Eating Disorder
By Martha Stevenson
Eating disorders are a very difficult addiction. Although many overweight people have an eating disorder, some do not. There are people who are overweight because of their lifestyle. They really can walk away from the overeating, lose the weight, and never return to overeating. If you are overweight and wonder if you are a food addict, I challenge you to put down the food, lose the weight, and see how long you can keep it off. If you are a food addict of the compulsive overeating type, you will not be 100% successful. Eventually the weight will come back in a greater amount than before you were dieting. We have an Enrichment class at Riverside called “Conquering Eating Disorders.” Many people consider this just another Weight Watchers. But I can honestly tell you that those of us who come to this class would love to go to a Weight Watchers program and lose our weight and keep it off successfully, but we are not able to do that.
There are three categories of eating disorders: anorexics, bulimics and compulsive overeater's. The anorexics are afraid of food and often starve themselves. Bulimics binge and purge. Purging includes vomiting, use of diuretics, excessive exercise, laxatives, and any method that quickly reverses the effect of the consumption of a large volume of food. Compulsive overeater's binge but do not purge. These people often cannot hide their addiction, because they have weight gain. With the help of the media today, most everyone is aware of the serious nature of anorexia and bulimia. I believe you will agree when I tell you that people with those eating disorders face a life threatening disease. But compulsive overeating is an equally life-threatening disease, and is equally difficult to control. This is a progressive disease, which means it gets worse with time and age. There are people who come to this class who started with the ability to diet and take off the weight, even keep it off for a time. But each time weight is lost and regained, it becomes more difficult to lose the weight again. Some of us were at the point when we started working the food program(of our class) where nothing was successful. In this world there are many people who have resorted to severe surgical procedures because diets have not worked.
Alcoholics and drug addicts have to put down their drug of choice and never pick it up again. Food addicts have to pick up their drug of choice 3-4 times a day, and have to learn how to do it so it doesn’t consume them. We encourage people to eliminate sugar, flour and wheat from their food, and weigh and measure everything. Meals are taken at specific times during the day, with no snacking in between meals. Because this is an education process, people are welcome to attend the class without working the food plan, but those who follow the food plan have had a high success ratio. I have lost 70 pounds.
In this class we practice a 12-step program. The steps offer a proven method to deal with the underlying hurts, habits and hang-ups that lead to the eating disorder. We begin to find a sane way to live a life of abstinence by having a serious food plan, accountability to a sponsor and to others in the program, and daily reading of literature that encourages recovery.
Many of us have discovered that the disciplines of the program bring a peace and serenity to life that was non-existent when we were stuffing our faces. The body has an amazing capacity to heal. Once addictive substances are removed from the body we find ourselves much stronger and able to face life on life’s terms. Daily we fall to our knees, first thing in the morning, and just before bed, seeking God’s strength. We look for one day of recovery at a time. In the first step we learn we are powerless over our addiction. Although the people who attend this class are at various stages of eating disorders, it is not uncommon to hear people say they could no longer control their eating. Once started, a bite of a sweet or crunchy thing turned into a binge. A binge is when you eat so much that it makes you sick. My experience with binging is that no matter how embarrassed I was, or how many people looked at me with criticism, I just couldn’t stop. I learned to hide my eating so I wouldn’t have to deal with the judgment of others.
In steps two and three we examine our relationship with our parents and God. Traditionally, a person with eating disorders has pain of some sort that is being stuffed. Very frequently you will find abuse of some nature, including sexual abuse. One of the sayings in eating disorders recovery is we learn to “face our stuff rather than stuff our face.”
The rest of the steps teach us how to face our stuff. We deal with anger and resentment and learn to make amends, always under God’s guidance and the supervision of a sponsor. The last step encourages us to share what we’ve been given with other people who have the same needs. This becomes a self-perpetuating cycle, one that has offered healing, comfort and sanity to many people. If you think you have an eating disorder, please join us. There is hope and it comes without surgery.
