Food Addicts In Recovery Anonymous

I was born two months early, weighing just 3.5 pounds, and from the start, life felt like an uphill climb. My mother couldn’t nurse me due to complications, and I never got the kind of nurturing I longed for. My first "drug" was my thumb, which I sucked well into high school – a secret sedative that calmed me. Food became my next source of solace. By the time I was 3, my parents were worried enoug...

From a young age, food was my escape—a source of comfort and control in a chaotic world. Growing up in public housing, with a dysfunctional family and an alcoholic father, I turned to eating as a way to soothe my emotions, hide, and find peace. But as I got older, food stopped working the way it once did. Fear of judgment and feelings of inadequacy began to weigh on me, affecting my relationships,...

She grew up in a loving family, but she often felt like an outsider because her family was thin and ate in moderation. Despite good grades boosting her self-esteem, the stress to excel led her to overeat. Food and fantasy novels became her escape. In college, she used food to push through the stress and cope with life. Afterward, she spent decades yo-yo dieting, and struggled with the pressures of...

Una adicta a la comida codependiente comparte su experiencia, fortaleza y esperanza en la recuperación a través de Adictos a la Comida en Recuperación Anónimos (FA). Comparte su historia de disfunción familiar, pensamiento desordenado y derrota. Sobreviviente de abuso físico, emocional y sexual, ha aprendido a afrontar sus emociones en lugar de reprimirlas con harina, azúcar, cantidades, alcohol y...

I am 79 years old and have been in recovery for 16 years. At my heaviest, I reached 267 pounds. My journey with food addiction began in childhood when I remember stealing food while my grandmother was cooking and hiding in the closet to eat it. My first binge was at age ten. Throughout my twenties, I developed habits like visiting multiple fast-food restaurants on my way home from work and isolati...

From an early age, she struggled with sneaking and bingeing on food. At just five years old, she went on her first real diet. Despite a structured food plan and supportive parents, she could not stop eating. She never felt full, turning eating into a game to see how much she could consume. As she grew older, the game lost its fun. By junior year of high school, she weighed 250 pounds, felt isolate...

I grew up in El Salvador during a time of economic hardship and civil war. My family immigrated to the U.S. when I was young, and my early years were filled with separation and constant upheaval. My father was an alcoholic, and his drinking left deep scars. What I didn’t realize for a long time was that I had become just like him, not with alcohol, but with food addiction. I was pregnant at 14, a...

This story is about a woman who spent years chasing control, yet felt lost in her own life. Despite a loving upbringing, she struggled with feeling like she was “not enough.” Many of her childhood memories were centered around food, but she was able to maintain a normal weight until college. There, her food addiction took off, and she picked up cigarettes and alcohol. As she kept eating and growin...

I came to Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) fifteen years ago weighing 211 pounds. Despite countless diets, fasts, and exercise routines, I couldn’t maintain weight loss until I found FA. Beneath my career ambitions, I was plagued by shame and self-loathing, constantly trying to project whatever image people wanted—determined, fun, or athletic.  For confidence, I relied on drugs, alcohol, ni...

This food addict’s story was about fear, which led her to go to the food. It was a drug that made her feel safe. Although her family looked normal from the outside, her dad was an alcoholic, and she did not realize how cunning the disease of addiction was until later in life. As early as five years old, she was uncomfortable in her body. There was a constant desire to be thin, leading her to avoid...

A food addict from New South Wales, Australia, I am the youngest of three who grew up with a strict, abusive father and a hardworking, protective mother. My childhood was filled with deep-seated fear, including night terrors, fear of the dark, and fear of my father. Despite having a large, extended family around me, I felt totally alone and alienated. As a child, I was trained by Olympian swimmers...

Una joven adicta de los Estados Unidos con raíces en América Latina vivió con mucha inestabilidad en su juventud. Buscó consuelo en la comida y los laxantes.  Por las extrañas acciones que practicaba con la comida desde muy pequeña, y la incapacidad de parar de comer, ella subió de peso. Cuando se sintió rechazada y perdida, encontró la recuperación en el programa de Adictos a la comida en recuper...

