This story has been recorded at an Addictive Eaters Anonymous meeting in New Zealand, you can email us at contact@AEAnz.org.

It is the first Friday of the month. So it is a speaker meeting.
And tonight we've got Jill. Thank you Lynnette, I‘m Jill and I‘m an addictive eater. It's very nice to be here. Been away in the wilds for a couple of weeks. And, you know, while I was away I thought a lot about gratitude. So I thought might talk about gratitude. And I suppose it's, it's easy to be grateful when you're on holiday and you're having a nice time and the sun‘s shining and the insects aren‘t biting. But, you know, gratitude is something that never, ever entered my head until I came here. And I can remember a few odd people, you know, I used to go to counselors to try and sort out my problems and I can remember a few people trying to inculcate a sense of gratitude, in me and it just completely went over my head. You know, I was never ever grateful for anything - it didn't matter what happened. You know, if it was awful things that happened, I said, I wasn't going to be grateful for them. If it was a nice things, I would think, well, it's what I deserve. There was just no room for it. You know, I remember when I was a little kid. I thought I had the worst upbringing in the world, I had the worst parents in the world, I had the worst siblings in the world, I lived in a terrible town, in a terrible country, you know, everything was just awful. And, you know, when I moved on to the next thing, whatever it might be, things are going to be wonderful. You know, when I went to high school, it was going to be wonderful. When I left home, it was going to be wonderful. When I left New Zealand, it was going to be wonderful. And you know, it was always a complete and utter disappointment to me. The world let me down on a daily basis. And, you know, that was how I lived. You know, and I always knew there was something wrong with me. And I always had this food problem. And I was always trying to beat the food problem. You know, I would never have got help about that. I mean, the one thing when I went to talk to people, the one thing I never ever talked about was my food. You know, that was that was my secret that I was going to fix on my own. It was just too shameful to talk to anyone else about. So I was endlessly trying to fix it myself. I remember when I came into the program, you know, I thought that I'd never tried dieting, until I remember that I dieted pretty much every day and it had gone by lunchtime. And, you know, that was my life always. You know, the big book talks about one more attempt and one more failure. And that was my experience of pretty much everything in life. I just, you know, I was just a real little misery guts. And yeah, I could never have been grateful for anything in life. You know, occasionally things did go well in my life, I guess, sort of, you know, it didn't just the gratitude never came. And I suppose, you know, if you want to be grateful then the, not only do you have to have something to be grateful for, but I guess you actually I was just thinking about this today, you have to have something or someone to be grateful to, you know, the sort of gratitude. I don't know, in my I've been away so I've had a lot of time to think. You know, I was I was just thinking, you know about how gratitude requires something to be grateful to and there wasn't anything in my life. You know, nobody had ever done anything for me. So there was no person to be grateful to and there was no God in my life, you know, absolutely no God in my life so I couldn't be grateful to God. And you know, it's funny thinking about that today and just how different my life is today with a God in my life. You know, I was, I was a staunch atheist when I came in here and proud of it. And I remember the first time I came to a 12 step program, which was, it was in another fellowship.
And I came in through a treatment center. And I got taken to my first meeting. And I was, I remember feeling absolutely at home with those people, you know, it just to listen at my very first meeting made sense of my whole life. In then I saw God on the wall, I can't remember people talking about God, but I did see it all on the wall. And I remember thinking, just being so disappointed and thinking, it's all about God, it's Christian. I love what they've got, I'd love to come here, but it's not for me. And I remember going back to my little, little treatment center where I was confined for a week, and tried having a discussion with the staff at the treatment center about the existence of God. And I remember they said, ‘you know, have you noticed where this  place is? It's in the grounds of a mental hospital. If we, if we, if we want to have an intellectual debate about the distant about the existence of God, we don't need to resort to mental hospital patients.‘ I think it's what Bill Wilson would call ego deflation at depth. But, you know, that was that was the tenor of the place. And the thing was it actually, you know, I spent a week being spoken to like that. And by the end of the week, I think a tiny little chip of my ego had been deflated. And, you know, I wasn't, I didn't have any sense of God. But that absolute refusal to accept the idea of God had been knocked out of me, you know, I at least, you know, I mean, step three talks about that chink in the armor, and there was that little chink of the armor, and it was no longer complete hostility. And as it turns out, that was all I needed. In the beginning. I can remember...you know, during those days, I used to didn't know what to do with myself. And I used to wander around the streets, and I'd go into churches, and I'd wait to be zapped, because I'd heard people, I'd heard about Bill Wilson's experience of getting zapped, and a few other people had got zapped by God. So, you know, I used to wander around just looking, looking to be zapped by God, it actually never happened. You know, my spiritual awakening has very much been of the slow and educational variety. But, you know, I'd lost that total hostility. And, you know, some years later, I came into a food fellowship. And it was that whole, that whole sort of ego deflation all over again, you know, I can remember these howls of outrage in my head, you know, ‘isn't it enough that I've had to stop drinking, why should I have to stop eating as well? That was the battle that went on in my head. You know, and again, somewhere along the line, things started to change. You know, I mean, I've, I've spent alot of years in this program as a lot of, you know, eating and lying about it, and in pretending I was free of the food when I wasn't. And, you know, the one thing I'm always so grateful for, is that I kept coming, and I never stopped coming. You know, because I wasn't, I wasn't doing much I was doing lots of service. But as far as spiritual development going goes, you know, I wasn't doing I was doing very little, probably nothing.
