Johannesburg - By the time Portia* was 19, she was eating around the clock.
“When I was a child, food was a comfort, but as I got older, it was like a sedative, so that I didn’t have to cope with what life dished out. Mine was a world of perfect black-and-white symmetry, but when the grey showed up, so did the empty ice-cream tubs and pizza boxes,” she says.
As a compulsive overeater, the word “enough” didn’t exist. “Eating became such an addiction that if an invitation didn’t include the promise of a huge meal, I would decline it. I even dated men I didn’t like so I could get my fix for free!”
Portia’s destructive relationship with food might sound alarming, but it was only the beginning.
In her 20s, she had developed full-blown bulimia nervosa, planning and executing binges, followed by purging. “I had it for seven years, and along the way I lost some of my teeth and most of my friends. I became a skilled liar, adept at covering my tracks. There was no time to grow emotionally or develop healthy relationships, not with a disease like this running rampant,” she says.
Charlene*, meanwhile, has spent the past 25 years of her life obsessing about her weight. “I’ve been on so many diets, I can’t count. But I’d soon break the diet, saying, ‘Stuff it. I’m going to eat now and start again on Monday’.
“I’d anaesthetise myself with chocolate and bread, overdosing on the caffeine in chocolate or tea to make myself feel better.
“I never succeeded at the diets, but I certainly succeeded at perpetuating my depression and self-deception, pretending that I didn’t care what I looked like.”
Charlene reached her lowest point in 2004, when her health was at stake. “Very overweight people are at a much higher risk of heart attack and a range of other ailments, and I was squarely in this group.” she says.
In desperation, Portia and Charlene turned to Overeaters Anonymous (OA), a support group for compulsive eaters who follow a 12-step programme modelled on the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery programme.
It’s not nearly as widely known as AA, but OA has proliferated worldwide since its first meeting in 1960 in Los Angeles. Today it hosts about 7 000 meetings in more than 80 countries, with about 54 000 members attending once or twice weekly.
Like AA, OA addresses the issues underlying the member’s destructive addiction, offering physical, emotional and spiritual recovery for those suffering from compulsive eating.
Anonymously, I attended a meeting at the Methodist Church in Parktown North, joining seven OA members from the Joburg area. Contrary to expectation, only three could be classified as overweight, but all had issues with food, and they openly shared how the week had unfolded for them – their triumphs and failures.
In a typical OA meeting, members range from the morbidly obese to moderately overweight to average and underweight, according to OA public information officer Tracy*.
“The person may be totally unable to control their compulsive eating, or they are maintaining periodic control over their eating behaviour. Some members have been healthy eaters for years but need the encouragement of the support group to remain free of food addiction,” she says.
An OA meeting unfolds the same way as an AA meeting, with a prayer and a reading which describes the “disease” of compulsive eating and the 12-step programme.
A speaker might speak about life before OA, what happened and how he or she recovered, or a member might be asked to read from the OA or AA literature. Like AA, OA isn’t affiliated to any ideology or religious doctrine, and no fees are required.
What struck me at the Joburg meeting was the link between compulsive eating and members’ psychological state. Unemployment, stress over moving house, loneliness, a phase of uncertainty or restlessness – all of these are triggers for compulsive bingeing, apparently.
The symptoms of compulsive eating are widely varied too: obsession with weight, size and shape, bingeing, preoccupation with diets, starving (yes, not eating at all), laxative or diuretic abuse, excessive exercise, inducing vomiting after eating (bulimia nervosa), chewing and spitting out food, inability to stop eating certain foods after the first bite, food fantasies, using food as a reward or comfort.
The concept of the 12-step recovery programme is founded on admitting an inability to control one’s addiction, then, with the help of the support group, recognising that a “higher power” can help restore one’s sanity. Many of the other steps are seen as “spiritual” as they require a searching and fearless moral inventory of the wrongs of the past and a commitment to healing.
Says Tracy: “OA is a highly individual process, but the common bonds are the disease of compulsive eating from which we have suffered, and the solution we are all finding as we live by the principles of the 12 Steps. If you have a desire to stop eating compulsively, there is a place for you in OA.”
Charlene says working the OA programme has given her the chance to “redefine myself and to tackle the crisis that was my life”.
“I started by accepting that I needed to reach out for help, getting a sponsor, who I call daily, and working out a personalised food plan. Because I’m not alone anymore, I can get in touch with friends in the programme at 10pm or at 6am when I’m thinking about frozen yoghurt, cake and chocolate croissants, and together we get through it,” she says.
She has lost over 25kg but admits that her emotions can still get the better of her. “In case you thought it was all soft and gentle, it’s not. My sponsor often tells me to ‘Face your stuff, don’t stuff your face’.
“I’ve come to realise that I have to let go of resentment and acknowledge that I already have an abundant life, one full of stops and starts, ups and downs, lefts and rights. And that’s what I need to face, my ability to live my life,” she says.
Portia, meanwhile, has been free of her binge and purge cycle for nine-and-a-half years. “I am happily married and we have a son and daughter. I have lived through a number of crises, including the death of my best friend, but none of these events have triggered a return to that quagmire of food obsession.”
Her road to recovery wasn’t simple, she admits. “About two years into my illness I attended a couple of OA meetings, but back then I was about as open to recovery as an alcoholic is to the words ‘last round’.”
It was when she vomited blood that Portia picked up the phone to find out when the next OA meeting was. “I was very anxious, thinking I’d stand out with my shameful seven-year secret. But instead of judgment and sniggering, I received unconditional love, acceptance and warmth. I was carried through those first excruciating days and months, when letting go of the bingeing and purging cycle felt like losing a limb. Believe me, if I can do it, anyone can,” she says.
* If you are worried about the way you eat, or find yourself obsessing with dieting or your weight, visit www.overeatersanonymous.org.za or call 011 640 2901 to view a schedule of meetings near you.
** Names have been changed to protect identities.
The Star