Hello, everyone. My name is Kate, and I’m an addict.
(Hi, Kate).
I don’t have a drinking problem, or a drug problem. I don’t like pot, have never tried another drug, was never really even addicted to cigarettes when I smoked them (although maybe that’s not 100% true because I still occasionally want one). I like to go downtown, but can easily live without it (in fact I elected not to go out last night). No, my substance abuse is something entirely different.
I’m addicted to food. I use food the way an addict abuses any substance . I don’t eat to live. I don’t even live to eat. I don’t like to feel things, so I dull them with food. I binge until I’m ready to pop, and then I’m in a warm insulated cocoon where nothing can touch me and I don’t have to feel or think. I just lie on my couch and stare at the big shiny pictures while my dogs go unwalked and games go unplayed and life goes unlived. When I’m actually engaged, at work or playing a sport or out with friends, I often feel vaguely uncomfortable and distant - like, this is what I should be wanting, this is what should be making me happy, but what I really want is to be numb again. I look forward to the end of the day shut-down and can’t wait to slip into what I call the “couch coma” - full of food I didn’t want and didn’t enjoy eating, unplugged and turned off. My eating behaviors have started mimicking that of the “warning signs” of severe alcoholics - I would rather eat alone, I would rather eat than do other activities I enjoy, I use eating to cope with…everything, nothing, I want to eat even when I’m not particularly upset or unahppy, because numb is just so much easier.
I came to this realization when I started reading “Dry” by Augesten Burroughs. It chronicles his stint in rehab, from his insistence that he doesn’t have a drinking problem, but his company forcing him to go to rehab, to the realization that he does, in fact, have a severe drinking problem. But what really opened my eyes was that I could relate to everything he was doing with alcohol, except that I was doing it with food.
His apartment was with empty DeWar’s bottles. Mine is covered in fast-food wrappers.
He can’t wait to leave work to drink. I cant wait to leave work to eat.
He prefers to drink alone. I prefer to eat alone.
He tells himself that he just drinks a little more than average. I tell myself that I just really like junk food.
But most importantly, he talks about that numbness, that lack of feeling, that blissful unawareness that comes from being drunk. I realized then that’s what happens to me after I binge eat. He alludes to his messed-up childhood (which he also wrote a book about, which I plan to read as soon as I finish Dry), which I also had, and suddenly it all made sense. I have a fascination with “normal” people - how do they eat? How do they think about food? Why is it so easy for them to not eat? But now I see - it’s not about the numbness for them. They don’t shut off. For me, eating is like being wrapped in a warm fuzzy blanket on a cold winter morning - you know the cold is out there, you can feel it if you accidentally pull the blanket up too high and expose your feet, but as long as you stay completely covered, the cold stays out there, unable to penetrate your warmth. Normal people don’t have a fuzzy blanket. They experience and deal with emotions because they never spent half of their childhood years feeling awful and desperately seeking ways to not feel awful, even if those ways were self-destructive.
When I first met my therapist, she asked if I used drugs as I kid. When I told her no, her response was surprise. “Wow, really?” Now I understand why. I’m lucky, I guess, that I had food, because I probably wouldn’t have made it this far if I’d turned to drugs.
And I think I know why it’s been worse lately. My boss made a comment to me that alluded to him considering me for the next open Field Application Engineer position. I know that in order to have a shot, I need to study, and pass my MCSA. But I’m afraid I can’t do it. That fear goes back to college - failing out of school taught me to never think I could accomplish anything. So instead of going home and studying, I go home and I shut myself down. I don’t go to the gym anymore. For the last week, I haven’t even tried to eat healthy. I’m just retreating further and further into my warm fuzzy blanket, trying to keep the cold at bay.
I think this is probably one of those things that was obvious to everyone but me. I suppose that’s how it works with addicts. But I feel good about it - like I’ve been fighting this invisible enemy for a long time, and suddenly it made a wrong move and showed itself and now I can see it. I obviously can’t avoid food for the rest of my life but there are plenty of people who have overcome addictions far worse. Now that I know what my dragon looks like, I can go about slaying it.