The speaker has been recorded at an online meeting of addictive eaters anonymous. You can email us at contact@aeainfo.org.

0:13  
My name is Melanie, and I'm an addictive user. And yeah, thanks. Thanks for asking me. I was just delighted. Delighted to be asked. That's actually how I was like, boy, yeah, I'll share I'll talk I'd love to talk. Yes, it's nice to be asked. It just makes me really feel, you know, part of, and now know that I started a little butterflies in my stomach. But yet, often startups are taught to pause. And, and, and that you only have to share your experience well, and your strength and your hope that you know, you don't have to know. Yeah. And so I'm gonna give you like, I'm 43 now and I, yeah, addictive eaten, I think, yeah, it started pretty young. I mean, started pretty young, and I suppose took a long while to get really bad, but it got worse, and worse. And worse and worse. Like, yeah, I can't emphasise that enough. And I suppose I would have told you, I was a binge, a binge eater. But it can just just came in different forms, really. So I would have, yeah, as a teenager, just, you know, and people still living at home and began to bed, gone into the kitchen and just eat and stuff and eat and stuff and more stuff. And even begin in June, as I was sneaky, you know, just, you wouldn't need all the biscuits, you would need all the bread, because you'd be found out. So you get very sneaky very quick, you know, to hide it and try it, you know, I could be gone, I could spend a lot of time just talking about, about the food, but it took off. And, you know, it just got to be I thought it was this little problem, you know, that I could just fix on my own. And by the end or it just it was it turns into smaller could fix on my own it was something huge. And by the end, I was everybody. I had asked everybody for help, you know, you know, family, friends, doctors, psychiatrists, counsellors, treatment centres. And, you know, still doing some binge binge eating, you know? Oh, yeah, just baffling, you know, that you could be, you know, escalating your efforts so much.

3:17  
Where it got to a point where it was just, it was my whole life, you know, it was just,

3:25  
I was gonna stop doing it. I was like to spend my time eating, or wondering how I was gonna stop eating. I never had any. It was never any kind of, or, what's the word? I couldn't be I couldn't just be eat and be happy. And maybe that's what makes an addictive eater. And there's a part in the, in the big book in the doctor's opinion, and talks about, you know, for them, their normal life is this and they cannot tell the truth from the false. And I was like that my that's really sad. My normal life was either binge eating, or s at this stage. I was, I was going to meetings of a different fellowship. So you know, my evenings would be spent. If I wasn't bingeing, I'd be going to meetings, or was not going to counselling. It was just, you know, I don't know how helped on a full time job because it was a full time job, wondering, how are we going to fix now? Gosh, you know, so I'm, I'm laughing thinking about it, but it's just, I suppose it's just the way the diseases just so sub centres. And I suppose my experience is that I have been fortunate enough to meet people. That's how I came into this fellowship when it started. I think it started about three and a half years ago, I could be corrected on that. But I was just attracted to what people had, you know, a kind of a or just Start with words away advice doesn't kind of visit. But just yeah, just liked what these people had or what they were doing. And yeah, I've just been very lucky to have met those people. And I met them in another fellowship. I just kind of not hung on but still close are kind of copied what they were doing. I just remember thinking if I, if I just, if I just do what they are doing, maybe it'll rub off on me somehow? I mean, I didn't think is it work? Because the, for me the diseases, the South Central just, it's just that ego just and still does it today just tells me that there isn't, you know, I'm unique that you don't understand. I've got it so bad. And, you know, can't be just addicted eating, it's all these other things, and blah, blah, blah. Praise. I suppose when you get desperate enough? Yeah, I guess you'd become willing to do things. So I hung around. And that's kind of, it's kind of still the same, you know, you know, ring because, you know, you're told in the fellowship to, to ring people. And it's not just checking the list. You know, you're, I find you want to bring people and yeah, just I've heard somebody call it meaningful relationships. And that sounds kind of kind of heavy. But that's, that's what it is, you know, sharing with people. You know, what's, yeah, what's real and stuff. So I got, I'm kind of going off on tangents. I don't know that much of a narrative here. But, um, yeah, so. So I'm coming around a long time. Because, say my first fellowship meeting was about 20 years ago. So. So I'd like to think that my experience is helpful. If you're coming around a long time, and you're wondering, you know, I found the the best thing I've done is just to, is just to keep coming and see, with, say, with the food, because I'm just thinking a new Congress here tonight. And I know, I'd be I know, when I was new at meetings, I just kind of wanted, you know, just tell me how to just tell me when you just tell me how to stop binge eating, really, just tell me, just tell me how to do it. And, and I can get out of here, you know, cuz he wasn't like that. For me. I was just I came I just realised that I was east. I'm not on my own anyway. And then I got hope that maybe, maybe that could that it wouldn't maybe have to die from from from binge eating.

