For those that have been lucky enough to not be addicted to anything, kudos. Of course, your perceptions about food addiction will be different, because it's based on your own experience. Truth is relative. Everyone has a different truth based on their own life journeys. Food addiction is real to me. My life experience has proven it to me. But of course, just like anything, addictions can be overcome. Whether an addiction is mental or bodily or a combination of both depends on the individual. Addiction is real to some, not so real to others.
This, this, 1000X this. Thanks for saying it better than I can Olivia. I just finished The End of Overeating (thanks for the suggestion, I believe it was Kaplods some time ago) it was very eye opening for me. It opened up the possibility for me to forgive myself a bit for making so many bad food choices in my life, I'm not just a morally bankrupt moron with zero self control, I am a human in a toxic food environment and now recognize some of the reasons why overcoming this addiction/habituation/whatever has been such a challenge. Even better, I gained some useful tools to fight against it. If anyone would like I would be happy to pass the book along to someone else who might stand to benefit from it.
Since eating is a combination of behavioral habits and biochemical effects its nearly impossible to compare multiple people's true dependency on one or the other. If scientists cant agree on this then there is no hope that we here will come to a concensus. Bottom line is that if thinking of food as an addiction helps frame your solution then who's to argue the efficacy of that? For me it did not work, you have to truly believe the food addiction theories in order to make those kinds changes in your food choices. No matter how hard I tried I knew in my heart of hearts that food was not to blame and focusing on hating xyz foods made my problems bigger and wider and fatter. Instead I chose to focus on my relationship with food, focusing on my behavioral patterns and putting myself in a position of power rather than surrendering to external guidelines. Once I gave up on the addiction theory I was miraculously no longer addicted to the foods other people told me were addictive.
Last edited by Palestrina; 06-08-2014 at 08:30 AM.
Once I gave up on the addiction theory I was miraculously no longer addicted to the foods other people told me were addictive.
There are no miracles in true addiction. If you were able to miraculously " turn off" your abuse or overuse of "foods other people told [you] were addictive" then you were never addicted - has nothing to do with your belief.
Using or even abusing a substance with addiction potential doesn't make you an addict, but being able to miraculously quit with a simple perspective change does pretty much does guarantee that you never were an addict in the first place.
Alcoholics and drug addicts (and sugar addicts, as well) often believe they're not addicted and that they have no problem. Unfortunately belief neither makes it true nor false.
Thinking you are an addict doesn't make you one, any more than thinking you're not an addict when you are will make you anything but what you are.
For myself, my results have been entirely independent of belief. When I didn't believe in food addiction (most of my life, actually) I had difficulty portion-controlling some foods and no difficulty controlling others and would lose weight easily and without hunger on low-carb. I did believe in following medical advice and I didn't know how to follow low-carb healthfully, but my body didn't respond differently, just because I did or did not believe in addiction.
In hindsight, I should have seen the pattern, but didn't. I'm still conflicted as to whether I will always have to abstain from trigger foods, or just until my blood sugar issues resolve (if they ever do).
The scientific research is becoming clearer that there are physiological explanations for food-control issues, particularly bloodsugar-related ones. That insulin-sugar relationship is not altered by any belief sysyem. It is what it is.
Your belief system can certainly affect your behavior, but there are no miracles, especially for the morbidly and super morbidly obese (whose insulin-regulation is usually so incredibly out-of-whack that no amount of belief can allow the person to eat sugar in moderation without intensely painful consequences).
I suspect I had blood sugar regulation issues, and an unusually high sugar/salt/fat drive even as a small child, probably even before I became overweight at age 5. What I remember most about my childhood was the constant hunger (mostly for carbohydrates) even when my stomach was full.
The cliche about the parents being to blame made no sense, because none of my 3 siblings (none with my bio-parents) were overweight as children, and no one in the family has ever been over 275 lbs (let alone nearly 400).
I strongly suspect that the kind of food addiction that leads to weights of 250 lbs or more, is virtually impossible for anyone who has never been over 250 lbs to understand. It's like a human trying to speak dolphin. It's not just a matter of mindset or degree, it's an entirely different experience set.
Maybe mind over matter works "miraculously" if you have less than 50-60 lbs to lose, but I've never met anyone over 250 lbs who was able to turn that switch so easily.
I've given a lot of thought to this issue of food addiction in my own life.
I certainly can't speak for everyone but here is what I've discovered about myself.
1. I can't say I'm addicted to food the way a drug addict is addicted to drugs. For example, I really can't resist birthday cake-- it is a binge food for me. AND YET when I buy a birthday cake for my kid's birthday, I absolutely never sit down and mainline it before the party. It never occurs to me. I also won't touch it after the birthday if I think my child still wants it. In fact I won't be unable to resist scarfing it down until I'm sure it's okay-- i.e. my kid doesn't want it anymore.
