Are you kidding yourself too?

Now that you’ve read these definitions of addiction, are you more open to the possibility that your obesity was caused by food addiction? You’re not an unemployed, dirty scum bag hanging out on a street corner in a bad neighborhood waiting to score an illegal drug with money you stole from the old lady you just mugged. You’re just that no-so-healthy eater who can’t seem to stop overeating. Since food isn’t officially an addictive substance, maybe we should say that you have a behavioral addiction, one that’s harmful if it results in negative consequences for you, your friends, and your family.

How do you measure those negative consequences? If you’re overeating broiled chicken breasts, brown rice and steamed spinach, does that pose a grave health or disease risk? What about the affect of your overeating and obesity on how you spend your time and on your personal productivity? Do your eating behaviors cause you to feel guilt, shame, fear, hopelessness, failure, rejection, anxiety, humiliation, depression, or other negative feelings, ideas, and symptoms?

A person can become addicted, dependent, or compulsively obsessed with anything. Compulsive behaviors are rooted in a need to reduce tension caused by inner feelings that you want to avoid or control. These behaviors are repetitive and seemingly purposeful and are often performed in a ritualistic manner. Not so long ago, I would leave my beloved husband and dogs in the living room at 7:30 pm sharp every night while I went to the kitchen to eat ice cream. I wasn’t physically hungry when I did that, and I did it over and over and over again. When I had to travel overseas and leave my ice cream behind, I felt anxious every evening when I couldn’t play out my ice cream ritual.

Maybe I was hungry for the love I felt I’d never gotten from my dad. That’s entirely understandable, isn’t it? It’s only human, it’s not my fault, maybe it’s my dad’s fault, but he died many years ago and what’s the harm of eating ice cream in the privacy of my own home when I want to, as long as I pay my taxes and obey the law?

I was kidding myself when I justified my ice cream compulsion that way. That compulsion wasn’t just harmful to me, making me more and more obese. It was harmful to my marriage, and it didn’t do a dang thing to fill me up with love. There isn’t enough food in the entire universe to do that. I don’t think it’s evil, but it’s surely counter-productive for me to seek love and comfort from ice cream when I could’ve gotten endless amounts of love and comfort from the husband and dogs in the next room.

Some scientists think that compulsive behavior activities may produce beta-endorphins in the brain which make you feel "high" and that continued involvement in the behavior leads to physical addiction to your own brain chemicals, thus leading to continuation of the behavior despite its negative health or social consequences. When you add to that the chemical effects of ingesting things like sugar, chocolate, and caffeine, your overeating is just as powerful for you as heroin is for a heroin addict. And that’s one of the reasons is so danged hard to break out of the addictive behavior pattern.

Food Addiction: the new taboo

In the world of bariatric surgery, food addiction is almost a taboo subject. Maybe that’s because no one wants to admit that they’ll be saddled with an eating problem for the rest of their lives. They want and need to believe that weight loss surgery will permanently free them from their slavery to food. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a WLS patient say, “I’m a good eater, I just eat way too much,” as if the “way too much” part was as “harmless” as watching too much TV or driving your car too fast. I’m certainly a good eater and always have been. At age 17, I was taught how to cook by a professional chef, and I’ve been preparing delicious, wholesome food ever since then. I ate meals consisting of lean proteins, complex carbs, and good fats, and what’s the problem with that? So I ate twice as much as my husband, who does manual labor for a living – so what? Was I, and am I, a food addict, or am I just a healthy eater who loves to eat and chooses to overeat?

Even experts in psychology and addiction can’t seem to agree on that. Historically, addiction has been defined as physical and psychological dependence on psychoactive substances (for example alcohol, tobacco, heroin and other drugs) which cross the blood-brain barrier once ingested, temporarily altering the chemical milieu of the brain. By that definition, food doesn’t really qualify as an addictive substance (although the food we ingest does affect our entire body, including the nervous system).

The American Society of Addiction Medicine uses this definition for addiction: addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in the individual pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors (italics mine). The addiction is characterized by impairment in behavioral control, craving, inability to consistently abstain, and diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships. Like other chronic diseases, addiction involves cycles of relapse and remission. Without treatment or engagement in recovery activities, addiction is progressive and can result in disability or premature death.

Addiction can also be viewed as a continued involvement with a substance or activity despite the negative consequences associated with it. Over a period of time more and more involvement with the substance or activity is required to achieve the pleasure and enjoyment the user originally sought, and eventually that involvement is needed just to feel “normal.” Some psychology professionals and many laymen now include abnormal psychological dependency (on such things as gambling, food, sex, pornography, computers, internet, work, exercise, idolizing, watching TV or certain types of non-pornographic videos, spiritual obsession, cutting and shopping) in their definition of addiction. By this definition, the addict experiences a recurring compulsion to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences to his individual health, mental state, or social life.

Hi, my name is Jean....

“HI, MY NAME IS JEAN, AND I’M A FOOD ADDICT.”

Now you all chime in with, “Hi, Jean!” (And skip the hi jean/hygiene joke, okay? cause I’ve already heard it 30 billion times.)

I was active in Overeaters Anonymous (OA) and Food Addicts Anonymous (FAA) for several years in the 1990’s, when I lived in a part of Massachusetts that had plenty of meetings to choose from. Getting to an OA or FAA meeting where I live now is tough. I live in a small-town Christian community that for the most part views 12-step programs and the people involved in them as the the devil’s spawn. Many of my neighbors here see addiction as a moral failing, not a disease, and only one church in town allows 12-step meetings on their premises.

I fell away from the OA & FAA programs for a variety of reasons, one of which was that taking the first of the 12 steps required me to admit that I am powerless over food and (as I understood my sponsor to say) always would be. I just could not wrap my mind around that at the time. I was convinced that I had been born a normal eater and that my upbringing and life events had turned me into an overeater. I was convinced that somehow I could be restored to the normal eater I was when I was born. I spent years in therapy, consulted with an eating disorder specialist and a nutritionist and gained a lot of insights about myself. I also gained another 60 pounds, had weight loss surgery, and even after losing all my excess weight (90 pounds) I found myself still struggling with food.

So once again, I’m back where I started. Life does tend to take us in circular journeys that (if we pay attention to the lessons we need to learn) eventually moves us up away from our old troubles in sort of spiral fashion. If I could attend an OA or FAA meeting tonight, I’d be right there on a folding chair in a church hall with the smell of coffee (but no cigarettes, nowadays), and when it was my turn, I’d be saying again, “Hi, my name is Jean, and I’m a food addict.”