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The essence of emotional eating (also called "compulsive eating") is eating to avoid
feeling your feelings. It is the addictive use of food, and people describe it in many ways - for
example, "numbing out" or "plunging into oblivion". Overeaters Anonymous describes
it as "stuffing your feelings" or "swallowing your feelings with food".
The addictive use of food - like the addictive use of drugs or alcohol - is about escaping the
present moment, getting out of your skin, being somewhere else, artificially altering your feelings
by use of a substance. Recovery from compulsive eating - like recovery from any addictive behavior -
is just the opposite. It's about being present for your life, not running in fear from temporary
discomfort, and learning to feel better through positive action rather than addictive escapism.
Normal eaters sometimes eat for pleasure rather than hunger, but eating to escape feelings is
very different from eating for pleasure. When you eat for pleasure you are mindful and fully
experiencing the present moment. Addictive eating is the opposite - a way to obliterate mindfulness
and escape the present moment, a way to avoid experiencing your life.
Using food to numb out is never a good thing, and is not something that a normal eater ever does.
If you think about it in terms of alcoholism it's easier to see. A normal drinker - someone who is
not alcoholic - doesn't ask whether it's okay to get blind drunk now and then. Only someone who
uses alcohol addictively would think to ask this question.
Alcoholics Anonymous was the first-ever broadly successful treatment for addiction. Countless
other addiction recovery groups are modeled after it because its insights are generally applicable.
Overeaters Anonymous, a fellowship for compulsive overeaters, parallels AA by framing recovery
in terms of abstinence. Unfortunately, this often takes the form of abstinence from white flour
or white sugar, which misses the point. You can abstain from a particular food and still eat
compulsively.
What you're really abstaining from in recovery from compulsive eating is using food addictively.
This may seem like a mushy definition compared to "no white flour", but really it's not.
In your heart, if you're honest, you know when you're using food addictively. That is the behavior
you learn to abstain from through the four stages of Normal Eating.
Just as it's never okay for an alcoholic to have a drink, it's never okay for a compulsive eater
to use food addictively. It's what 12-step programs call a "bottom line" - the thing you
never do. Emotional eating is a slippery slope. You might say to yourself, "I'll only do it
this once", but therein lies the catch:it's never just once.
That isn't to say that you're a horrible person or a failure if you use food to numb out - you're
just doing what comes naturally to you as an emotional eater. You are still good, valuable,
and lovable; it's just the behavior that isn't good because it doesn't serve you. From the chapter
on Stage 3 in Normal Eating for Normal Weight:
What you don't ever want to do is say this to yourself:
"X terrible thing happened to me today, so I binged. Oh well.
When my life isn't difficult anymore, then I'll be able to eat normally."
Instead, say this:
"X terrible thing happened to me today. I sat with the feelings
for as long as I could, but I couldn't find another way to cope and I ended up eating. Still, I
credit myself for pausing as long as I did, and next time I'll try again."
Emotional eating is never a viable alternative or a good way to deal
with stress. You may not be able to stop doing it yet, but you should never rationalize the behavior
as okay. You are okay, but the behavior is not okay because it's harmful to you. It's not
good self-care.
It's important that you be able to condemn the behavior without
condemning yourself. That allows you to eventually stop being self-destructive. If you condemn
yourself, you'll just be more self-destructive. If you fail to label self-destructive behavior
as undesirable, you'll stay stuck - that's self-indulgence, not self-acceptance. Forgive yourself
if you give in to emotional eating, but don't ever tell yourself that it's an okay thing to do.
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