Eating Disorder or Addiction?

HUGE DISCLAIMER: I’m not a doctor, or a health care professional. If you have been diagnosed with an eating disorder, please take all steps recommended by your doctor. If you believe you have a clinical eating disorder please contact a health care professional. This reflection below is intended specifically for those who struggle with overeating not diagnosed or treated by a health care professional.

I AM a person who battled fatal alcoholism only to find themselves furiously googling things like “Do I have an eating disorder?” and “Binge Eating in Sobriety Diagnosis?”⁣

When we’re compulsively overeating, it’s not uncommon to look into clinical eating disorder diagnoses. I did.  I was going to find my diagnosis. And yet nothing quite fit my overeating symptoms.

 Yes, at times I ate excessively large amounts of food (binge eating).

But at other times, it wasn’t not a large amount of food – just small amounts of highly sweet or salty foods, compulsively.

At other times, I ate too much over long periods of time (not a binge, per se)

Sometimes it felt emotional. Other times – not at all. 

Sometimes it felt under control and I lost weight effortlessly.

Other times I had no idea how long or how much I would eat and felt absolutely convinced I could become hundreds of pounds overweight.

It felt so…random. And I could make these connections to emotions, family of origin, etc - but at the end of the day, the only thing that tied my overeating together was this feeling that I just really want to eat the f*@&ing thing, and nothing can stop me.

 So – none of the typical clinical eating disorder diagnoses fit. And I so desperately wanted them to, because I needed an answer. I needed to know what I was dealing with.

Here’s the one that finally did fit, for me:

 I had addiction (a mental/physical injury that urged me to do things that feel euphoric, regardless of consequence) which I knew because of my previous addiction to alcohol. And I was now eating compulsivelyto experience a euphoric effect.

 My diagnosis was addiction transfer to food. And that’s not covered in any of the psychology manuals, medical dictionaries, or diagnostic literature – that I’m aware of.

Here’s what addiction transfer to food looks like:

-Sobriety from previous addiction.

-Overpowering urges for too much/wrong kind of food that you feel compelled to obey.

-Experiencing temporary euphoria after complying with urge.

-Mental obsession with food, weight, and dieting.

-Extreme discomfort (depression, anxiety, cravings, edginess) when trying to stop or .

 It’s not so much about the amount of food we consume. It’s not so much about emotional eating, although that certainly plays a part. 

 But the cause of the overeating – if you’re sober and hungry – is very likely addiction transfer.

 And this specific diagnosis has a specific treatment. 

 We treat addiction transfer to food in OPAAT. Learn more here: