What's It Costing You?

One of the differences between alcohol and food, is that the consequences of any given binge eating episode are less immediate/impactful than a night of blackout drinking.

It’s easy for the food urge to manipulate us into overeating with this fact. 

“You’re not going to get arrested for overeating.”

“Eating doesn’t change your personality the way drinking did.”

“Your pants will feel a little tight, but you won’t be slurring your words!”

“You’re a little overweight. Beats getting your kids taken away!”

“This one takeout meal isn’t even that expensive – better than blowing money at the bar!”

All of these thoughts are, technically, TRUE. 

Tricky right?

Here’s what’s also true: This rationalization suggests we are eating to avoid drinking. But with established sobriety, this may no longer be the case. All we are doing is justifying our addictive habits.

 How can we tell the difference? How it feels. Supporting recovery feels good. Justifying addictive behaviors feels awful.

Here is the reality of what overeating was costing me:

 -Food addiction was keeping me in bondage.

-Overeating was keeping me in lies and secrecy.

-Restricting food DID change my personality.

-Overeating was costing me thousands of dollars a year (tens of thousands all together, I’m sure).

-I wore my food addiction and carried it with me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

-Food addiction was as heavy a burden as I had ever carried. Period.

When I grounded myself in this reality, it was less easily manipulated by Addiction Voice when it tried to seduce me away from my recovery with “just this one won’t hurt…”

What is food addiction costing you?