A 12 Step based eating disorder treatment center in Naples, FL

Hi, everybody. I am a compulsive overeater in recovery today, thanks to my higher power. I've been asked to come down and share a little of my story with you. I talked to some of you today, and I've enjoyed that. Thank you for inviting me in and making you welcome.

My sharing will be along the lines of what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now. And what it was like can be summed up in a sentence for me. This was a joke by a comedian whose father was passing on his wisdom of life to his son. And he said, life is a swirling, sucking eddy of despair with only faint glimmers of false hope that fade away as your dash to the rocks. This was supposed to be funny.

But I heard that and I thought, yeah. That's exactly how I feel. You know? When I came to the Willow 2 years ago, I was, well over £700, could not stand up for more than 5 minutes at a time, could not walk more than 20 feet, and basically lived in a chair in my living room because I could not lay down in my bed for any amount of time because I could not breathe if I did so. And the only physical exercise I got was walking 20 feet to my bathroom twice a day.

And that's where I was when I made the decision to come here. In going back over some of the events of my life and trying to understand why I am the way I am and what motivates my actions, I came upon 2 major events in my life that I think shaped our relationship to food. One happened before I have a conscious memory, but I've heard the story many times from my mom. When I was 2 years old, we were traveling, moving our family from Texas to Mississippi. My dad was in the military.

And on route, I became ill with bronchial pneumonia, almost died, was hospitalized in an out of the way military hospital. My mom was put up in temporary housing a half an hour away by bus, stuck in a place she was unfamiliar with. My father was busy ferrying our trailers. They call them mobile homes today, but back when I was a kid, they were trailers. And I was separated from my family for 3 days.

The military hospital had the opinion of that if you needed a family, they would have issued you one. And they didn't make a lot of concessions for families. So this was back in the early fifties. So my mom was prohibited from seeing me, so I was isolated for 3 days in the hospital with no contact except for the nurse. During those 3 days, I am told I did not eat.

And when my dad came on the 3rd day and was informed what was going on, he immediately barged into the room, told the nurses to bring him some some bottles, and he fed me. And he said I drank 3 bottles down right away and then fell asleep. So in in going over that this week in in thinking of this, it just finally dawned on me that I think this was the this is the pivotal point in which food became more than just nourishment to me because I was I was safe. My dad was there. I was full.

I had been comforted. And so in my brain, somehow, I think those those messages got interconnected. The second thing that came to my mind was at the age of 14. I grew up in a again, my dad was a totalitarian father. He did what he said, when he said, and how he said it.

If there was any emotion that snuck its way into my house, it was immediately beat, to death with a stick. We were not allowed to have any differing opinion from my parents. And so consequently, my dad's only form of discipline was spanking, which eventually turned into beating. And so from the ages of 8 till 14, my overwhelming feeling and memory is that every day of my life I was beaten for something I had done, something I hadn't done, something I didn't do right, something I did, you know, whatever the reason. His only solution was physical feeding.

When I was 14 during the summer between school, I shot up 8 inches. And I was a I was a chunky kid, maybe £20 overweight at that time. But 8 inches on that frame, and I was suddenly lanky and still strong. And at 14, I was now big enough and strong enough to turn around and take the belt out of my dad's hand and say I think that's enough. And that was my last physical beating.

Also at this time, I began having extremely violent fantasies mainly aimed at women. I thought, it was a faceless woman and I was constantly tormenting this person, you, the lady. And because of these thoughts, I felt I was the dregs of the earth. I could not I could not believe that I I could even think these things. And yet I somehow thought it was possible that I would be like this.

It scared me. And I began seeking comfort from these feelings and these thoughts and food and in other compulsive behaviors. It wasn't until 2 years ago that I finally figured out what all that was all about. But at the time, it was, it was just too overwhelming for me to even try to deal with it. And so I just tried to cover it up.

I didn't wanna have to feel it. I didn't wanna have to think about it. And so I ate, and I began to gain weight. At age 17, my sister who was 3 years younger than me died of a very rare heart disease. She was actually died of neglect and just the nurse in the recovery room decided she needed a coffee break and walked out.

And she aspirated and choked on her. And my thought at that time was I gotta tell you first that I was very jealous of my sister because she was the favorite child in our family. My mom had always told everybody that would listen that she was gonna have kids until she had a daughter. And when she had her daughter, my older brother and myself were suddenly without parents it seemed. We were just neglecting.

I'm sure that's only my perception, but that's the way that I feel about it. And I was terribly jealous of my sister. When she died, my first thought was good. Now I'll be the favorite child. And, again, this thought plagued me because I thought how could I feel this way?

