Gaddy_2012_04_22

Gaddy's heartfelt story starts as a skinny kid with a distorted relationship with food, giving an example of his morbidly obese mom's emotional attachment: he discovered he could hurt and manipulate his mother by rejecting her food. He describes how dealt with being unpopular by using food, drugs, and alcohol to become involved with others. After becoming sober in 1983 he replaced alcohol with compulsive eating, and talks about his motto "Being full was just the beginning" since there was never enough to satisfy him because his emotional void was so great. He details the two parts of his compulsive overeating: voluntarily choosing to overeat, as compared to involuntarily overeating. He describes how a lifestyle change was required for his long-term success, so he learned how to start over by self-dieting. He relates how he stole food in many ways, such as eating  in the grocers. He explains how people can be in denial when they enter OA: thinking that they're not so bad and thinking that they're helpless. He describes the difference between eating "appropriately" and "abstinently", giving him greater connection to his higher power.