Translator: Desiree Kramer Reviewer: Denise RQ
I am sitting alone in a booth at a Chinese restaurant.
I'm trying to finish up my order, egg foo Yung, pork fried rice,
cashew chicken, a side order of fried wonton.
I'm slowing down, because I'd just come from a restaurant
where I had a plate of lasagne garlic bread, pie a la Mode.
And before that, I was at a diner
where I'd have the dollar-sized pancake special.
The waiter brings me my check, but instead of paying and leaving,
I go down the back stairs to the basement of the restaurant,
where there is a single stalled bathroom,
I visited a few times before.
I lock the door, I turn on the faucet, I turn off the light,
because I want to block out as much of the outside world as I can,
and then--
I start trying to purge.
It is hard work, my gag reflex is shut from so many years of vomiting.
It's painful, and violent, and exhausting.
But I --
I finally finish.
When I come upstairs, the restaurant is dark and closed.
I'm locked in.
Now, most people, many of you I'm sure, would find that situation so humiliating.
You would do everything in your power to prevent it.
Not so much with food addicts.
We are either slow learners, or I like to think of it
as having impressively high tolerance for self degradation,
and at the same time, amazingly low standards.
(Laughter)
I was shopping at a grocery store, this was back in the day.
In the bulk food section and there on the floor,
as if it were waiting for me,
I saw what I thought was a yogurt malted milk ball.
So naturally, I bent down, picked it up, and put it in my mouth,
and bit down into a moth ball.
(Laughter)
It was a good week before I could eat anything of the floor.
(Laughter)
I think there is a general assumption about eating disorders,
that especially bulimia and anorexia,
the product of our culture's collective obsession would be modeled thin.
And while I do believe there is an element of truth to that,
especially at the beginning as a trigger,
I also know that eating disorders of any kind,
can quickly morph into a full-blown food addiction.
I knew that what I was doing was sucking the life out of me,
but day after week, after month,
after year, after decade, after decade,
I couldn't stop.
I couldn't stop binging, or using laxatives,
ipecac syrup, exercising compulsively,
and I could not stop making myself throw up.
Some time into my early 20s, this is maybe ten years into the bulimia,
I noticed something odd happening,
to one of my teeth, it was my right front tooth
which actually was a crown, dating back to third grade,
when I chipped my tooth on a teeter-totter.
That tooth seems to be growing longer and whiter.
Actually, obviously,
the rest of my teeth were just getting shorter and slightly translucent.
Years of stomach acid had worn off all the enamel of my teeth,
so basically every time I chewed,
which was a lot, because I'm a food addict,
they were just chipping away.
The dentist told me I had two options:
dentures, by the time I'm 25,
or a lifetime of crowns, bridges, and root canals.
I chose the latter.
And before long, I found myself in the dental chair
for the better part of the day,
while the dentist filed my teeth down to little spikes.
(imitating a dental drill noise)
Then he fitted me with a little plaster mold, temporarily,
I had to wear for three weeks until my crowns were done.
I left his office,
and the thought occurred to me that corn nuts would taste really good.
Yes, exactly, I bit down, broke the mold in half.
I was living in New York at the time, trying to make it as a dancer,
but barely making rent as an apartment cleaner.
And it wasn't going so well, but then I got a call from a new guy,
a guy who I found out, was opening a Ferguson's cookie franchise.
I couldn't wait to clean out his apartment.
Showed up there, he showed me around and then left for the day.
And I immediately went right to the kitchen.
Not to clean it of course, but just to scope it out.
Checked out all the cupboards, and then the refrigerator,
and then, the freezer,
and to my delight,
found four large canisters of Ferguson's cookies.
Clearly branded "Ferguson's cookies",
so I knew that they were chocolate chip, macadamia nut,
oatmeal raisin, because they're healthy, and shortbread.
So, I helped myself to a couple of them about the size of my hand,
and parenthetically, the guy did not say before he'd left,
"Oh, and Cathy, do help yourself to my private stash of cookies."
But I ate a couple and then started cleaning his collection
of wooden hand-carved elephants and giraffes,
and then I'd go back to the kitchen,
and have a couple more of the cookies, and then I'd go back to cleaning.
This went on for 45 minutes, I don't know how many cookies I ate.
And then suddenly, the whole room started to tilt.
And then I heard what sounded like the Mormon tabernacle choir,
what is odd, because this was New York,
And then, it felt like the top of my head was exploding,
and the front of my face flew off.
I made it back to Brooklyn, where I was living at the time,
collapsed in my apartment,
woke up 18 hours later to a message from the guy,
that I had helped myself to his personal stash
of hashish oil psilocybin mushroom cookies
and I was fired.
(Laughter)
There was no permanent damage from the dope cookies
- not that I know of anyway -
but I was experiencing some other health problems.
I had developed a precancerous condition,
called Barrett's esophagus.
I was having horrible crippling leg cramps from all the laxatives I was abusing.
But it was the other kind of damage, the invisible kind,
that was a whole lot worse.
Because years before food addiction stops your heart,
it will take your spirit.
It took my sense of humor, and my courage,
my self-confidence, my sense of curiosity and joy in the world.
It took my dreams.
Except from one dream.
I so badly wanted to wake up well.
