I love getting the way I feel changed.
It didn't take long for me to discover the fastest and most acceptable way to change my feelings: put something in my belly. As a child, changing one's feelings isn't reasoned out. It is observed and intuited. And repeated.
Parents and other authority figures are our best source of learned behavior as young children. For many who are addicted to overeating, we observed compulsive food behavior in our immediate families. Yet many also discovered the mood change that came with eating certain foods, eating too much, or too little, or by controlling eating times. These behaviors vary by individual and are often "discovered" as eating patterns evolve.
I worked so hard at changing my mood by eating that I would experience a feeling shift during the process of eating or acting out with food. These became powerful personality changes that started an addictive process. This phenomenon, along with a brief description of the entire addiction cycle, can be found in Craig Nakken's powerful book, the Addictive Personality.
The seductive thing about acting out with food and the events surrounding food is that these actions have powerful, effective results. Never did I fail to alter my feelings when I overate, or when I cruised fast food drive throughs, or ritually set up a night of bingeing and movie watching at home. When I search for solutions outside of myself, I am never disappointed. Temporarily.
Why doesn't searching for permanent feeling change in objects and events work?
1. The change it produces is not a real change
2. It causes an addictive process to form
3. Tolerance develops so more of the acting out is required
4. A high cost is associated with the behavior (i.e., obesity, illness, frustration, low self esteem)
5. The spirit is diminished and relationship with diety or higher power decays
6. Loss of things most dear to us as we wall off those who object to our addiction
7. The behavior always leads to frustration and real pain, which usually is more hurtful than the reason we acted out in the first place
8. Reality becomes distorted and addictive logic takes hold; those who care about us can't break ito the denial and we shut them out
There are many, many other reasons why seeking fulfillment in temporary actions and objects does not work. Certainly we live in a society that prides itself on individualism (while rewarding being part of the crowd) and an attitude of "hey man, it's a free country." So taking comfort in food is only a natural part of life, right? Yes, for ordinary people. I am not ordinary when it comes to food, and that was a bitter, ugly truth to confront...but it set me free.
The best reason I can think of for not investing time, energy, and emotions in food and acting out behaviors with food is simply this. The food and those behaviors cannot love me in return.
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1 comment:
"...ritually set up a night of bingeing and movie watching at home."
I used to do this too. Still battle with it now and then, even though my binge food doesn't taste all that great to me anymore.
I would wait all day to eat. I'd wait til it got dark, then pop my movie in, and not open the bag of chips or the pizza box until the opening credits stopped rolling. Then I would eat until whatever was in front of me was gone.
If I slip in to it now, it's different - I can't eat everything, sometimes I throw it out bc I realize I don't really want it. It's the behaviour that's addicting, it seems, rather than the food itself. Although, since I stopped eating gluten I just don't get food cravings anymore.
And you know, at first it was almost...sad, not having my cravings. Like missing an abusive ex.
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