I am so I am so much scum. And I began having suicidal thoughts because I couldn't stand the thought that I would even think that about of my sister. Took me several years in therapy to come to grips with those things. And I wanna tell you that in relation to my recovery, it means absolutely nothing. Knowing why does not help me from my recovery.

I began, gaining weight, going ahead to losing weight. I tried everything that was under the set and short of operations. I was on pills. I was on every fad diet. I tried starvation.

I was, I tried liquid protein fasting. And everything worked until I stopped working it. You know? You can only you can only lose weight so long. Eventually, you die.

So I would I would lose my weight, and I would begin eating again, but I would begin eating just like I did before because now I'm okay. And I lost the weight. I can do it again. It'll be easy to do it again. The first time I did this and the most successful, at least in my mind, the most successful was a liquid protein sparing diet that I, went on to lose £35.

And I lost it, and I thought, boy, that was easy. I can do that again anytime. And I started eating again just like I did before. And the weight came back on, and I decided to go on that again because it worked so well the first time, and the second time it didn't work. After the 1st week, I was sneaking food in between and finally I just gave up.

You know, you get to the point of basic aspiration where it's not working. It's not worth it in my mind, and I would I would just stop. I did this over the next 15 years, finally ending up at a top weight of about £725 when I started out to lose 35 originally. The last time I went on a weight reduction program, it took me 2 years to make that decision because I didn't want to get any fatter. And every diet I'd ever been on before when I was done with it, I was fatter.

So it took me a while to get up enough faith and enough trust to try it again. And it was an expensive program. It was a monitored hospital monitored program every week for blood tests, for behavioral classes to try to alter the way we live our life. The 1st 14 weeks of this program you ate no food. It was all packets of protein mix.

And then they scheduled in a 2 week time of eating like salads and stuff so that your body doesn't totally reject food. And that scared me. I asked for permission to skip that part because I didn't want to have to make the decisions about food. And I think the reason I was successful on those fasting programs is because there was no food involved. I had no choices to make.

I was full of energy. I I never felt better. I was alert and awake. And in every regard, except the fact that it wasn't lasting, I thought it was the best program I've been on. In the middle of this program, I did actually take the break and start eating.

But in the middle of this program, my wife and I found out we were breaking. A task we had been attempting for 12 years. So we talk about patience. Yeah. I never thought I'd I don't want to embarrass him.

So anyway, we got to the point this was the perfect excuse for me. The fact that that we were pregnant, that this was an expensive program and I would now need money for the baby. And so it gave me an opportunity and a reason that I could rationalize to quit this program, which I did promptly within 3 days. For the next almost year, I had maintained the weight loss which was about £125 at that time. And I didn't have a food plan.

I simply kept track of what I intook every day. And at the end of the day, I would write it down and figure out the calories and all that kind of stuff. And I was living quite contentedly on about 1800 calories a day. I wasn't hungry. I had no desire for any specific foods.

And one day this errant thought whipped through my head and it was my disease going. How much more can you have and still maintain this weight? So I started adding more calories to my day. I added it by 500 calorie maintenance, and I didn't gain any weight. And the next week, I added another 500 and I didn't gain any weight.

Next week, I added another 500. I didn't gain any weight. I was up to 6,000 calories a day before I started gaining weight. In my brain, I don't know why I thought if I didn't start gaining weight right away, why if I cut back suddenly I would not I would stop losing weight. But that was my thinking.

So I cut back 500 calories and I kept gaining weight. And I cut back 500 calories and I kept gaining weight. And I cut back 500 and I kept gaining weight. And I thought, screw this. You know, on the on the 3,000 calories a day and I'm hungry.

I'm irritable. I'm hard to live with. And it all started at a point where I was satisfied. I wasn't craving any food, but I had the thought, how much more can I have? Because I want all I can get.

You know, that's my disease. I want all I can get. So I began gaining weight. I gave up again. Threw my hands up in exasperation and go, well, screw it.

Whatever I'm gonna weigh, that's what I'm gonna weigh. I'm gonna be fat the rest of my life. I don't care anymore. It was at this point after another year went by and put back on the 125 plus a little more. And it was decided that I needed help.

So we went to a therapist and her first requirement of me was to attend OA meetings, at least 6. Now here I had asked for help, was desperately in need of it, knew it, knew I was killing myself, asked for the help, went to her, and when she told me what I had to do, my response was, okay. I'll do 6. You know, I can do 6. I can do 6 anytime, and then I'll quit.

