Food Addiction? Really?

So as I was listening to James Frey on Oprah (while she was still a believer) he was talking about addiction & listed food addiction right along side drugs & alcohol. Up until this point I didn't believe there was such a thing as food addiction but as he said what addiction was - as I recall he said it was a means of escape, a way to avoid feeling your stuff - I began to think about it. I certainly felt addicted, I had withdrawal symptoms when I didn't eat "treats", I literally felt the "AHHHHHH" feeling the moment I swallowed my first bite of something, when I was totally stressed out or overwhelmed I HAD to go get something to eat, I had to eat a "treat" before I balanced the checkbook or paying bills. "Yes" I thought, "I think I have an addiction to food." So now what? Do I check into a food rehab place? I looked it up and found that those places are for people with the opposite problem with food. So I eventually found Ellen Shuman & began working with her. She calls it Emotional Eating instead of food addiction but it looks & feels the same to me.

The first thing she had me do was ask myself before I ate, "What am I asking food to do for me at this moment?" I began making that my habit & found that most of the time the answer was entertain me or calm me down - it was rarely about feeling hungry. Even though this was enlightening, it didn't stop me from eating. The next step was allowing myself to feel the feelings that I was trying to escape by eating. This took a while but eventually I found those feelings bubbling to the surface & coming out at the most inappropriate times. As someone once described to me, holding down your feelings is like holding a large bouncy ball under the water. It will eventually come up & trying to hold it down is exhausting.

One evening I was sitting in a meeting holding my sleeping twins when someone started giving a talk about endurance. It was very much what I needed to hear but found myself crying with no way to get up & hide myself or wipe my nose. I slowly had to take one sock off at a time from the boys & use them for my nose until Kurt, my husband, came back to help. I found that I had to cry a lot for about 1 year before it got better. I had to journal (which I usually hate) & continue working with Ellen to get more clear about things. She kept telling me to trust myself that I can handle my feelings without food. Sometimes I could & sometimes I couldn't & just "needed" to eat to feel better & calm down.

It's now been about 3 years since I began working on my emotional eating & I still cry a lot more than before. Sometimes I find myself crying in the car for no reason at all except that I'm feeling stressed or I need to release all the pent up frustration. Not for "no reason" because letting out my emotions is actually much more healthy than bottling them up with food. I also had to work with Ellen to find out how to better communicate with Kurt so we dealt with things right away instead of fighting about dirty dishes for 3 weeks until the real reason revealed itself. Now we fight about dirty dishes for about a 1/2 hr before we take a break & then discuss the real issues.

And, the most amazing thing - I am not eating to deal with my emotions now. Especially now on this new food plan I am eating when I'm hungry & for no other reason. This would have been IMPOSSIBLE a few years ago. I can watch someone eat something amazing looking or go to a party with sweets & not even have a bite. Again, something I'm still amazed at. From feeling like had NO control over my actions & feeling as if I was being controlled by some other person to feeling totally in control of my actions is a very powerful feeling.

What I do still have are the thoughts - "Oh, there's a Starbucks, I can get a scone" "I'm close to the Teriyaki place" "A frosty sounds good". A drive through town elicits about 25 food thoughts. But now I don't act on them. I feel frustrated that I still have the thoughts but I'm sure in time even those will go away or diminish considerably. I have learned to immediately say to myself, "It's just a thought. Thoughts have no power or will on their own - they are merely a thought."

I'm sure like all addicts, I still miss the feeling that food would give me for a few minutes. Addiction is a strange thing - such a wonderful rush with such long lasting remorse. And I still question whether I'm really past it or whether this is a temporary control. I guess nothing is forever so if I don't use the skills that I learned, I guess I can easily go back to my old patterns. I feel the pang of fear every so often but then I remind myself how far I've come.