Members’ Experience Compulsive Eating Disorder (CED) – Overeater
I joined OA after undergoing weight loss surgery, exactly when I had reached a healthy weight and was no longer the obese fortysomething- year-old man I used to be. Learning about the distinction between an overeater and compulsive eating disorder (CED) was the most intriguing aspect that motivated me to continue attending the sessions.
When members discussed food and weight during meetings, it didn’t appear relevant to me because I thought I wouldn’t become obese again since I had undergone surgery, therefore I didn’t need OA!
I had tried various ways to address my inner feelings of inadequacy, including reading psychology and philosophy books, and seeking therapy. Alongside these efforts, upon a friend’s suggestion, I also began attending OA’s twelve-step meetings.
About a month after joining the community, I discovered that due to COVID-19 restrictions, OA meetings were also held virtually: the twelve steps in the universe.
For a month, I searched for a sponsor in online meetings. A member told me, “You have to pray to find a sponsor!” So, I started praying, although not believing I would find a sponsor this way. A few days later I attended a meeting where there were only six of us. I wondered how I could find a sponsor in this small group when I hadn’t succeeded in larger meetings. In this literature meeting I heard a paragraph that seemed to describe my life.
“Many of us had highly-responsible jobs, were successful managers at home, and had friends who loved us. Many of us had successful marriages. Yet despite all this, we still did not feel happy and satisfied.” (Step One, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous). This paragraph beautifully described my forty-something years of life.
In that same meeting a member shared their experience and said, “In addition to overeating, we also have other negative traits such as talkativeness, greediness, etc. Alongside these negative traits, we also have positive traits like kindness, talent…” All of these traits had plagued my life!!
I had been the hero of other people’s lives and the failure of my own life, and with the distress resulting from countless rescues, I had come to the OA community.
OA miracles happen in such strange ways. I chose an experienced person as my sponsor and asked them this question, “Even if I want to eat, I can’t eat! How can OA help me?”
Having an aware sponsor in the program is a blessing and a gift from God. My sponsor replied, “In OA, we say, ‘Put down the fork and work the steps.’ Apparently you think you put down the fork with your surgery!! We shall start the steps next week, and I hope you’ll be with me until the end. You will receive answers that will calm not only your mind but also your heart.”
When compulsive eating disorder stops, work on healing the overeater begins.
Today, after working the steps twice and sponsoring the steps once, I realised this: steps one to three help to stop compulsive eating and identify the shadow of the disorder. To heal the overeater, we work on the next eight steps.
In step one: I realised that my overeating was a manifestation of my entire life. All of my bad eating habits are displays of my bad behaviors, and the product of this personal disorder is called Compulsive Eating Disorder. For example, eating too quickly is one of the signs of my compulsive eating disorder, and my hastiness comes as I relapse into compulsive eating. When my disorder stops, eating too quickly also stops, however halting my hastiness needs spiritual healing.
In step two: I realised that compulsive eating disorder had also affected my beliefs, thoughts, and attitudes. Compulsive eating disorder had led me to believe that I shouldn’t waste food and should eat out of politeness. But the sense of responsibility I have towards my loved ones may also cause the relapse of my compulsive eating disorder.
In step three: I realised that to stop my compulsive eating disorder, I needed to design a dietary plan for abstinence and commit spiritually to implementing it with my sponsor. My mistrust in handing over my plans to my Higher Power is my compulsive eating disorder trying to take control.
In step four: The journey towards healing from compulsively overeating began. “For the overeating disease to remain calm and avoid relapse, the overeater must calm down.” Through the fourth step questionnaire I worked on the four main feelings of pride, fear, shame, and guilt, and the emotions that were caused by distress, anger, and negative thoughts. The culmination of which led me to the soothing comfort of food. I realised that since childhood I had been using these scenarios to reach a bad state of mind.
An overeater can still identify the cycle of turmoil resulting from these emotions, and the soothing comfort of food, even when their active disorder has stopped.
In step five: My relationship with food changed as the disorder ceased. It was a great blessing to me. Step five is the beginning of changing the overeater’s relationship with themselves, with God, and with others.
The step four inventory is a good start for the overeater to emerge from their own prison and change relationships. That was where I understood how an overeater consumes others like food and companionship.
In step six: With the sentence “What the defects did to us and what they did for us” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 56) I became familiar with the venom that consumption of a defect secretes in the psyche of an overeater, like wearing glasses that reveal a world full of people consuming flaws and eating for everything.
In step seven: I realised that until the deficiencies of the overeater are resolved, food remains a suitable means to fill the void. To recover the overeater must let go of the barriers to humility.
In step eight: I understood that not only minor eating habits, but also minor behaviours of an overeater, can trigger compulsive eating.
In step nine: I understood the feelings that lurk behind each behavioural pattern and that these are behavioural patterns of an overeater. The same feelings that had been numbed by food, and had not yet been addressed, could harm others and trigger compulsive eating disorder.
In step ten: I realised that an untreated thought, feeling, or behaviour can result in a bad day for an overeater.
In step eleven: I understood, through a conscious connection with God, things an overeater cannot comprehend, how food has transformed from a sedative and narcotic to a blessing, giving an overeater the necessary energy to fulfill God’s will. Meditation changes an overeater’s direction of thoughts preventing the disorder from activating.
In step twelve: I understood that physical hunger has its roots in spiritual hunger. To find healing one must always be connected to the source of God’s love and apply spiritual principles in all aspects of life.
I don’t know if it was your prayer at the end of the meeting for the still suffering overeaters, or my own heartfelt prayer, that brought me to OA.
Whatever it was, thank God I’m here.
(Persian-Speaking Members’ Experience)
