Beyond Addiction

Here's how food works for me. My mouth opens, and in goes meat, vegetables, fruits, juices and lots of desserts. My taste buds sample the menu and pass along signals to my brain of what's yummy and what I won't eat next time. The food goes into my stomach until the stomach signals my brain that I'm satisfied. Then I am done until the next meal — and without much thought or effort on my part.

To some people, though, food sparks the exact same chain reaction that I have with alcohol or other drugs. They cannot put it down, leave it alone or stop obsessing about it. It towers over them and wears them down to a bottom no different from when an alcoholic wakes up from a blackout or a crack addict cannot sleep for days on end.

I'm not an expert on addiction to food. But I'm close to people who are. And lately, I've come to see their struggles in an entirely new light. A drug is a drug is a drug, and food is theirs. It is real.

I know a woman in her 50s who hasn't had a drink or a drug since long-term treatment in 1989. That's a long time clean and sober. But her fight against food has her doubting her recovery.

"First of all, I know I am sober from alcohol, but I am not abstinent (at the moment) when it comes to recovery from food addiction, so am I really sober?" she says. "If all addictions are pretty much the same, with the same underlying issues and pretty much the same feelings, then where does the sobriety begin and end?"

It is a startling insight, and I wonder why my friends who are smoking themselves to death don't question their own sobriety even though they haven't had a drink or drug in decades.

"My eating disorder is very easy to hide. It doesn't really show on the outside except maybe for a few extra pounds," the woman I know says. "It's what goes on inside my head that kills me and drives me insane."

So she eats again to satisfy the demons, except these demons have an insatiable appetite and rarely nap for long after a meal. Then it is back to the same old routine.

She says: "When I am not in recovery from my food addiction, I think about food all the time, but the thoughts go from 'Am I eating enough at this meal?' to 'I ate too much at this meal' to 'I hate myself for doing that. I might as well keep eating.'"

This woman is not in denial about her struggle. Nor is she giving up. The past few years have taken a toll. But instead of running away, now she has turned to face the demons that would eat her alive if she were to stop trying. She has more clarity about the problem and the solution than ever, at least from my biased perspective.

Like her, I have hope.

William Moyers is the vice president of public affairs and community relations for the Hazelden Foundation and the author of "Broken," his best-selling memoirs. His new book, "Now What? An Insider's Guide to Addiction and Recovery," has just been published. Please send your questions to William Moyers at wmoyers@hazelden.org. To find out more about William Moyers and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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