How do you help an addict?
For most of my life I have been very unhealthy and unhappy. I try to take a step to a healthier life and then just crash. I must admit I have a major addiction! This addiction is food. Some would say food is a very easy addiction to conquer, but this is not true. Food is as much as an addiction as meth is to an drug addict. It gives me a great high and then a great low. At a very young age I let food become my everything. Food was my comfort and my best friend. I use food whenever I am happy and want to celebrate or food is my comfort when I am sad and I need comfort to ease my pain. I try to tell myself that food is killing me a little every day, but when I need that high I just can't seem to say NO.
Last week I started my normal "HEY, I am going to be healthy and start a new healthy life" and I did a great job for one week working out one hour every day and watching how much I ate and what I would eat. I lost 7 LBS and then you got it I needed that HIGH and I have not been able to stop wanting that high since.
I think a lot of people benefit from seeking outside help such as a counselor. It seems a little strange to seek psychological help for something that feels more physical, but I've heard of some great successes and I believe it's hard to separate the two anyways. I know I've gained physical rewards from mental analyzation so I just thought it would be helpful for others. :)
ReplyDeleteI know exactly how you feel. I am a food addict as well. It is comfort, it is fun, it fills the spaces and emptiness, it never leaves you feeling empty. I too have a food addiction and I need to work on it. My nutrition teacher said that one way to help curb this addiction is to make sure that you are eating everything you need in moderation. Your meals should be colorful and light so that you never feel that you are depriving yourself of anything. When you tell yourself you can't have something that is when you crave it most, instead change your vocabulary and allow yourself this much or choose to eat "this" now and "that" tomorrow. Another thing that I notice really really REALLY has helped me in the past and I keep having to remind myself just how well it works is writing in a journal. Write about why you ate what you did. Write about how you felt. Write about how felt before you ate and how you felt after you ate. I have done alot of research on journal writing and have found that it is one of the best ways to exercise your physical and mental health. It works as therapy and it can be very healing. I need to take my own advice and write in a journal everyday, especially when I feel that I need to turn to food for help. Today, I Kimberly will commit to writing in my journal every day, or every time I feel that I need to turn to food to get that "high", I hope that you will commit to this to. I love you.
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