This speaker has been recorded at an online meeting of Addictive Eaters Anonymous. You can email us at contact@AEAinfo.org

I'd like to invite Meirion to please share his experience strength and hope with us.
My name is Meirion; I'm an addictive eater. And yeah, thanks for asking me to share and welcome to anyone who's here for the first time or
one of the first times. I was just thinking about what I might share about and just what it was like really? And what brought me not why I was looking for something to help with food now looking back, I never had a I never really had a normal I was going to say a normal relationship with food but you know, we don't have - I don't have a relationship with food. You know, I have relationships with other people. But I never ate normally I never thought normally around about food I remember but stories that my mum just told me from when I was really like too young to remember. And she'd be offering me like a choice of one biscuit or another biscuit. And and I she said I got so distressed because I couldn't choose between one or the other. And I don't know if if if it if it was the same then but the reason I would have difficulty when I was older choosing between one thing and another was because I was always it wasn't it I wasn't choosing between one piece of food and another... I was choosing between one kind of emotional landscape and another like ‘is this is this food going to make me feel the way that I want to feel? Is it going to change my view of life - it‘s a lot to put on a biscuit! - you know is it going to change my view of life so that I can feel okay about everything?‘ And you know I remember looking at you know I'd go into into shops much much later like towards the end of the the addictive eating and looking at food from exactly that perspective. You know, ‘is this going to make me feel like I think I need to feel?‘ and all you know all throughout the the the eating like teenage and then young adult I would I'd be I'd be using food to bring about a particular or attempt to bring about a particular like ...state of mind, state of being and and then I‘d use stuff to go up and I'd use stuff to level off and I‘d use stuff to come down you know, a lot of time it was food and you know, food and caffeine to go up and then alcohol and all sorts of other things to come down the other side. But that was how I'd managed my life just through what I put in my body...
and a lot you know, it worked for ages it just worked you know things, you know, I got through university or got through school and through university and and all the time knowing, like, when I was a child, I would steal. Yeah, just, you know like, I'd steal money to buy sweets, if I couldn't steal money, I‘d just buy sweets I sorry I‘d just steal sweets and I love... I would just find a way, just find a way to get what I thought I needed and it, how I got there was didn't matter. I would just and I didn't even know that really wasn't really barely conscious of what I was doing. Just it was just normal to me normal to me to, to buy sweets every day, steal money, and then eat them all in without sharing. And without without anyone knowing. And then go home and have dinner, you know, eat my the meal that my mother had prepared. And then, you know, I kind of knew that food was I knew that I always knew I was using food. But then other things just sort of overrode it. Like, you know, when I discovered drinking, and recreational drug taking, you know, these things were, you know, just seemed to, to would have the food didn't seem to be such a big thing. But I would always use it, I would still use it just to kind of change, try and change how I was feeling. And then and then those things started to become a problem, those things and my sexual behavior was a nightmare. And not for me, but for the people that were kind of at the, you know, at the effect of what I was doing. And and as I started to realize that these things were a problem and started looking for help, I found 12 Step fellowships. And then as, as some of these things y‘know, the drinking and the kind of sexual behavior, there's that kind of got a bit better. The, the food just came, argh... heard someone used the words ‘came back as a real piece of business.‘ So as soon as I removed one set of substances or behaviors, something else would have to come without, without recovery, something else would have to come and take their place. Because I couldn't do, I couldn't just couldn't live life. Like I could see other people living.
And, and things like work, like I just couldn't work, couldn't work. And I remember getting really, really upset about the fact that I just couldn't work. Like I could have a job and do a job for a while. But I couldn't, I couldn't work consistently over time. Because if I, you know, I it's challenging, you know, staying in a job or in a relationship are challenging inherently, you know, being alive is is full of challenges, and I had no capacity to deal with challenges, you know, just just didn't have it. And so I would just leave I just wouldn't I‘d just leave and go off in search of the life that didn't have any challenges. And I can tell you I've never found it. And and so I ended up with with food just being the thing, thinking that I was kind of sober in other areas, but I was just acting crazily with food, like getting out of bed in the night and going down the shops, and then binging and staying up half the night, and then passing out and then coming round in the morning and thinking, maybe that will be the last time that I have to do that. And, and it wasn't, you know, it just happened again. And then stumbling across a guy who was living this the way of life that that is offered here. And he just looked well, he looked well and happy, which was different from what I'd seen in the other in the eyes of the other people in the food fellowship that I that I'd been in, previously. And, and so I asked him for help. And he, he helped me up until I was unwilling to, to do what he said, he said ‘mate I just don't think I can help you‘, you know, because I, you know, I can only I can only be helped to the extent that I'm willing to be helped. And but by that time, it put me in touch with other members of this fellowship. And
and I was able to kind of go to them and say, ‘Right, well, I've have not done so well, so far. But I'm willing now to do what you say.‘ And these are people who they had a, like, I believed them, you know, when they said, ‘This is what's wrong. This is what the solution is. And this is, this is how I did it,‘ I believed them. And then I was at that point, just so convinced that I couldn't, I couldn't manage food, and I couldn't manage any other part of my life, it's all just a mess, that I was just willing to do what they said. And imperfectly, I've continued to continue to do that. And and all the things that I couldn't do you know, the career that I couldn't have the relationships I couldn't have the the ongoing participation in this fellowship and, you know, consist consistently showing up and being a part of something like join, I‘ve joined clubs, like I‘ve joined clubs, a club; I've never joined clubs because I was just too special, too special for a club, you know, and you'd have to engage with people you didn't know very well and all that kind of thing.
Yeah, but all those things I couldn't do I can do. I can do. And it's not because I've, I'm like I don't know it's just because I've learned to do as I'm told and stop trying to manage every part of my life to try and bring about some you know, impossible ideal. And and then what the other thing they said is you need to develop a relationship with God. And like a God of my understanding. And, and it's part of the steps that's part of my step work is through prayer and meditation to improve my relationship with God. And like, I'd rather just ring people up to be honest, and ask them questions rather than take the time to
develop a the relationship with God. But but it's what I've done. And it's just relieved me of the need to get out of bed in the middle of the night and go to the shops.
It's relieved me of the need to give up a job. Just walk, you know, walk out of a job because it's too hard. It's relieved me of the need to run away from relationships because
you know, they're too difficult. And yeah, you know, I can save money and in a all sorts of things. And yeah, I'm just very grateful. I‘m getting married next month. (Ha ha! Ha!) And, you know, I, on my own, I just haven't gotten the ability or the capacity to do anything, any of these things.
And so, yeah, if you're new, stick around. And I needed to find someone that I was, I needed to be convinced that I couldn't do it. Whatever I was trying to do wasn't gonna work. And I had to find someone that I was willing to call and to do what they said. And none of it was complicated. And it was all simple. I just needed to be willing to do it. And trust trust God with the rest of my life. And yeah, I'll leave it there. Thanks so much for asking me to share.