Diets and Addiction

Hi All,

My name is Dave, I am a grateful compulsive overeater. As usual, the things I share here are only my personal feelings and opinions and yours may vary considerably. 

The line between a “diet” and a “healthy lifetime eating plan” can be hard to understand or define precisely. An understanding of the nature of addiction might help to look at this issue though I can promise no real answers. Honestly, I don't think having a compulsive eating disorder is a true addiction, but there are some pretty obvious parallels that can be quite useful to take note of.

Addictions to alcohol and drugs usually start out fairly innocently. No one plans to become a drunk or addict. Somewhere, somehow, these people change from moderate use or experimentation and develop a compulsion to drink.

Over time, they experience an increasing loss of control. Their tolerance goes up and their dependency deepens. Drinking or drug use begins to claim more and more of their time and energies. They may begin to drink alone and in secret. They often lie about how much they use or spend on their addictions. Denial sets in and they begin to rationalize reasons to justify their increased drinking—even to themselves.

In latter stages of the disease they generally have a long history of repeated failed attempts to control their drinking and drug use. They try many clever schemes to drink only in moderation. These plans may seem to work for a time but eventually they always end with the same results—they lose control, get drunk again, and the cycle starts all over.

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is filled with descriptions and stories that describe this process exactly. There is understandable reason why Overeaters Anonymous uses the very same “Big Book” that is the foundation of recovery for members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Compulsive Overeating can be described in these very same terms.

A normal healthy eating pattern becomes a compulsive drive to eat.

A progressive loss of control. We continue to eat even though we are not hungry. Some of us begin eating in secret and may lie about our eating. We make excuses for our eating patterns, weight changes, and appearance.

In latter stages of our compulsive eating disorder, we generally have a long history of repeated failed attempts to control our eating and weight. Most of us have tried countless “diets” and diet products, bought book after book on diet and nutrition and often a handful of exercise and motivation videos sit on a shelf mostly collecting dust. All this and we find ourselves at our top weight every time, plus some.

So what do alcoholism and drug addiction have in common with compulsive overeating?

* Normal use becomes compulsive use
* A progressive loss of control
* Repeated failed attempts to control or use in moderation

It becomes clear that “diets” are as much part of the progression of our eating disorder as are the insane repeated attempts an alcoholic makes to control their obsession and drink in moderation. An alcoholic who attends AA meetings does not long hold on to the illusion that they can ever again engage in any amount of “controlled” drinking. One of the great miracles of OA is that just like AA, it is not meant to be just another scheme to “control” our obsession. We look to breaking this cycle once and for all. No more yo-yo dieting. No more temporary fixes for a permanent problem. We want to stop the insanity. This requires rethinking our old “diet” mentality and learning new behaviors that will last a lifetime. “Diets” are as much a part of the compulsive overeating and binge eating disorder as attempts to drink in moderation are part of alcoholism. There’s no difference really. Both the alcoholic and the compulsive overeater’s big wish is that they could drink or eat like “normal” folks. What they can’t see when they are trying so hard to diet or drink in moderation is that these “attempts to control” make them obsess about their compulsions all the more. No room for recovery in that process.

One of the most important steps in recovery (a pre-step really) for my compulsive overeating disorder was to re-read chapter 3 from the Big Book of AA, with my eating and dieting history in mind. I was blown away how accurately it described my compulsive eating behavior and attempts to control it. I know it’s hard for some to view their own behaviors with food alongside the alcoholic and addict. I urge all who haven’t a copy of the AA Big Book, to get one and read it carefully and with an open mind. If money is a problem, there are free online versions of the first and second editions, now public domain, where the copyright has expired.

I am fascinated by my own tendency as a compulsive overeater, to so easily fall into the all-or-nothing thinking that I must go from my worst eating behavior and binging directly to a restrictive “diet”, rather than work towards a healthy manner of eating well rounded nutritious foods in moderate amounts. I think of this in terms of a scale from 1 to 10, with the center (5) being the healthy moderate eating that comes naturally to most people without eating disorders. Binging out of control is at 10 and rabbit food dieting at 1. The common idea is that we jump from 10—skip over 5, and go right to 1. Logically, this is the hardest thing to ask ourselves to do. Going from one end, 10, to the middle and staying there is the much shorter distance and in the end it is the desired destination anyway. If you’re looking for an easier softer way, this may be it.

Professionals who treat Binge Eating Disorder recognize that BED and obesity are actually two separate medical conditions. They are related but weight loss does not cure eating disorders. The disordered eating needs to be addressed and then the weight issue will become manageable. The problem obese people with a compulsive eating disorder often run into is that after their diets, they are left with their eating disorder. Normalizing eating patterns is what is really meant in OA by the term, lifetime eating plan.

According to the dictionary, the word abstain means "to refrain from”. In the same dictionary, voluntarily means, “Of your own free will or design; not forced or compelled.” I think this also gives us some good clues as to what abstinence in terms of recovery from the insanity of compulsive overeating may mean. According to the literature of Overeaters Anonymous, abstinence is the action of refraining from compulsive eating. In my mind, recovery is not about some semi-forced compliance to a “diet” that we have renamed “my eating plan”. It is more about finding a way—coming to a point in our lives—where we find the power to voluntarily choose to not eat compulsively or binge. That gnawing drive to overeat is lifted because we now have regained the power of choice. This isn’t to say we will never again overeat. The following excerpt from page 85 of the Big Book puts it best.

Basically we have had a profound change in our reaction to life and no longer need to overeat or eat compulsively. I don’t mean to suggest that we shouldn’t use all of the tools at our disposal. Eating plans, eating on schedules, getting and giving encouragement and support, the tools of OA, all these things can be constructive parts to the healing and recovery process. However, I believe that the line between a healthy lifetime eating plan and a “diet” must be much more than in name only. This can only be defined by using rigorous honesty—rigorous self-honesty to be exact. This is the danger of some common “colored paper-eating plans” that make the rounds. I can’t say for sure that they are just another “diet” in disguise for anyone who tries them, but they have all of the earmarks. I guess it matters how you view them and use them more than specifically what is on them. Some people swear by them and may use them constructively. To use them as yet another “diet” and think that OA members can help make you “stick” to it, is to all but shut the door on the deeper more permanent levels of recovery. That’s where honesty on an almost brutal level is called for. We all might ask ourselves, is this part of the solution or part of the problem? Is this a “diet”? Can I really be happy and satisfied eating like this for the rest of my life? Do I really believe compulsive overeating is a very serious, potentially deadly disease? If we will not accept the concept that our weight is but a symptom of a set of deeper more complex issues, then we will probably focus on just the weight and diet one more time again. Which will likely prove the old adage true that “insanity is the process of repeating the same behavior over and over again but expecting different results.”

On the other hand, we all are at were we are at. Live and let live I say. I only know what is working for me right now. I sure tried my share of “diets” and come to think of it, I guess I needed every single one of them to get to where I'm at right now.

Love, Dave 12/21/2003