On Being a Food Addict

It's weird being me. I can't explain it. I see what other people's lives are, from the outside, at least. They have meals and snacks and some of them eat healthy and some of them don't.

Regardless, for most people food is food. It might be something you enjoy or just fuel, but chances are you eat and you walk away.  This almost never happens for me. If I'm not completely and almost obscenely stuffed I can't walk away without a huge internal struggle. Food owns me.

I wish it weren't that way. So does every alcoholic and drug addict in the world. We all just want to talk away from our demons. For them, in this point in history, they can do just that. They walk away and stay away from their addiction.

Alcohol is widely available and socially acceptable, but there is a social awareness of alcoholism and thanks to groups like Alcoholics Anonymous there is help to be had for the person who can't put down the bottle. There are also in-patient programs and strong anti- DUI/DWI laws. Even so many alcoholics die of their addiction.

With drug addiction it's pretty similar. Narcotics Anonymous exists and drugs are harder to obtain than alcohol. Furthermore, the cost is prohibitive and the consequences of even one drug bender can be life destroying. These are some pretty strong deterrents. Even then drug addicts routinely die of their problem.

Food is celebrated in most cultures in the world.  It's cheap and plentiful in the USA and often given away for free. There are times people will actually aggressively confront you if you turn down food. I've been a vegetarian for more than three years, and there have been some hostile moments. People really get offended when you can't or choose not to eat their food. I know a lot of ego and self-esteem can go into food, especially baked goods. I know it's not my problem when someone gets hostile, but I deplore confrontation. If I can defuse a situation merely by eating what you're offering, I will, provided it's vegetarian.

I can usually go through the day and not worry too much about food. As long as I have food available when I get hungry its no big deal. I eat and I'm fine.

The problem comes in when I can't eat to satiety and the options are poor choices. Do I abstain? NOPE. I rarely ever successfully turn down the highway towards home after work, for instance, without a stop at my local convenience store or fast food outlet. Mid afternoon is one of my danger zones. I know this and try to plan for it but if food is freely available to me and I can do so with minimal consequences I'm going to eat it all, until there is no more food or I am stuffed. So keeping snacks at my desk is a joke. I'm very unlikely to have any of those left after one day, most less any time period I had bought them to last through.

I've tried lots of solutions for weight loss. Some of those work. The issue is that my weight is just a symptom of my larger issue. I have a larger issue in my food addiction. I may even have binge eating disorder. My last therapist seemed to that any kind of eating disorder was hoodoo, so who knows? He did help my anxiety with hypnosis, but that's another story.

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So, I started this entry before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is like an annual dip in the volcano of addiction for people like me. It wasn't terrible, I suppose. My largest pants are getting tight so that's not a good thing. The good thing is that my wife's family doesn't feel the need to have an infinite variety of desserts like my family of birth. That helped keep it in the almost human range.

I feel lost, lately. I just don't know if I can mange to survive to middle age (wherever that starts) most less to old age. I just feel overwhelmed by it. I really do feel that the psychological approach is where it's at. The issue is, of course, that the Insurance companies prefer a drug-based or surgery based approach. Actually, in my experience, Insurance companies prefer to pretend that Obesity is a lifestyle choice like vegetarianism or living in an RV.

I guess I'll end here:

TL;DR, I'm Fat, it sucks and I feel like its going to kill me.