For years, I blamed everyone for my struggles with weight and food addiction – my parents, my wife, and my job. After I joined Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA), I realized it wasn’t their fault. My practice of eating large quantities began in childhood. Teased and friendless, I would sneak away to eat alone with the lunch money my mom gave me. This pattern escalated through high school with...

At a young age, I was completely focused on food and how to get it. Gaining weight by third grade, I went on my first diet – with my mom! By twelve, after a painful friendship breakup, I was binge eating and purging in secret. In college, despite quitting drinking, smoking, and pills through sheer willpower, bulimia was a battle I simply couldn’t win alone. College amplified my struggles; the affl...

Despite growing up in a home full of love, this budding food addict was in a cycle of sneaking, hiding, and shoplifting food from as early as age six. She came to learn that no amount of love could have prevented her food addiction and no amount of love could have cured it. Her parents and siblings were moderate eaters, and they tried to help curb her addictive behaviors around food. She had dream...

I am a 73-year-old Asian-American woman from New England and, I can promise you, I’ve quit almost everything I’ve started in my life except for the Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) program. I found FA at thirty-three and have benefitted from this program for more than half my life. By 11 years old, already consumed with fear and worry about my weight, I plunged into extreme restriction with...

I grew up in a very diet-centric household; we were always on some kind of diet. At an early age, I started rebelling against the rigid household rules, finding every way I could to get the food I wanted. When my parents divorced, I would ride my bike over to my dad’s house to steal change for treats at the corner store. By 8th grade, I was obese. Wherever I was, I wanted to fit in - or hide. My l...

I was born and raised in Ireland. When I was 11, my family moved away from the big city to a rural area. Always in search of my identity, I thought that if I found out who I was, everything would feel better. But I had a spiritual hole inside of me, and I tried to fill it with food. I thought my big social life and ambitious jobs would help me feel complete. Instead, they only led me to perfection...

In first grade, I weighed 120 pounds, and by fifth grade, I had high triglycerides, high cholesterol, and a fatty liver. Never feeling like I fit in physically or socially in my hometown of Brooklyn, NY, I was bullied over how “different” my family and I were. Four summers in a row I was sent to weight-loss camp, which put my parents into debt. By the holidays every year, I was back to bingeing. T...

A sneak eater and a speed eater from the jump, I literally made friends with kids based on what they had in their fridge and pantry. When I was around food, I couldn’t rest until it was finished. My earliest memories are food-related, and they are painted with a lot of shame, fear, and low self-esteem. I thought if I got down to a magical weight, everything would start going my way. Instead, I ate...

My whole life was about dieting, restricting, and waiting to be thin. When I’m thin, then I’ll be happy, I thought. I was sure Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA) was not for me – too time consuming, and there was that whole “higher power” thing. I’ll just go to the gym more often and I’ll keep doing this commercial weight-loss program, I told myself. In actuality, my "weight loss program" mea...

Standing at the refrigerator looking for something—anything—to change the way I felt, I heard myself admit, “I do not know how to eat,” and I started to cry. Ironically, I was the class clown, the jokester, and above all, I wanted you to like me. I lost weight after gaining the freshman 50 in college, and I thought that would solve my problems. It didn’t. Then, I thought getting married would make...

At the age of thirty and weighing 207 pounds, I was living a hopeless life. My existence was one of self-loathing, never feeling like I belonged. As a young person, I started hiding food, which began a cycle of guilt and shame over my eating. I fantasized that by going away to college I would make myself over into a new person. Instead, college was defined by a lot of eating, a lot of drinking, an...

At nine years old, eating five meals a day and snacking in between, I thought I was ugly and I hated my body. In high school, at 217 pounds, my friends thought I was the strong one, but I never really showed what was happening inside. My twenties were a complete blur. I started a new diet every Monday morning, but by 10 a.m., I’d say, “forget it.” I’d try again on Tuesday without any luck, and by...

I was just miserable. Ashamed. Desperate. Somehow, I had eaten my way to being 80 pounds overweight. What I could wear on a Friday wouldn’t fit by Sunday night. Willpower is something I have in spades, but I was no match for the phenomenon of craving that occurred when my addiction to food kicked in. In truth, I was a person of great extremes, and at one point in my life, I had restricted my way d...