And you know, I kept eating through all those years, trying to, you know, still trying to control it - when I think of those number of years that I spent trying to control my eating it is it is just crazy and it never worked. And you know, the book talks about half measures availed us nothing. And I had, absolutely, you know, during all those years, I have had absolutely no peace of mind whatsoever. Not for a moment. I was always thinking, ‘What can I do about it? How can I fix it? Will somebody spring me buying something that, you know, I know most people wouldn't buy?‘ You know, it's just those endless questions going on in my head. They never, ever stopped, and I never told anybody about it. And, you know, I look at, I look back at those years, and I think, well, it's no wonder I wasn't very grateful because it's a pretty, pretty miserable existence. But I look at look back on those years, and I think, you know, what an awful way to live, you know, I wouldn't wish that life on any anybody. And yet, I know, there are probably millions of people out there, living like that now, you know, trying to control their routine, trying to act as though everything's normal. And, you know, I know, I'm not here on merit you know, I've done nothing to sort of deserve recovery in this program. And yet here I am, you know, I got to a stage with my eating where I just couldn't do it anymore. It was just, it was just too exhausting. I just didn't have it in me anymore. And I didn't, I didn't know what to do. You know, I knew what I knew what despair was. I knew what being desperate was because I had been desperate in the other fellowship. And I had never been desperate here, you know, I always thought ‘I'd like, I'd like to be free of the food.‘ But it wasn't that sort of desperation. And, you know, I mean, talking about gratitude, I feel so grateful today, that somehow I got to a point where I was desperate. I don't know what had happened. You know, I do believe that God got me to that point where I was absolutely desperate. And I couldn't do it anymore. You know, I just didn't have a single good idea in me, and I know myself well enough to know that if I had had a good idea that I thought would work, I would have followed it. But I didn't, you know, so I went and talked to the sponsor, and told her absolutely everything I could think of that I had done and the desire to stop eating was taken away. You know, it just, it just disappeared. I was not expecting that to happen. I don't know what I thought was gonna happen. But it hadn't entered my head, that that desire to eat would be taken away. And it's just another one of those things that, you know, I believe God did for me, what, what I couldn't do for myself. And I don't know why. But, you know, I have learned to say thank you. You know, I spent a lot of time arguing things through in my head, trying to understand things, you know, trying to understand God trying to understand the why, you know, and again, I feel so grateful for sponsorship, because, you know, my sponsor sort of wasn't interested in having these long discussions with the convoluted thoughts in my head. You know, and I, you know, I just get these reminders, just do the next thing in front of you - it will sort itself out. And that's what I have found, has happened in this program. You know, things sort themselves out, I don't have to fix everything. And you know, what a blessing that is not to have to fix everything. What a blessing it is not to have to run the world. You know, I sort of used to think everything was my responsibility. And if I didn't fix things, I don't know, I don't think I thought the world would collapse if I didn't think fix things, but I certainly felt I had to fix everything. And you know, I used to think what's going to happen to me, I have no idea what's going to happen to me. And now, I think I have no idea what's going to happen to me.