Because then I will have made the effort to do this program. Sick. Sick. Thank you. I went to my first meeting with a real chip on my shoulder to be so desperately in need of help and to reject the help I was on.

On. I went I went to my first meeting with the thought, well, I'll just take a bucket of chicken and let me sit in the back and eat while they have their reading. That was gonna be my meal. Unfortunately, I didn't act on that. But I did go in with that attitude.

But when I left that room and I can't even remember what was talked about in that room that night. I can't remember what I said. I think I just introduced myself because I was new. I didn't know anything. But I felt such a warmth in that room that I decided I would go back again the I was actually looking forward to it.

So that was my introduction to the 12 step program of over the years and a 100. I played with this program for another 9 years trying to do it my way, trying not to have a food plan. Honestly, well, I'll just cut back on this kind of food and eat more of this kind of food. But I'm not going to have a food plan. I'm not going to measure.

That's too structured for me. That's too limiting. I don't want to be that restricted. So I played with this for 9 more years and gained another £250 in the process, all the time working in this program. It was at this point that I had gotten to my chair, couldn't move, couldn't do anything.

I had, you know, restaurants went out of business when I stopped eating in our town. I had several restaurants that we had frequented when I could get around who would still deliver me food to my chair. My daughter was about 9 at the time. She would answer the door and give them the checks, or they would just she would open the door, and they would come in and deliver me my food. And it was enough food for, you know, 5 people at this point.

But at this point, I had really decided I was gonna just eat myself to death with my own solution because I couldn't lose the weight no matter what I did. All my all my past experience told me I can't do this. So I was just gonna eat myself to death like the insurance and my family would be taken care of. One day, my wife came and stood in front of me and said she couldn't she couldn't stay and watch me kill myself. And so it was decided that I would seek treatment in a treatment center.

Our insurance did not cover this kind of stay, so we had to wait until December. This was in fall when she came in came to me. And I agreed to seek treatment. Open season on the insurance happened in January. She changed so we would have coverage for me to come here.

And still I put off arranging to come for another month and a half. And every once in a while, she would come in. Have you made those calls yet? Have you set up something yet? No.

Not yet. Not yet. All this time, I was teaching my daughter how to dial 911, and I said, you know, be sure to tell him to send 2 trucks because your dad's really big. And what what really got to me one day was I began noticing eating disorder behavior in my daughter at 9 years old. And it was no longer just about me.

I was vetting this child. And that hurt. And I remember her asking me, you want to go, daddy, why do you wanna leave us? And there is no way that I could come up with to explain the kind of despair I felt to a child. So the decision took action.

I made calls. I did everything over the phone because I couldn't get out to visit this facility. So I had to trust information over the phone and they had to trust what I told them. I was asked when I called up, I said I'm over £600. I don't know how much.

I'm knowing a lot. I can't stand up. I can't walk. You have a place for me there. And we talked about it and she said, well, there is some walking involved here.

You're going to have to walk from your room to the cafeteria to the meeting rooms. And she went out and measured it, told me how far it was, and would I be able to do that. And I looked out my back window, and it's a 100 feet to my fence. And I thought, yeah. I can do that.

A 100 feet. That's I can do a 100 feet. I didn't do it. I just, in my head, thought, oh, I can do that. So I went to the doctor to get medically released to come down here.

1st doctor I've been to in years because I it's the first time I've been out of my house. And this young guy walked into my room and I swear his jaw hit the floor when he saw it. He was just totally overwhelmed. He did his EKG. He said, well, I've never done an EKG with someone sitting up before.

You always had to lay down. I go, well, I can't lay down because I can't breathe. You'll have to do it sitting up. So he did the EKG. He didn't like what he saw.

He sent me to another specialist, which I walked into his office and I was I still got the same kind of reaction, but not quite as bad. Although he did tell me that I was the biggest guy he'd ever seen. And he was unable to do all the tests that he wanted to do because I would not fit him on his table. He said he gave me some meds and said come back in a week. We'll check it.

If it looks okay, I'll say okay. In the meantime, I'll try to find somewhere in the state that has a table big enough for you, and you couldn't find one in the state of Florida that would hold. So I came back in a week. He tested me. He said it's marginal, but I'm gonna okay you because you really need this.

And it's under that condition that I came down. I do I could not walk into here. I got out of my car into a wheelchair, which they had to special order for me at the time. They had to make special arrangements for a chair to be in a room that I could fit in, which I was hoping to have tonight, but they couldn't find it. So the first the first two days, I was able to walk and attend all the meetings.