When I had that realization, I realized that I absolutely have control over my behavior around food. When it's not appropriate to eat something, or too much of something, I don't. That, to me, is not the behavior of an addict. That is the behavior of a person who is, at some level, choosing to eat too much.
It doesn't feel like a choice when I eat something I don't "want" to eat. But in fact, it's a choice.
My problem is not that I can't resist food. My problem is that resisting foods I like is unpleasant, and I find it hard to sustain the feeling that I REALLY REALLY care about losing weight-- enough to deny myself the pleasure that I want in the moment.
For me, I think that at some point a very long time ago, I developed the habit of eating more than I needed because I found it pleasurable, and then pretty soon it became an ingrained crutch, and it's such a deep-seated habit, and so comforting for me that I really HATE giving it up.
I lost more than a hundred pounds and kept it off for quite a while, but I definitely recall thinking to myself, as I was putting the weight back on something along the lines of "who cares?"
At any given moment, my desire to lose weight and my desire to eat more are at war.
I do think a very deeply ingrained very bad habit is different from an addiction, in that if I understand correctly, an addict truly can't control the behavior. I'm never going to hold up a convenience store because I need money to buy twinkies. That's the difference, in my mind.
I've given a lot of thought to this issue of food addiction in my own life.
I certainly can't speak for everyone but here is what I've discovered about myself.
1. I can't say I'm addicted to food the way a drug addict is addicted to drugs. For example, I really can't resist birthday cake-- it is a binge food for me. AND YET when I buy a birthday cake for my kid's birthday, I absolutely never sit down and mainline it before the party. It never occurs to me. I also won't touch it after the birthday if I think my child still wants it. In fact I won't be unable to resist scarfing it down until I'm sure it's okay-- i.e. my kid doesn't want it anymore.
When I had that realization, I realized that I absolutely have control over my behavior around food. When it's not appropriate to eat something, or too much of something, I don't. That, to me, is not the behavior of an addict. That is the behavior of a person who is, at some level, choosing to eat too much.
It doesn't feel like a choice when I eat something I don't "want" to eat. But in fact, it's a choice.
My problem is not that I can't resist food. My problem is that resisting foods I like is unpleasant, and I find it hard to sustain the feeling that I REALLY REALLY care about losing weight-- enough to deny myself the pleasure that I want in the moment.
For me, I think that at some point a very long time ago, I developed the habit of eating more than I needed because I found it pleasurable, and then pretty soon it became an ingrained crutch, and it's such a deep-seated habit, and so comforting for me that I really HATE giving it up.
I lost more than a hundred pounds and kept it off for quite a while, but I definitely recall thinking to myself, as I was putting the weight back on something along the lines of "who cares?"
At any given moment, my desire to lose weight and my desire to eat more are at war.
I do think a very deeply ingrained very bad habit is different from an addiction, in that if I understand correctly, an addict truly can't control the behavior. I'm never going to hold up a convenience store because I need money to buy twinkies. That's the difference, in my mind.
I don't think there really is that much difference. Most addicts don't hold up liquor stores and most make choices in their use - alcoholics and drug addicts who don't belive they have an addiction because they never drove or went to work impaired and never used in front of their kids.
In substance abuse treatment, they are called functional addicts and alcoholics. Cetainly addiction can progress to completely nonfunctionality, but it doesn't always. Addiction comes in many degrees of functionality.
One of the main reasons food addicts rarely steal to support their habit is because they don't have to. The addictive foods are cheap and absolutely everywhere. Also, use and abuse doesn't cause immediate disfunction. The "high" is no more disruptive than that of cafeine. In the short-term it can even improve productivity (not that differently than for nocotine).
Not all that long ago, nicotine wasn't seen as a true addiction, because it didn't impair immediate functionality. Sure it could eventually cause impairment by way of asthma, emphysema/copd, and lung cancer, but that was long down the road, and didn't happen to everyone who smoked.
Low-grade addictions (those that do not impair, or only mildly impair functionality) are sometimes the hardest to kick, because both the addict and the community deny that a problem exists and see it as "no big deal," because the person is still making at least some responsible or self-protective choices - riding their addiction rather than allowing the addiction to ride them.
You're never going to see folks resort to prostitution or armed robbery for sugar - well, unless maybe sugar were outlawed and going for $100 an ounce on the black market.