8:05  
Yeah, and, and when I think that now, you know, it's just, just today not to have to eat is no, I take it for granted. Because I remember, you know, praying to God, just if I wanted, if I could just not binge God, if I could just have whatever X amount of meals a day, I never asked him for anything again, you know, and I now know, I'm today I don't have to eat today. I almost take it for granted that I can wake up enough not be hungover from fingers to get hangovers. And or not be thinking of I only have this or that that obsession about just to try and control essentially, is that obsession, because it's just it was crude. And, and today, I'm free that and Sure. That itself to me is is miraculous, because I would have felt like you know, coming in and you know, a lot of community means I've eaten again, like on for years. So I suppose in this fellowship, I found a lot of people that just had a solid recovery in that, that didn't have to eat and hadn't had to eat for a long, long time. And to me that is supremely helpful because otherwise and there's that message that goes along. Otherwise, it's kind of easy. And you know, sometimes the disease and me It annoys me for so many well, people in this fellowship, it's hard to sort of wallow in the disease because there's not many others wallow in it kind of like if somebody says it's brings you back to centre. So I find that so, so helpful. No This, there's this message of recovery, and that it doesn't really change even though I'd like, you know, somebody shared at the last meeting about wanting to, you know, there's 12 steps in the programme, and they wanted to just pick the bits that suited them. I'm laughing because I was that person, you know, where I would do bits and pieces. Just were thinking, and, and it didn't, it didn't work. So. And that kind of reminds me of step one, this. Sure why, unless you're at rock bottom, you know, why would you do all the things in this programme? You know, because it's, I mean, it's all so wonderful. I mean, but it's all, you know, being honest and self sacrificing and thinking of others and making amends and then doing like, that addictive eaters were self centred. And that doesn't really appeal. Unless we really have to do it. So. Um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so the pain of the food, because I remember as well, as a newcomer, ask them, you know, there's a lot of talk about surrender as well. And original rock bottom. And I used to be asking people who tell me how to do that. And, and people couldn't, and I wouldn't be able to tell you now. Well, Melanie, how did you surrender the food, it was just the pain of the pain of it, plus the grace of just coming back. And that somewhere along the line, I just had enough grace to, I suppose do what was suggested. Or be willing enough to do those things for maybe, along have this. I just had that grace not to eat? I don't think that's explained very well. But But, yeah, and I find as well, I'm, you know, I'm at step one again, because to me, you know, I put down the foods and then you put down other mind altering substances. To me, I'm left then with polio, like, my dependencies, I'm, I'm dependent on people, you know, I'm dependent on what you think of me. And you hear that a lot of meetings? It seems like I suppose. What sort of first world problem, you know. Yeah. Yeah, that and you hear a lot about a higher power in these meetings. And, and that that's, that, you know, no human power can stop eating and the chair does this programme helps you to get in touch with our or a higher power, you know, something.

13:00  
Something that's in yet. And with you're always just quite amazing, so that you don't have to be dependent on food are dependent on on people. Yeah. And today, I started the day early on my temporary sponsor, and that was, that was wonderful.

13:32  
You know, it was, you know, it was hard, but wonderful. And just home at home, Winston, my mother. And I had three days work, which was for for, I guess, what you'd call a stay at home mom. So three days working was like a holiday because the kids were being minded. And I went off to like, the Local Enterprise Centre for no point giving you all this data, and had three blissful days of just, yeah, God, it was lovely. It was just Yeah, some people. Me I suppose. Because I'm trying to get back into work and outside the home. You know, it was almost it was it was like, it was lovely. And I've bit more work next week. So that's might sound small, but to me to be able to do all those things is wonderful. You know, like, I was I said to God, you know, I won't just if I could just stop bingeing. I won't ask you for anything else. And now I have two beautiful daughters. And, and, yeah, and yeah, I am so blessed. And yeah, if Yeah, and not not not not an ordinal value that you know, we wouldn't have. I wouldn't have any of that in only for this only for the hope I get in this fellowship. Yeah. And I you Just yeah, it the head. Yeah, it's funny, you're just and you're told a lot as well to ignore your thinking and I suppose, you know, as well as dependent on people. My thinking is addictive as well. And it just tells you, most of it is lies, you know? Yeah. It's a wonderful fellowship. And yeah, I'm lucky to, to, to not come across a book just to be just to be part of it. And I'm not sure. I'm not sure how much clearer you could tell me. No, that was five minutes or are I've kind of run out. I don't know how much time that was. But I think that's all I have to share. So I'll leave it there. Thanks for asking.