food-addiction

The bond between food and me is like other relationships in my life: complicated, evolving, demanding, and in need of constant work. But together we__e come so far, moving from my childhood obligation to clean my plate, to a mindless need to fill up, to a truly nourishing and pleasurable exchange. That__ the real reward.

Don't ever think you're better than a drug addict, because your brain works the same as theirs. You have the same circuits. And drugs would affect your brain in the same way it affects theirs. The same thought process that makes them screw up over and over again would make you screw up over and over as well, if you were in their shoes. You probably already are doing it, just not with heroin or crack, but with food or cigarettes, or something else you shouldn't be doing.

From food addiction to food serenity - freedom tastes great!

Black-and-white thinking is the addict's mentality, which can be a bar to recovery when one is still active. But an addict who finds the willingness can then rely on the same trait to stay clean: "Just don't drink," they say in AA. How's that going to work for an addicted eater? Food addicts have to take the tiger out of the cage three times a day. I've read that some drinkers have tried "controlled drinking," and it hasn't been very successful. Eaters don't just have to try it; they must practice it to survive. Having a food plan is an attempt to address that, and having clear boundaries is a key to its working. But the comfort of all or nothing is just out of reach.... I'm saying that food addicts, unlike alcoholics and may others, have both to try for perfection and to accept that perfection is unattainable, and that the only tool left is a wholesome discipline. The problem is, if we had any clue about wholesome discipline, we wouldn't be addicts.

When we are true to ourselves, all that is toxic and burdensome simply falls away

Sometimes it's hard to see the rainbow when there's been endless days of rain.

That was when it became abundantly clear to me that simply eating in a way that avoided hurting others was never going to be enough if my eating habits were still hurting me.

The cakes and pies and casseroles beckoned like gastronomic sirens, and there was no one to lash me to the mast.