Monday, 12 October 2009
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Comparing One Addiction to Another
How did I do this to myself?
“You woke up every morning and you promised yourself that last night would be your last drink and you made it until 9:00 am or noon. Some days you made it until cocktail hour. And you were so pleased with yourself that you rewarded yourself, with a drink. You convinced yourself again that it would be the only one.” – Grey’s Anatomy
It is scary that this speech (being said to a recovering alcoholic) related so much to me. Addiction - regardless of what it is - can be powerful and intense.
Some people might not view eating as an addiction, but it is so much the same. I had a bad day, but instead of drinking my sorrows away, I crack open a pint of Ben & Jerry.
After one crazy binge, when I get a moment of disgust and self-awareness, I tell myself "this is the last night. Tomorrow I am getting healthy." Sometimes I only make it hours, but other times I have made it weeks. Then, I am so proud of myself for that week that I reward myself with a treat. I could go buy a slice of pizza, but no. I will get a whole pizza and mozzarella sticks and with each bite I am weaker by tasting my drug.
It is as hard to break food habits as it is to put down the bottle. After years of reliance on something to calm, soothe or pass the time, it is harder than imaginable to break your addiction. What do you do when your comfort is destroying you?
Do you have an addiction? How did you break the habit?
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About the Author
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- From: kachase@xanga
- Name: Kelly
- About Me: Join me as I work to reach goals I never thought possible. I am no longer trying.... I am succeeding. Weight Watchers and Wii Fit to help with my intake and outtake! I need support and will support others.
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Comments (31)
i take out stress at the gym. all the endorphins make my problems magically seem less important ;)
i can relate to this post a great deal. i'm also facing a food addiction, and in a way, it's more difficult than a drug or alcohol addiction. you can live without alcohol or drugs, but you can't live without food.
it will get better. hang in there.
I'd consider my binge eating and my nail biting a habit.
For binge eating, I really had to discipline myself and I still binge from time to time. But I make tons of lists. Like what happens if I binge and what i should do to prevent it. My journal is covered in lists of that kind.
Then Nail biting was tough but I got all my friends to help me out and they wanted to help me out too. So even though it was annoying they caught me everytime I was biting a nail. The support helped a ton. And I just really wanted to stop biting my nails.
But biting nails is easier to stop. Because once I stopped biting them I didnt reward myself by biting a nail (like I do with food) also the award comes by quicker as in after finally stopping my nasty habit I could see beautiful nails and I did not want to bite them.
For binge eating -> losing weight, you wont see lost weight until a longggg time after the habit is broken (even w exercise and dieting)
so yeah, my 2 cents for ya
Food...yes, it is very much an addiction. Since addictions are part of your mind...you can become addicted to virtually anything.
I saw that episode of Grey's as well.
I decided it wasa good idea to try to replace my food addiction with a nicotine addiction. Now I'm hooked on both.
i won't say i'm addicted to food, but i really cannot resist food. so i end up eating. :/
I think somebody should change the title of this post to 'addiction' instead of 'addition'.
And no. I have no vices.
that ball and chain looks like a piece of poopy
oh my at the title.
I know about the title... I have asked Healthkicker to fix it!
Some foods are highly addictive. Cheese, chocolate, etc.
It's extremely difficult to cut these out your life and by tasting them you might as well have had a sip of your alcoholic poison. Food addiction isn't regarded as socially unacceptable as alcohol addiction.
Instead of rewarding yourself with your favorite 'unhealthy' treats after a long time with success choose some frozen yogurt, anything that works as a healthy substitute for whatever food you're addicted to.
Get used to the fact that until you can control yourself around said food you cannot taste even a morsel of it.
i'm also addicted to food. its like if i have a bad day i go and get starbucks or chocolate or carbs or seconds- there's no way to describe it other than an addiction
on good days i just eat healthy and good. but on a bad week, i look awful
working on it- i agree with the one girl who said its probably the hardest to overcome, because we can't just cut food out of our life. and its so prominent and everywhere
very difficult to deal with, but not impossible. right now i'm focusing on eating when i'm hungry, and going to friends and hobbies when i'm not okay
I'm also having trouble eating healthy now that I'm in college (wouldn't go so far as to say I'm addicted to food, though!) and it's really frustrating.
One thing that helps me, in a strange way, is my body itself. I have a very weak stomach, and I feel very sick and get indegestion really easily if I eat something bad. Sometimes I allow myself to slip, eat that ice cream or that pop tart, and I end up with stomach pains for hours, sometimes all night. From pop tarts!
