A few posts ago-we shared Jim Ryser’s success story of overcoming addiction and empowering himself to teach and counsel others. If you missed that post you can see it HERE. The cycle is so true. I don’t think I can honestly think of anyone that doesn’t have addiction to overcome. Negative thinking, food, chemicals, exercise, self-abuse are only a few that we encounter daily. Dee has been struggling with her issues with sugar and she writes—
Dee writes:
I’ve been contemplating addiction the past few days, considering the cycle of the way that people deal with emotional discomfort by masking pain through the consumption of _________ (fill in the blank). I have filled my blank in with food. Last night I became so angry at a situation in my home that it took everything in me to not eat or drink. Food (and chemicals) distract us. Even if these crutches of ours are not mind altering, they are always mood altering.
It is easy for me to look at that circle of addiction with alcohol or drugs because I am thankfully not addicted to those things. I see that people feel pain, use things to not feel pain temporarily, physical effects wear off, pain comes back, need for another drink/dose. The routine never stops until the issue is worked through and dealt with in a more healthy and productive manner.
But then I look at my addiction, which is food, and because this is closer to home, it’s hard to see as clearly how to break the chain. One technique that I think works for many people is to write down their emotions and food-related impulses. This one for me last night was clear as could be. I was about to go to sleep and didn’t feel the least bit hungry. After the chaos subsided a bit, I walked into the kitchen for the sole purpose of finding the worst possible food choice on hand to consume quickly and mindlessly. Thankfully, I realized the irrelevance of how eating would make me happy and I turned myself around. What did make me happy, this morning, was seeing an overall seven pound weight loss on the scale for the month of August.
This long-term reward will ultimately be more gratifying that a bag of Doritos would have been last night.
For more pearls from Dee visit her site HERE