And the 3rd day when I tried to get out of my chair, my legs would not move. They were frozen. They were just they were not responding. And so from that time on, because I was so severely limited physically, I was not able to take part in much of what this facility has to offer. I did go to the group therapy sessions.

I did go to one meeting a day other than the therapy. Usually a 12 step, but we'll get the other meetings that you have during the day. I did not go to any of the body image class. There's any of the extra stuff. I didn't go to the pool.

I didn't do anything because I could not leave the room. The one thing that was suggested to me at the time by another patient here was to leave my door open because otherwise I would be totally isolated, which I did and which proved very helpful to me. Because when people walked by, they would at least say, hey. Someone would stop in and visit once in a while. And my room became an extra meeting room, which was nice.

They brought the meetings to me since I couldn't go. I kept telling them they could take the bed out because I don't need the bed. I couldn't use it anyway. And that would need more room, and we could have it, like, to start it into a community room. But there is some sort of state regulation that every room has to have a bed, so I had to have a bed.

So in this condition, I was out here. I spent 5 weeks. I came down initially for 28 days. I asked for the extra week, after a great deal of prodding by some of the patients that were here because, frankly, I wasn't ready to go home that many 4 weeks. One of the things that happened here that I I took with me, and it relates to the reason I told you those two stories about my youth, was that this is the first place I ever admitted that to anybody.

And it took me several sessions with the therapist and all she kept telling me was, Gary, it's just a thought. You know, this thought of being happy with my sister back and feelings so so low. And she goes, Gary, it's just a thought. It's just a thought. She must have said it 25 times.

And finally, I thought, no. She just keeps repeating this. Maybe this is important. I should consider this. So the next day in group, I was able to share this incident.

It took me about 5 minutes to work up the courage and lots of lumps in my throat. And I finally shared it and I was waiting for the reaction. And all I got was, yeah. So that's it. You know?

And I'm thinking in my head, so that's it. You know, this is the monumental moment in my life. This is the reason that I eat to cover up these feelings. And all I got was oh, so that's it? And I found out that that monumental thing in my life was only monumental to me.

My therapist had also shared something with me, one of those moments in her life. You know my response. Obviously, that's it. And it took it took the next day, and I realized I did it right away after she left for that our session. It was a private session.

And she left, and I realized what I had done. I had negated her story just like mine was. And it made me realize that this thing that had been eating at me for 32 years was only a big deal to me. So I got home. I had a plan.

I had a food plan. I got in touch with the psychologist. I got in touch with the nutritionist. So pretty much I adopt a program from here for my food plan. And I began working my program.

My sponsor, I would call her every day. Supposed to call her every day. There just didn't seem to be enough time in the day for me to get all the things I had to do for my recovery meal. And I was bemoaning this back to someone. And I sent him an email and was telling him that I was having trouble getting all the things done during the day, which now doesn't seem like a big deal.

It's so routine. It's just automatic. But at the time, it was an effort that I had I couldn't do it. And he re he sent back a response. And I wanna read exactly what he wrote because he said it so beautifully.

And this was one of those moments in my life again where this helped me get on the path and stay there. And he writes back he's a very, very direct man. He said, what? Are you nuts? Have you already forgotten the deep depression you experienced just before you went in for treatment?

You had gotten to the point of considering suicide, exclamation Taking care of the little things that add up throughout the day in place of the disciplined action required by the program is exactly how we slip. There is always something more important to do rather than call our sponsor, take inventory, go to a meeting, pray, etcetera. You will die from your disease. It can and will kill you. We have a daily reprieve contingent upon maintaining our spiritual life through this program.

The second step tells us that we are insane and God can restore us to sanity. And the insanity is the forgetfulness of my powerlessness. The insanity is the subtle voice that stops me from taking rigorous action. Your sponsor wants you to call at 8 o'clock. Drop what you're doing and call.

Please, my dear friend, take this seriously and recover. And it was that letter that got me on the road, and I started getting all my stuff done during the day. I was about 6 months into recovery, and I wrote in an email to someone. I said I had a day. I had allowed myself to get on the pity pot.

I was feeling neglected and put upon by life situation, angry because of perceived hurts and slights, tired and sore because of physical changes that are happening in my body, anxious because of others not meeting my expectations, my wife and child, institutions, computers that just wouldn't work, inanimate objects that seem to have a life of their own and were bent on making my life miserable. I was having a bad day. I thought briefly about stopping long enough to do some meditation, read something spiritually inspiring, make a phone call, and knowing that it would make me feel better, I decided not to do it. It. Why did I not do it?

Because in the back of my mind, I knew if I could maintain that level of anxiety long enough, I could could allow myself to. When I lack acceptance of the way things are, I set myself up for failure. What I do in this program is simple. I how How many times have I heard this is a simple program. It's just not easy.

