Food Fight
Written By Linda Drury
Imagine, if you will, a middle school cafeteria. Hawaiian punch and lime jello congeal on the wall. Scraps of tacos are smeared on the squat plastic seats. Ice cream sandwiches are smooshed on the floor and tables. Food has been tossed around the room. Wasted and left for some worker to scrape off, wipe down and begin another day trapped in food madness.
I am an embodiment of the middle school food fight. I am not picky. I indiscriminately throw food down my gullet. Sweet with sour, fresh with stale, food slides down my tract without obstacles. Healthy foods appeal to me as well as gut busters. Volume is the key. As long as I have a great mound of edibles I’m content. The clock does not constrain me. My appetite is open 24 hours. It never closes. Mayo sandwiches in the night . . . perfect. Beer and cold pizza for breakfast . . . sublime. I especially liked the pizza slices with orange grease lingering around the pepperoni. Yum. Burnt foods only required a light brushing off of the char. I would brush carefully, I did not want to waste any of the unruined meal.
What did this perpetual torment actually addiction do to me? Well, I ended up almost 100 pounds heavier than any smart person would tolerate. My knees ached and I had ongoing shortness of breath. My clothes cut into my blubber daily. I sat confounded before my closet, never sure which outfit would fit that day. I awoke with gurgling, gut seizing indigestion. I answered all these crises with MORE FOOD!
I ate when happy or challenged. (By the way, calories from sneaking food behind people's backs didn’t count.) I ate out of boredom and at times of greatest excitement. Funerals and weddings were celebrated alike for me. Joy and sadness were met with my ongoing appetite. No ethnicity was denied. I inhaled every dish from every culture. Raw or cooked, I ate it all.
What was my problem? Why couldn't I walk among normal eaters and at least appear as disinterested, and dispassionate as they were? Why did I lose 50 pounds only to revisit my torment and gain back 70?
My disconnect was spiritual. I had a strong church connection. I believed in God, prayer, ritual, organ music or tambourine as the mood suited. I had the "God Thing" nailed. I prayed for deliverance from my food obsession. I begged for an angel to come in the night and take a Holy Ghost scalpel to my fat. Decades of self pity, fasts met with great food binges, flowing with envy for slender sisters in the church, was the norm for me.
On and on and on. Unending bargaining and pleading. God must have been tempted to stuff his ears! I realized I needed a Savior, a Deliverer from me. I did not have the will power or self determination to thwart this tsunami of continual craving.
I discovered a 12 step group that sweetly and carefully taught me to turn myself over to the care of God. The world in all its goodness and tragedy is too much for me to handle alone. I took on each day as if I were God. I had to have the answers, the control. I had to create the perfect response. My group taught me that only Jesus has the answer. Only my God is big enough to handle it all.
Since I joined and faithfully attended my fellowship, I have relief from the food fight, one day at a time, one meal at a time, and some days one moment at a time. With God, I am at peace with the world and all the food around me.