I tried every quick fix, that I could think of,
and anyone that was recommended to me.
I tried crystal therapy and homeopathy, transcendental meditation.
I tried chanting to the Gohonzon,
"Nam-myoho-renge-kyo,"
I kept distracted by the bananas I've been told to put out for the Buddha.
(Laughter)
I committed myself to an adult site work for three months,
learned how to make leather moccasins.
(Laughter)
Put myself in treatment three times,
saw at least 14 different therapists,
tried, I believe every FDA approved anti-depressant on the market,
popped into a few 12-step meetings.
But the food always won out.
I've heard it said that addicts don't have relationships.
They take hostages.
I fell in love with a wonderful man
and managed to hide the worst of my eating disorder from him
until we got married.
So, here is what it was like for Bob for the first six plus years of our marriage.
If I knew he was going to be out in the evening,
I would start binging in the afternoon,
fully intending to finish up before he came home.
At some point in the evening I'd realize that that was unrealistic.
So I would--
I'd put a post-it note on the outside of our back door that would say,
"Hi love, I'm in the basement again,
I'm really sorry.
Love, Cathy."
By 11pm, Bob would come downstairs,
knock on the bathroom door to let me know he was home.
And then he would ask me in a way that always broke my heart,
"Couldn't you just come upstairs?
Do you have to stay down here and do this?"
But I always did.
I always did.
By the time I'd crawl upstairs it was usually four in the morning.
I've also heard it said, that bottom is when you stop digging.
I don't know what happened ten and a half years ago,
but I put down the shovel for some reason,
and decided to give the 12-step meetings one more chance.
It was a pretty low investment, three to five bucks a meeting,
I had no idea that these people would save my life.
So, here was this fellowship of oddballs and misfits.
Some of them are out here right now.
(Laughter)
Born-again Christians, Orthodox Jews,
former nuns, current Buddhists,
actors, writers, journalists, funeral directors,
stay-at-home moms, retired people;
with one fundamental thing in common.
Just like me,
all broken in the head around food, and eating, and body image.
But unlike me, these people were genuinely happy.
Because they had found their way out of hell,
together.
And they told me that if I wanted out of hell,
what I really, really, really did,
they could help me but there were a few conditions.
So here is what they were.
One is I couldn't do this alone anymore,
this is not a self help program.
Second, I'd need to follow some instructions.
I wasn't too keen on it, it seems a bit extreme
but I was hardly in a position to quibble.
(Laughter)
So here is what they told me, and here is what I do.
First of all, treat your recovery and your disease
as if they're life and death, because they are.
It's a fatal progressive disease, but you can put it in remission,
as long as you do a few things.
Get a sponsor, call that sponsor every day at the exact same time.
and once you become a sponsor get sponsees and talk to them every day.
I'm accountable to them, and they are to me.
I tell my sponsor exactly what I'm going to eat,
and exactly how much of it I'm going to eat.
and then do that,
weigh it on a scale or stick it in a cup, whatever, do that exactly.
I have no off-switch.
Clearly, 34 years of this behavior seems to bear that out.
Oh, and one other thing, no sugar, no alcohol.
I have burnt the right to a chemical piece of mind.
Talk to at least three other people on the program every day on the phone.
People in my meeting, people from across town,
people from across the country, people I might never ever meet,
but they speak my language.
We don't talk about the food much, it's not very interesting, actually.
Plus, it's pretty easy.
Once the food is scaled down, it's easy,
it's life that gets really, really tricky.
Especially if you don't have the benefit
of a package of Oreos to help you through it.
Also, I was told by my fellows that I needed to do service.
It didn't have to be Doctors Without Borders,
although that would be nice.
It can be as simple as putting a fresh role of toilet paper
on the dispenser when you used the last square.
What they told me was the way to develop self-esteem
is by doing estimable things.
Another thing: go to meetings.
Partly for myself, connect with my buddies,
partly for newcomers,
and partly to be reminded of who and what I am.
Most of us pass as normal.
I said there are some of you
who are sitting next to some of us right now.
But in this one particular area,
we will never be, we will never be like,
what we sometimes refer to as "earth people".
I was in a meeting, right around Labor Day,
and a relative newcomer got up and talked about this marvelous day,
she had spent at the Minnesota state fair with her husband.
And at some point she'd stop and said,
"Hey, wait. Did you guys know they have animals at the fair?
(Laughter)
Yeah, that's the kind of people we are.
It took me a long time to find a place where I belonged,
where I could be authentically me.
I could feel accepted, I could feel vulnerable, honest.
But I also could feel --
accountable.
and belong to a group of people
who would not let me get away with bad behavior.
I do have wonderful friends,
and a loving family, and the wonderful Bob.
and just about the best coworkers a person could ever wish for.
But none of them share my brand of crazy,
and I need to be around people who do.
If that is something that is missing in your life,
just people you can be your authentic self with,
people who hold you accountable,
and trust you as much as much as you trust them,
I encourage you to go find those people, because --
I believe that they need you as much as you need them.
Not just that they can help you navigate this complicated thing called life,
but because they will help you feel useful of purpose in the world
and I think, for me, that has been the greatest gift of recovery,
is feeling like that I matter in the world
and that I can give back what I have so generously been given.
Thank you.
(Applause)