and elementary school became my life, I remember in fourth grade being asked what my dad did for a living. I told the teacher I didn’t have a dad. He was dead. It was partially true, as he was dead to me for all intents and purposes. I learned to hold in my emotions because I didn’t feel that anyone would understand. Understand the love a daughter has for her father and how much I missed him. Like all things in life, our relationship was simple yet complicated. He was simply gone and I was left with the complicated fallout. Weight still didn’t matter – much.

Through the years I developed a thick skin and emotionally left myself. Regular things that used to make me happy didn’t effect me anymore. It was almost as if my insides were frost bitten. This extroverted girl became an introverted recluse. I poured myself into books and didn’t participate in life much. Weight started to matter.

Around the age of seventeen, just as easily as he disappeared, he came back into my life. And it was a complete let down. The hero of years past was now a washed out alcoholic that didn’t care about anyone but himself. I should have realized this much sooner. How could someone that cares for another just walk away for years? It’s not possible. Weight mattered even more. (Especially when he mentioned how “fat” I’d gotten.)

And so began the emotionally tied weight problem I have battled with for such a long time. I could blame him for all of the times I cried myself to sleep as a child, the years I tried to understand why he had left, or the times I tried to eat it all away. I COULD do that, but here’s the kicker. He didn’t force me to eat. It wasn’t he that told me to cry or feel like I was worthless for much of my youth. Rather I should thank him. Because of him, I knew what not to look for in the father of my future children. I knew what I would never settle for in a husband. It’s funny how things can come full circle in such a short period of time. Weight doesn’t matter. And neither does he.

I’m so glad I had this episode of Oprah on my DVR.

What really touched me is the part where Oprah and Geneen Roth, author of “Women Food and God,” talked about looking into the mirror, deep into your eyes, down into your soul and asking yourself, “What do you see?”

Looking past your fat, all of your imperfections and really asking yourself that question.

Have you done that before? What was the answer?

The philosophy the book seems to be promoting is that when we have no inner connection with our creator (or maker, or God, or whatever you want to call it), we tend to suffocate our feelings with food.

When we eat when we are NOT hungry, we are suffocating something deep inside of ourselves. It could be past pain or emotions, it could be insecurities, it could be anything.

We have to stop hating and beating ourselves up. We have to be kind to OURSELVES and others.

Here’s one of the quotes Oprah read from the book:

“Can you remember a time perhaps when you were very young, when life as it was – just the fact that it was early morning or any old day in summer – was enough?

When you were enough not because of what you looked like or what you did, but just because everything was the way it was. What if you could live that way now, and what if your relationship to food was that doorway?”

I can remember a time such as this. A time when I felt safe, loved and food didn’t matter. A time when I was unconditionally happy because that’s what I was and that was simply the way things were. My heart wells when I think of that time in my life as a young child. I’m sad that I’ve let food complicate my life and make things so difficult. I’m pissed that I’ve let food have that kind of power over me when it didn’t need to be that way.

I had to have been maybe three here,
washing dishes at my aunt’s camp. I used
to have so much fun doing the simpler things.
Like washing dishes instead of worrying about
what food I’d be eating with them.

I’m pleased to have a guest blog post today from lovetoeatinpa from over at Confessions of a Compulsive Eater. The sheer honesty and courage that she conveys in her daily posts amazes me.

If you have not yet visited her blog, I encourage you to do so, even if you do not think you are a compulsive eater.

Visit Blog ->

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EATING JOURNEY

Bobbie had asked if I would share my story of how I have been binge-free for over two years, after being a compulsive (over)eater for over three decades, and tell you how I deal with food these days. I thought it would be a nice time to review where I’ve been and how I got to where I am today.

Unbeknownst to me, I became a compulsive eater when I was about 8 or 9 years old. Closeness was not fostered in our house between my parents, older brother and I, and I turned to food to find the nurturing and comfort that I needed. In addition, my mother would go food shopping, buy junk food for the family, but she would hide it from me because she knew I would never just eat a “normal” share and leave enough for the rest of the family.

I found out a couple of years ago in therapy that my mom, unknowingly I’m sure, was giving me the message – you cannot be trusted with food. So the bingeing began at a young age with trips to the store to buy junk. I would eat it when no one was home, stuff the empty bags/containers/wrappers back into the supermarket bag, and then bury that in the trash can. I had low self-esteem and was pretty insecure (as many tweens, teens are.)

