MY STORY

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Earlier this year, as I approached my 46th birthday, I was going through what I can only describe as a spiritual awakening and a transformation in my life. That transformation forced me to take an honest look at myself, the standards I had been living by, the damage I had caused, and the things I had allowed to control me for so many years. For years, I believed I had already beaten addiction. I had battled drug addiction in my past and overcome it. I thought I was clean. I thought I was free. But during this period of reflection, relationship, and prayer with my God, I came to a realization that changed the way I looked at the previous decade of my life: my addiction hadn't disappeared. My drug of choice had changed. It had become food.

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For nearly ten years, I had been fighting morbid obesity for the second time in my life as if it were simply a weight problem. I tried diets. I made promises. I set rules. I broke them. I started over. And every time, I treated the failure as a failure to diet. What I eventually realized was that I had been fighting an addiction using the rules of a diet. Food had become something I served. I lied for it. I manipulated for it. I hurt myself and people I loved for it. I repeatedly found ways to justify breaking commitments so I could continue feeding the very thing that was destroying my life. And yet, through all of it, I still considered myself someone who had beaten addiction. Boy, was I wrong.

I personally believe God brought that truth into focus for me during this spiritual transformation and forced me to confront something I had been unwilling or unable to see: I wasn't free from addiction. I had simply changed drugs. And I don't believe I'm alone. I believe food addiction is affecting an enormous number of people in this country, including people who spend years bouncing from diet to diet, believing they simply lack discipline or willpower without ever considering that they're actually battling an addiction. Yet compared with many other forms of addiction, we barely talk about it.

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Once I finally recognized what I was fighting, I realized something else had to change. Another promise to myself wasn't going to be enough. Over the years, I had become exceptionally good at negotiating with myself, manipulating my own rules, and eventually lying myself right out of whatever commitment I'd made. So this time, I made my commitment to the people and principles outside of myself that I absolutely did not want to betray: my wife, my children, my community, and my God. On February 28, 2026, my 46th birthday, I drew a line in the sand. Since that day, there have been no cheat days, no secret exceptions, no lies, and no manipulating the rules when nobody is watching. I've stuck to my guns.

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Today, I'm [auto days] days into this battle and [manual pounds] pounds down. But the number on the scale is only one part of what I'm fighting for. And that's where Unspoken Addiction comes in. I started Unspoken Addiction for three reasons. First, I started it to document my personal battle against food addiction and morbid obesity, openly and honestly, without hiding the ugly parts. Second, I want to use the documentation of that battle to motivate others to fight for healthier, happier lives, not only for themselves, but for their families, their communities, their faith, and whatever gives their lives purpose. And I want to do it in a way that's inspirational, educational, and fun. This fight is serious enough already. That doesn't mean we can't laugh while we're fighting it.

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Third, I started Unspoken Addiction to bring awareness to the under-discussed issues of food addiction and morbid obesity and to help accelerate the conversation surrounding them. The damage being done to individuals, families, children, and communities is enormous, yet food addiction is still something we don't talk about nearly enough. I'm not an expert standing at the finish line telling everybody else how to fix their lives. I'm still in the fight. I'm documenting it while it happens: the victories, the failures, the embarrassing moments, the struggles, the lessons, and hopefully a whole lot of laughs along the way.

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If sharing my battle helps even one person decide that it's time to start fighting theirs, then Unspoken Addiction is doing exactly what I created it to do.

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                          Never Perfect. Not Finished. Never Going Back.