Addiction is a funny thing. I’ve often said that I have an addictive personality and that the reason that I never got addicted to cigarettes, or booze, or drugs was because I never had the first one.... but my mother fed me, so my food addiction began. And while this is a funny joke, it is really quite true.
I have also found that addiction, whether it is to food or anything else, can turn us into people we don’t want to be. It can make us lie, it can make us hide things from people, it can make us break promises to others. It can compromise our integrity. And often it makes us lie to ourselves.
Take fast food for example. Eleven weeks and two days ago I had my last bite of fast food with the exception of Arby’s and Subway wraps. I allowed myself those two things because I knew there were times when I would need to take the kids for something quick and I would need to eat too. So I gave myself those exceptions.
Since I made this commitment, I have not been inside a single fast food restaurant except Subway. When I have been to Arby’s it has been through the drive through. My only solution has been to stay completely away. Because I know this is how it would go. I would head in the door to McDonald’s, for example, saying to myself, “I can get a fruit and walnut salad.” And that is what I would order. And I would sit next to one of my kids who had a large fry. McDonald’s fries are my weakness. The whole time I would be lying to myself. convincing myself that I could have just one fry. And then, I would have it. And then, pretty soon, I would have another, all the while lying to myself that I was going to be able to stop after “just one more fry.” The problem is, soon I would be offering to buy my child another order and eating those too.
For me, the only way to not have fast food is to stay away from the restaurant completely. If I don’t, I will find myself right back where I started from. And once I had cheated once, what harm would be done if I just did it one more time? And then one more time. You’re getting the picture. Pretty soon I would be right back to having it five or six times a week.
There are some people who believe that moderation is a good thing. But when something is an addiction, there are no plans for partial use of the thing to which one is addicted. I don’t believe that Alcoholics Anonymous is preaching moderation... This may be why Food Addicts Anonymous is so successful -- no sugar and no flour. Period.
And then there is the old substitution game. OK, I promise not to eat ice cream any more. I am going to completely give up ice-cream never to have it again. But then there is frozen yogurt, or frozen custard, and what is the harm in that? And pretty soon i’m eating more calories with the substitution than I did with the ice-cream itself.
Have you ever played mind tricks with food? You say, OK, I am going to diet, and this time I’m serious.... but you set up just one loophole in your diet plan to reward yourself. Every week I will go have one scoop of ice-cream. And soon you are saying, “well, I get one scoop a week, so why not have my weekly scoop today?” And then, the next day you might conclude, well, maybe a scoop a week isn’t enough, maybe I should have a scoop every day. And pretty soon the diet isn’t working.
And then there is accountability. Finding the right people who can help an addict is tricky. It takes a lot of will power to help someone overcome an addiction. My children get caught up in old patterns too, and forget some of the progress I have made. They will walk up and offer me chocolate, or some other treat. They hold it out to me and ask me to have some. It is my job to say no but often I can’t. I grab whatever is offered me and chow down.
I have had to teach my children that if they love me, they will help me stop my addiction. They will stop handing me the candy, the chips, the donuts. And some of them, who have started to get the picture, will actually even say no when I ask them. I reach out my hand when they have a treat and say, “Can I please have some?” and even though they would love to share their treat with me, they say, “No, mom, sorry. You can’t eat this junk any more.”
Love is saying no to a person who has an addiction even if you want more than anything to make them happy and give them what they want. I hope that my dieting is teaching my kids how to do this as it might, unfortunately, be a skill they need some day if they are involved with someone who has an addiction.
All of this to say that for me, the only way that I can see stopping an addiction is to give it up completely. In the case of dieting, it obviously can’t be all food, but several things that just aren’t good for us, with no substitutions, and as extreme as possible. If I don’t, I fall back into old patterns. And if I am helping someone in that same position, then I can do it no other way, even if they want moderation.
I’d be interested in hearing feedback from others about my “all or nothing” approach. Has anyone been able to completely control an addiction by using moderation? To me it seems it would lead right back to where you began. Maybe this is a personality thing, or maybe it is just the nature of addiction... and “cold turkey” is really the only answer, regardless of how very hard it is.