You know, it's amazing. It's, you know, the same thoughts with a completely different attitude. I love that. There's a story and I don't know whether it's in Buddhism or what about somebody asks a guru, what did you do before enlightenment? And he said, I drew water and carted wood. And then they said, What did you do after enlightenment? And he said, I drew, I draw water and I cart wood. And I really like, I really like that, that. You know, I do the same things that I always did. But just with a different attitude, you know, I don't have to do you know, new? And I suppose there are some things I do I certainly participate more and do my bit a bit more in things I'm involved in. But it's not with that ‘What's in it for me? Are they going to like me? Will they want me around? Will I make a fool of myself? Do I hate all of them? Why don't they all go away?‘ You know, all those sorts of negative thoughts that completely ran my life, they can still come back sometimes. But they absolutely do not run my life today, in most of the time, I can just get on and do the next thing in front of me. And that probably seems absolutely normal to most people. But, you know, to me, it's, it's a miracle on a daily basis, just to be able to get on and do the next thing in front of me. And I don't think I sort of look every two minutes for somewhere to be useful. The way I used to sort of ‘oh my God, I've got to be useful!‘ I don't think like that anymore. But you know, when the opportunity comes up, I do my bit, I contribute. You know, I can interact with other human beings, I mean, interaction with other human beings was, it was the torment of my life. It really was, you know, I used to meet people, and I'd really like them. And I wouldn't want to get to know them. Because I knew that as soon as I started to get to know them, I would find out all their defects, all their weaknesses, all the horrible aspects of their personalities, and I wouldn't like them anymore. So I used to avoid try and avoid getting to know people. And, you know, that's, I think that's pretty weird. I don't know, maybe everyone else thinks the same I don‘t know, but certainly, to me, that seems really weird today. And there‘s, there's a lot of those attitudes that I can't even imagine myself having today. There are ways I used to think that I can't imagine myself thinking today, you know, there are behaviors I had that, you know, obviously with the food, but with lots of other things, too. You know, I remember when I first came in the program, somebody said, I had the worst language that they've ever heard in a female coming into the program. I remember, I used to smoke 90 cigarettes a day. I mean, I just, I just know those things as facts. And I cannot imagine, being that person anymore. A little while ago, someone said to me, ‘Oh, someone told me you're an alcoholic.‘ and I said ‘Yes‘, and she just cracked up laughing and could not imagine it. And you know, when I was in the disease, nobody would have had any difficulty imaginging me living the way I did, because it showed even when I tried not to show - it showed, you know, that negativity just poured out of me, you know, is full of anxiety, bitterness, resentment. All those attitudes, they were just so much in me, I couldn't have hidden I could probably hid them hide them for five minutes, but I couldn't really hide them for the life for me, because they just, they just permeated every aspect of my personality. And, you know, I don't feel like that person today. You know, I feel I mean, I'm free of the food. And that's an absolute miracle. That I feel free of free of all that bitterness and resentment. I mean, I woke up every morning and hated the world. And spent the whole day hating the world and trying to get the better of it and
going to bed at night having proved myself right. And, you know, that's awful. And I can remember the first meeting I came to of this group, and I can't remember anything anyone said. But I can remember the calm that I saw in people you know, it just I've never forgotten that meeting. It was amazing. I you know, I I couldn't have put my hand and my words to it at the time but I could tell that the people in that room didn't wake up in the morning hating people and a lot of those people are in the room here tonight. And just there was just something peaceful about it. And that was the first time in this program I ever had hope, you know, I had, I just had that little glimmer of hope that this program might work for me. And you know, what a miracle that was, you know, that was years before I actually stopped eating. But it was that first time I had that little bit of hope, and it never completely went away. You know, I always knew the answer was here. So. Yeah. I always knew the answer was here. And, as I said earlier, you know, I feel very grateful that I stayed long enough, because if I hadn't been here, I just know, my pride and my ego, if I hadn't been here, when that moment of desperation came, I'm not sure I would have come back. You know, and, you know, life really, life really is peaceful today, you know, I mean have odd moments of turmoil, but they last about five minutes, you know, and I feel very grateful. Particularly to meditation, someone gave me a book about meditation at Christmas, and I was reading it, you know, while I was away, and as I was just thinking, you know, that meditation probably more than anything gives me that sort of, you know, ability to not let not let my crazy thoughts go get away with me. I mean, I know, it's, it's God and it's coming to meetings and it‘s hearing, what everyone says, but, you know, those little tools of recovery, you know, all the steps, and particularly that 11th step. You know, if my thinking starts to get out of hand, you know, I can just, I mean, that ability to do... I love that. That tape that we listen to in a meditation meeting, you know, it talks about the, you know, the practicality in the practice of our daily lives, you know, that ability to just, if my heads doing its thing, I can just start to meditation, if I'm walking, walking along the road, you know, just at home doing things. You know, almost in any situation, if that thinking starts to get out of hand, I can just pause I suppose it's, you know, what it says in big book, pause when agitated, or doubtful, and just do a very quick meditation. And it just stops that, that thinking, you know, and I don't know, if I will ever be free of the crazy thinking, you know, the negativity particularly, I don't get so angry and things today, but I do get sort of, I can get caught up in that negativity, and I don't know if I will ever be completely free of it. But I do know that when it comes in, I've got a very powerful tool, so that it doesn't run my life, because I know I am not of, of no use to God or to any human being, if I'm sitting there full of resentment and negativity and bitterness, resentment, self pity, you know, any of those things. They don't help God, they don't help me, and they don't help anyone else. So, you know, it is amazing. You know, to know that I don't have to live like that today. And, you know, for me, it's amazing to think that this program, and all that it gives, will be here for the rest of my life. You know, I always used to think what's going to happen to me, you know,
what's the rest of my life going to be like? And, you know, I'd spiral down into some pretty, pretty negative images of my old age if I ever was gonna gonna make it that far. But, you know, to know, this programs here, I mean, just the solidness of this program and the commitment of all you people and all the people in this program, you know, we're just such a, you know, we might be small, but, you know, we're a strong force and to have something, you know, it's another one of those things that just seems like a huge privilege to me, to have this in my life. That will be there to support and guide and give me an opportunity to be useful and to be part of and you know how many people out there in the world would love to have something just as solid as what we've got. So yeah, I'm really grateful to be here.
Thank you. It‘s been a pleasure. Thank you.