So I just try to listen to my body. When I eat healthy, I don't have stomach issues. When I eat what I see everybody else eating, what I want to eat, I have a lot of problems.
The things that comfort me when I have problems are still working just fine for me. I wouldn't say it's destroying me. As long as the drinking doesn't control my life (such as still trying to buy booze when I have no money) I think i'm fine.
I've been there. I absolutely agree that food can be addictive and much harder to overcome than alcoholism in certain ways. Alcoholics can choose not to go to bars, but choose not to eat or to eat too much and you die. Food is a daily battle for people with an addiction to it or to the avoidance of it. And I'm a huge Grey's fan so when I heard that last week I thought to myself "How perfectly accurate!"
Good thing is, addictions can be overcome, not just lived with or managed. I ended up seeing a therapist because my food issues were out of control. Leaning on friends, working through underlying issues (because every addiction has underlying issues), and drawing near to God are the only things that got me through. It's freeing to be able to look in my fridge at the Ben and Jerry's and say "Hm, not feeling it. No big." No pressure to eat it or avoid it.
Great post! And so very true! I am addicted to eating unhealthy, when I chose to eat that is. I always feel like, well now that I'm eating something, I might as well make it good. Addictions are very hard to overcome, I try really hard, and as you said sometimes only make it hours before breaking my resolve. Among the many things I'm addicted to right now, my worst would have to be being addicted to caffine pills and caffine in general.
i am also addicted to food. i have tried so many ways to change, to just be healthy and eat the right things (in right amounts), and i haven't found that balance yet. i KNOW everything i need to do to be healthy, all the right foods to eat, exercises to do, calories i need, etc. etc... yet i don't follow these things. the food is some weird coping mechanism i learned early on or something.
i honestly think a food addiction is worse than any drug or alcohol addiction..because you need food to live. you can't just abstain from it and avoid it, you can't quit food. and i think i will have this problem for a long time further because of that.
Food addiction is just as real and as challenging as other substance problems. All addictions work on the dopamenergic reward pathways in the brain - releasing loads of neurotransmitters at once that resulting in (on the low end) a rush of pleasant feelings and (on the high end) a hyper-euphoria that completely engrosses you. Food can do this (like you said, after a bad day you reach for Ben and Jerrys), drugs do this, alcohol, sex...etc. And just like other substances, a lot of the challenge in recovery is extracting the psychological aspect of the addiction from the pure biological component.
This common pathway of reinforcement is, subsequently, a reason that people often jump from one addiction to another. Once you tap into this type of self-reward system, (1) it becomes hard to manage your needs against what "feels good" and (2) you de-sensitize your ability to experience pleasurable emotions without some sort of external "boost".
food addiction sucks. i think i have it. D:
im like stressed out and tired right now. i was about to go the kitchen. ugh. soo much hw! ><
I've heard/read that addiction is a disease that can be inherited. I can see it in my own life. A few people in my extended family have dealt with alcohol problems, and I think that I inherited the addict gene. I don't drink, but whenever I get into a certain act or pattern, I can't stop it. I've experienced it with exercise and practicing music (and not eating, if you ask my mom). It's kind of scary.
Addiction is a state of mind. U believe u r addicted. Sumtimes u really r. (Coke, meth, cigs, ect) But all that it takes to break a mental addiction is another addiction. Something else that takes up time that u can do to replace ur old habit. Physical addiction is slightly different. Come up with something that brings u GREAT joy to replace the addiction. It must mean more to u. I like to knit. That can take ur mind off of the addiction for long periods of time
Wen u wanna eat, go for a walk.
If u wanna huff a cig, go do yoga.
Addictions can only b as strong as the person with one.
Determination. That's how I stopped self injury. Sure, I failed a few dozen times, but ultimately I didn't give up and that's how I quit.
i think im addicted to food.
it's scary when you can't stop yourself.. it's real scary. i think that's when it becomes an addiction.
i eat, i feel bad about it, and then i eat more, i eat fast too. i will go in the kitchen and look for food and eat whatever i see along the journey of finding what i truly want. and when i'm full, i eat some more because i still feel empty. and then i cry when i gain 2 pounds in a day. so i stop, i eat very little and in a day or 2, i will have lost those 2 pounds. but now i'm starving. so i binge again. a cycle i'm "addicted" to.