Well, in in my mind, even though I heard those words, I still equate it simple with easy. And the fact that I couldn't do it easily irritate Part of my program as I began walking to recover my health and my mobility. I started out walking a 100 feet a day. I did that for a couple of weeks, and then I'd add another 100 feet. And I did that and I add another 100 feet.

Pretty soon, I was able to walk out of my back fence and walk on the street because it was about equipment. And I started walking around the block. It took me probably 3 or 4 months to get up to a half on mile. Another 3 or 4 months to get up to 3 quarters of a mile to a mile to a mile and a half. And I currently walk a mile and a half a day.

I take one day off a week. And I was doing it anywhere from 36 to 40 minutes. I wasn't pressing for time, but I reached the mile and a half because that's how far it is to the first major street, and then I turn around and walk back. I go, okay. A mile and a half is good.

It's a good workout. Now I'll work on speed. I'll just increase my speed a little bit. And this I relate this so much back to program because it is so it is so profound to me. I went out one morning and I thought, okay.

Today, I'm gonna speed up. I'm gonna take a couple minutes off this. And I started out walking with purpose and, oh, I was pumping. I was really humping them up. And I got home and I looked at the clock and it took me 6 minutes longer than it had if I was just at a stroll.

And I go, there's something wrong with this watch. You know? So I did it again the next day. Same thing. It took me longer.

And I started I said, I gotta buy a new watch. This thing sucks. You know? And I did that for a week. You know?

I'm a little slow. And finally, I thought, okay. I'm gonna let God take the speed. I'm just gonna do the walk. And that relates to I'm doing the footwork.

The results are not up to me. And when I did that, I walked it in 32 minutes when I stopped trying to control it. I just do the work in front of me. And on the walk, that's putting one foot in front of the other. And in this program, it's doing one tool and then another tool and then another tool until you get done with the tools that day.

And if something comes up that isn't in your plan, you know, you might have to use one of those tools twice, 2 or 3 times. I said a lot of serenity prayers in the next year and a half. I continue to call my sponsor every day. I send her my food every day via email. I stuck with my food plan.

And today, I am happy and grateful to say that I do not have a compulsion about food today. Can't tell you about tomorrow, but today, I am compulsion free. I re I faithfully follow my food plan and that I found that the power of the food plan is what gave me the freedom to work this program. When I was still playing around with it you know, my program just was terrible. The structure of the food plan is what tells me that my body has had enough.

I don't have to stand in front of the refrigerator at mealtime going, what do I feel like eating today? Because feeling has nothing to do with nutrition. It doesn't matter what I feel like. If I had enough nutrition for my body, I had enough. Anything else or if I'm still hungry after a meal, I know it's not physical.

It's an it's an emotional challenge that I'm having about something. And my first response now it took a while to get to this point, my first response now when I am agitated, irritated, anxious about anything is, what am I feeling that is making me want to eat right now? And I've learned to do writing in this program. I never wrote before. I never journaled.

But I write every day now. I'm part of an online email sharing group for recovery, and I write most days something about what's going on, and that has helped me tremendously. I don't know how we're doing on time. What I have today is serenity. The promises in the big book are starting to come true for me already.

And as it says, before we are halfway through, we will know these promises. And I can attest that in my life that it's true for me. I put off working the 4th step in this program for 10 years. I just couldn't seem to get started on that list. When I finally got to the place where I was ready to work this, I did the 4th step in a weekend.

I did the 5th step in a day. I began working on the 6th and 7th steps, and those are works that will always continue. You don't you don't finish those steps. Those will continue for I set my 8th and 9th step. I am currently working.

There's part of that part of that that I don't wanna do yet. You know? But I gotta do it. I know I have to, and I will. Learning to rely on God as I stated.

I do the footwork. The results are up to him. And I talk to the god of my misunderstanding because we all misunderstand. There's none of us that understand in total our higher power. First time I heard that phrase, I thought it was kinda fun.

Sure did fit. You know, the god of my misunderstanding. I call upon him regularly. I have faith and trust that he will be there for me, and with him, I can do anything. Talk about abstinence and length of abstinence.

And I I believe in to the bottom of my heart that the only person who has more abstinence than I do is the one who got up before I did today. My day is always day 1. I know people that can tell you they have, you know, 1400 days of abstinence or 700 days of abstinence. Like, I got one. That's all I got.

It doesn't matter what I did yesterday, good or bad. It doesn't matter. I have today. I make that plan, and I do my best to