The First Step Was Food Security: Gideon’s Recovery Story

Gideon spent years working in social services, helping families through difficult moments. After a workplace injury led to disability, limited income left him struggling to afford enough food to meet his own eating disorder treatment goals.

A grant from WithAll’s Recovery Support Program helped Gideon buy the groceries he needed. Today, he is reconnecting with life, enjoying his cats, books, and trivia, and seeing hope return after years of struggle.

For Years, Gideon Was the One Helping Others

For years, Gideon worked in social services, helping families navigate some of the most difficult moments of their lives. He knew what it meant to connect someone with support when circumstances became overwhelming.

Then a workplace injury led to disability, and Gideon found himself needing support of his own. As his physical health declined, his eating disorder became more severe. Without a steady income, even buying enough food became uncertain.

“Every day, all day long, I would fight my eating disorder just to even drink water,” he shared.

Treatment asked Gideon to do something his eating disorder fought against: eat consistently and meet his program’s nutrition goals. Financial insecurity added another obstacle. If he ate the food he had today, he had to worry about whether he could afford to replace it tomorrow.

Recovery required food. But food itself had become financially uncertain.

Following an eating disorder treatment plan should not mean worrying that doing so will leave the refrigerator empty later. Yet for Gideon, the cost of groceries had become another barrier between him and recovery.

The Grant Changed What Was Possible

Then Gideon received a grant through WithAll’s Recovery Support Program. The support could be used for the basic expense standing directly between him and his treatment goals: groceries.

“It was so wonderful to be able to buy all the food I needed to meet my program goals,” Gideon said of receiving a WithAll Recovery Support grant. “Not having to worry about how I would replace the food I was eating really helped me to focus on recovery.”

The amount of a grant may be relatively modest. Its effect can be much larger.

For Gideon, having enough food available changed the conditions around recovery. Instead of using energy to calculate what he could afford to eat and what might need to be saved for later, he could put more of that energy toward the work his treatment asked him to do.

“The first and most basic part of treating an eating disorder is making sure there is food on hand,” Gideon said. “Recovery is one of the hardest things we have to do, and having other pressures from other stressors in our lives is a huge barrier to starting and continuing treatment.”

Why Groceries Can Be Part of Recovery Support

More of Life Is Coming Back

Today, Gideon’s life contains more of the things that once felt out of reach. He reads. He hosts game trivia. He cares for his two cats, Zero and Mono. And he is able to participate in life in ways he says he had not been able to for decades.

“I’m able to engage with life in a way that I haven’t been able to in decades,” he shared. Recovery is still ongoing, but something has shifted. The burden is lighter. “Freeing myself from the burden of my eating disorder is hard work, and I’m still in the process, but I’m already seeing so much light and positivity returning to my life.”

Recovery is still work for Gideon. But now that work is taking place alongside the everyday parts of life that are returning to him, along with a growing sense that more of his future is available again.

The Recovery Support Program cannot currently fund every eligible applicant. Grants are awarded through a monthly lottery because available funding does not meet the need. More donations mean more people can receive help with the everyday expenses that might otherwise interfere with treatment.

Gideon had enough food to keep working toward recovery because support was there when he needed it. Another person in treatment is facing that same kind of financial barrier now.

Donate Now to Help Make More Recovery Grants Possible