As I got older, I continued binging off and on. I thought I just had a sweet tooth. My weight yo-yo’d up and down throughout my life, going from 105 lbs to 172 lbs and everywhere in between. Mind you, I am only 5’3”.

As an adult, at parties my goal was to get back to the dessert table over and over again. How good the party was to me was based upon the foods that they had, not the people or the conversations. I would talk to people, but in the back of my head I would be thinking about a certain food and would ultimately make up some excuse to get away from that person so I could go eat some more.

When I was married and we entertained, I loved to clean up after everyone left so that I could devour the leftover desserts. I have pulled food out of the sink, the trash, you name it. I would shove food into my face without even really tasting it. I would just shovel and shovel until I was sick and sometimes that shoveling didn’t stop even with that horrible bloated feeling. Of course after I was done, I would vow that it would be my last binge and that I would be “good” the next day, but sadly, I was only sometimes able to actually pull that off.

Fortunately, throughout my life, I had always exercised. So I am certain that I would have gotten much heavier if I hadn’t been working out.

So one night at the end of December 2007, I was home alone watching TV and somehow the idea of compulsive eating popped into my head. I went to my laptop and started googling. I eventually ended up at the Overeaters Anonymous website. They had something on their site that asked “are you one of us” or something like that, and I answered “yes” to just about every question. This was horrifying, yet thrilling to me at the same time. Being an A-type personality, I was thrilled to finally have a term and a compartment to put this part of my life in. I wrote a long letter to my husband telling him about this new revelation about myself and did a LOT of crying over the next few days. Years of shoved down emotions had finally bubbled to the surface.

So then the real journey began. I embraced the eating disorder, started going to OA meetings, got myself into therapy, continued with my working out and have not gone on a binge ever since.

While I do have a lot of things that I’m still working on, thanks to my therapist (a recovering compulsive eater himself) who has opened my mind to SO many things, I deal much better with food these days.

As most compulsive (over)eaters do, I have control issues. I weigh and measure my food, and I have been a calorie counter since I was a teenager even though sometimes the calorie counts were astronomically high. I have also been getting on the scale every day for decades, but have recently gone cold turkey on that. That was my first step in letting go of some of my white-knuckle control. I hope one day to be able to stop the weighing/measuring/calorie counting, but I can only take one baby step at a time.

I have a food plan that I follow pretty strictly, although I’m finally to the point where I do allow myself some slack and realize that going over my calories a couple times of month is not going to make 10 lbs automatically fly onto my body. This food plan allows me the freedom of not having to worry what I’ll be eating that day. It’s quite freeing and comforting.

The newest thing I’m working is on tuning in to my body to listen to its hunger cues. This is so new to me as I have always been very regimented with my eating, i.e. eating a snack at 2pm simply because it’s 2pm, whether I’m hungry or not.

I do not deprive myself. The foods that I eat have been tested and chosen over the past couple of years and I really love to eat them. I eat chocolate every single day without fail.

Also, I’m a big planner. I try to leave very little to chance when it comes to food. If I know I’m going to be out of the house doing errands or something, I always pack a water bottle and a healthy snack. I don’t want to be caught starving and have to be faced with making choices between things I know aren’t good for me that will leave me hungry (and feeling bad) five minutes later.

I have definitely had a few slips here and there, but the have never led to me tossing all my hard work out the window, saying – screw it, then eating everything in the house that wasn’t nailed down as I was prone to doing in the past.

I have this great bracelet that I wear, that is a constant reminder of my abstinence. When I first started wearing it, I first used it to mark the days, then weeks, then months and now years of my abstinence. It is a silly thing of black string and beads I bought at a craft store, but it means the world to me.

I still have my struggles, but most of those times are when I’m at an event or party and am faced with foods that are enticing and that I know are triggers for me. But with my therapist, I’m working that. He tells me that if I expand other things in my life, my obsession with food will get less and less. He’s right. He has also told me that how I frame certain foods is very important. For example, I have often said something like – brownies are my kryptonite. He has shown me that by framing the brownies in that manner, I’m already setting up a tense and often losing situation for myself.

So, slowly but surely I am learning how to deal better with my food addiction/obsession/compulsion. I weigh the least amount I have ever weighed in my adult life and have maintained this loss for almost 18 months now. It feels wonderful to look in the mirror and like what I see. It feels great to be comfortable in my own skin, something that was foreign to me for TOO many years.