HEALTH & WELLNESS | INSIGHT
The Acceptable Addiction BY A MARYLAND LAWYER
No one writes songs about it. You’ll never get jailed for using it. There’s no age limit for it, and everybody uses it. In fact, if you don’t use it, you’ll die. If it kills you, it will do it subtly, slowly, and legally, and you’ll be part of a legion of people who die from it without a thought that maybe it is serious compulsive behavior. How in the heck can food be an addiction? Food becomes an addiction when its use gets warped, either by eating too much or too little, binging, starving, using laxatives, vomiting, or over-exercising—“compulsive food behaviors.” All of them are embarrassing, mind-numbing, and can wreak havoc on physical and mental health. I know because that’s what it did to me. Before I tell my story, though, I’d like to share observations I’ve developed over the years about compulsive eaters. Many of us start at a very young age. It is often the first addiction to come and the last one to go. Many of us compulsively eat to address sexual abuse (if I’m fat, or if I’m so small I’ll disappear, maybe they’ll leave me alone), or to deal with the parent, spouse, or child who is using drugs or alcohol or is otherwise abusive. Some of us compulsively eat just to deal with all the normal stresses heaped upon us. We tend to be fixers, highly competent, dependable, rule followers, so it should be no surprise that we’d pick the “acceptable” addiction to cope. 32
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This is especially true when the ramifications of the addictive behavior fall far less on others and more directly on our own bodies and our own mental health. This addiction presents itself in many different forms. Some of us are addicted to certain foods, most commonly sugar and white flour. Some of us are not addicted to any specific food, but can’t stop eating once we start, or restrict and exercise compulsively. Some of us are obese. Some of us appear to be a healthy weight. Some of us are underweight. Many of us fluctuate between these three in the course of our addictive behavior. Some of us use laxatives or vomiting to control our weight. My story is only one snapshot of the many ways this addiction manifests. I have been a compulsive eater for as long as I can remember and craved (and stole) sweet food from a very young age. I was a normal weight until I hit puberty, and then I only gained about 20 pounds. However, that is when the binging began. At the time, the other areas of my life were successful—I got good grades, was popular, played two musical instruments, had a boyfriend, and was class president. I looked normal, but I hated myself intensely. My binges were secretive and embarrassing. I didn’t want anyone to know that there was an area of my life that was completely out of control. I would starve myself and then binge—often eating whole bowls of sugar or entire cakes, or anything else I could get my hands on. As my food addiction