I didn’t look like someone who had a problem with food. I wasn’t overweight, but I was obsessed. For me, this was largely a mental disease.

As a kid, I went straight for the desserts. As a teenager, I felt socially uncomfortable. While other kids were out together, I was home alone eating. In college, I’d binge on a big sugary breakfast and then crash, falling asleep drooling on my books. Just before graduation, I learned about bulimia, and within three weeks, I began bingeing and purging in secret. I was ashamed, exhausted, and stuck in a cycle I couldn’t stop.

In my first Twelve Step program, I stopped purging—but I kept bingeing on sugar and flour. I lived with a constant knot in my stomach. I didn’t understand it then, but it was anxiety. By the time I found Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), I was irritable, negative, and always looking for someone to blame. I’d show up to meetings in a bad mood, not wanting to be there. But I kept coming back. I made the phone calls. I practiced gratitude, even when I didn’t feel it. Slowly, things began to shift. Even my kids noticed – when I was off, they’d say, “Mommy, you need a meeting.” I’m so grateful to be abstinent through FA. One day at a time, I am free from obsession. My relationships are stronger, my marriage is better, and I’m no longer consumed by my weight or my size. Today, I have peace – and a life beyond anything food ever gave me.

I don’t remember ever having an easy relationship with food. Food was my comfort, my reward, and my hiding place. I was a middle child with three brothers, and I was the only one who couldn’t escape a problem with food and weight. As soon as I could ride a bike, I headed straight to the corner store for food. As a first grader, I figured out how to use my allowance money to buy two school lunches, and as a teen with my first paycheck and a driver’s license, my car became what I called my “mobile eating unit.” At college, with unlimited food plans in both the cafeteria and my fraternity house, my freshman 15 expanded to a freshman 40. By 23, I was supposed to be living my best years, but at 310 pounds, my world was shrinking fast. I couldn’t walk up stairs without getting winded, and I avoided life whenever I could. Every night I promised myself I’d change; every morning I failed again.

I first came to a Twelve-Step program in 1994, but it took years before I truly surrendered. Then, in 2007, my mortality was on the table. I was pre-diabetic with sleep apnea and on the cusp of needing blood pressure and cholesterol medications. Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) became my lifeline. In FA, I found structure, accountability, and freedom. Through weighed and measured meals, sponsorship, and working the Twelve Steps, the obsession with food began to lift. I lost over 100 pounds, but more importantly, I found peace. FA didn’t just change the way I ate– it changed how I live, how I love, and how I show up in the world. Today, I live with gratitude, acceptance, and a sense of purpose; and I remain committed to this path, one day at a time.

Esta grabación presenta la historia de una mujer nacida en San José, Costa Rica, miembro de Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), que cuenta cómo una infancia llena de amor y abundancia de comida se transformó en una dolorosa adicción a la comida. Desde muy joven, la bulimia se convirtió en su anestesia para enfrentar el duelo por la muerte de su padre, la migración a Estados Unidos y las difíciles transiciones escolares en Florida. A lo largo de la adolescencia y la universidad, describe atracones, vómitos, vergüenza y una profunda dismorfia corporal, aun cuando otros veían en ella inteligencia y potencial. Su historia incluye servir en la Marina de los Estados Unidos, usar la comida, el alcohol y el exceso de ejercicio para intentar controlar el peso, y vivir relaciones en las que sentía que dependía económicamente de los demás. En Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) encontró un camino distinto: una comunidad, una madrina y un plan de comida que le ofrecen estructura, esperanza y la posibilidad de descubrir quién es realmente, más allá de la adicción a la comida, donde las promesas del programa comienzan a hacerse realidad.