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Mill Creek OA 100 Pounder Speaker Meeting
Speakers who have lost 100 pounds tell their stories.

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.

Direct download: Gaddy_2012_04_22.mp3
Category:speaker -- posted at: 12:22am PDT

Ali articulates beautifully a message of hope as she guides you on her path from pain to freedom, starting as 200 pound elementary student with no relationships who used stolen food to numb her feelings, who believed "if I can cover my body you won't see my body" and who made her own clothes so that they would fit her. She will tell you how she felt as a 400 pound teen when she almost died because of blood clots caused by self-medicating, and how the lap band she got in Mexico did not help. Discover her transformation from writing a letter to a God she didn't believe in to developing a relationship with a God that she can turn to by "letting go, letting God". She will disclose how she deals with stress, how she gained the ability to exercise, how she conquered false expectations, and how she learned to live among others.

Direct download: AliS_2012_04_15.mp3
Category:speaker -- posted at: 7:45pm PDT

Lessie will inspire you as she tells how OA helped her escape from her "personal version of hell", where at an early age of 3 her father died and she began to use food to capture a feeling of family and escape a feeling of being "fat, fearful, lonely, and never enough".


In her atheistic viewpoint she tried to fill her life using food, then later drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. When a psychologist introduced her to OA, she found a spiritual path and eventually succeeded in maintaining a 210 pound loss.

 

Direct download: LessieC_2012_04_08.mp3
Category:speaker -- posted at: 11:44pm PDT

Howard shares with us his 25 year journey in recovery.  He got to this program after venturing into other 12 step fellowships and has remained abstinent ever since.  He came in close to 400 pounds and has maintained his weight loss.  He felt like he never belonged anywhere his whole life, but this program has provided him the means to attain a recovery that enables him to laugh, have fun and enjoy abstinence.

Direct download: HowardS_2012_04_01.mp3
Category:speaker -- posted at: 11:16pm PDT