Even then, I don't see the high being worth it to most people, but it probably would be to some (as it alledgedly has been in the past, when sugar WAS expensive and in limited supply. Until the late 19th century, sugar was routinely kept under lock and key in specially designed sugar chests because it was insanely expensive and was considered so precious that it was often stolen. At the time, sugar was more plexpensive and more precious than cocaine and morphine which were common otc medicines).
Here are some examples of my behaviors which lead me to believe I"m a food addict:
-My dr. told me that I was pre-diabetic and I continued binge eating massive amounts of sugar-laden food. I didn't care at that time but afterwards, I'd experience intense remorse and panic over becoming diabetic and being unable to do anything about it.
-In front of others, I'd try to fake normal eating, but I would hide food in my pockets and sneak it into my bedroom, shove food in my mouth when nobody was looking and keep it stashed in places where nobody would find it. I would also hide wrappers and evidence with other trash, even though externally, I can gain a lot of weight in short periods of time so I wasn't fooling anyone.
-If I would run into someone after not seeing them for a month or two, I could see the look of shock in their eyes from the drastic change in my appearance.
-Eating the addictive foods made me feel very sick and depressed, yet I couldn't stop completely...eventually, I would go back to my foods of choice. Even though I had severe heart burn and other symptoms, I just couldn't get myself to stop. For 27 years I battled this monster and it only kept getting progressively worse. I couldn't believe my own lies anymore (I'll eat well tomorrow, I'll work out and burn these calories off like Michael Phelps, yeah right, etc...).
-I would often eat so much that I could feel the food coming back up. I wouldn't even taste much of what I was shoving into my mouth. I usually couldn't remember what I had even had or how much.
-I was always chasing a better taste. Nothing ever really satisfied my expectation of how delicious something should taste. I always thought I could do better and I could find something that would satisfy me, but it was incredibly rare and eventually, non-existent.
-In the supermarket, I would hyperventilate trying to figure out which foods I should buy that would give me my fix. I was very embarrassed to buy anything and was afraid someone I know would see me. Once I would buy something, I couldn't wait till I got home to have it...I would eat it while driving but would try to drive so that people in cars next to me wouldn't see me eating an entire box of ice cream candy bars at 9 a.m. or whatever crazy things I was having.
-I went from occasional binges to all day non stop stuffing myself. I felt completely powerless and I wished I could go to a residential facility for eating disorders, yet I didn't think I qualified because I wasn't anorexic and only occasionally bulimic...I knew that purging was useless because after purging, I'd go and get more food to stuff into my body.
-I tried diets, meds, purging, restricting and eventually, I would give up because I could only white-knuckle it for so long.
-I felt like I was slowly killing myself. I absolutely believe food addiction has deadly consequences and even though they're not as swift as those of heroine, they eventually lead you to the same 6 feet under ground.
I know this all sounds very dramatic, but I take this very seriously. I don't believe every overweight person is a food addict, but I do believe every food addict can manage their addiction if they come to realize that it's not about willpower....at least that's how it is for me anyway.
Last edited by luckymommy; 06-07-2014 at 07:07 AM.
Reason: typos
I think it is a complex issue. For me, I always had problems with bread but I also had strong childhood memories of bread in terms of excess and restriction. Also bread was something my mother and me used to bond over. When I was young, my mother often went on low carb diets and took me along with her, but eventually they would end and we'd go back to eating bread, often in great excess.
Within my weight loss and maintenance, I rarely ate bread but I'd always have problems binging on it when I did allow myself to eat it. In the past year though, bread has lost its hold on me. I like bread, I eat bread occasionally, when I want it, I make bread but now I have no interest in eating more than a couple slices. For me, it was really accepting bread as just a food, a food I could have if I chose helped me overcome the intense desire to eat bread. I don't know if that makes sense but giving up bread as my 'trigger' food, something I must heavily restrict actually gave me the freedom to be ok with bread and eating bread.
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luckymommy, your post is very interesting because I think this applies to more people than we realize. I would like to hear the rest of the story...apparently you have made some big and lasting changes!
Location: Home of the Pirates, Steelers and Penguins
Posts: 12,400
S/C/G: 217/179/142
Height: 5'2
Someone said a food addict doesn't steal to support their habit. Not so! I remember as a child (10 years old or so) stealing money out of my mother's purse to buy candy bars. This was waaaay back when candy bars were 5 cents and I could get 5 for a quarter. I would come out of the store and just eat them all. My mother never bought deli meat....too expensive. So I would steal money from her purse and buy 1/4 lbs of it and eat it right out of the wrapping. I was not a big eater at meals at home and I played hard and burned it all off. I was not fat as a kid, but I WAS a food addict, even at 10 years old. It didn't catch up to me until I was in my 40s.
Nelie, to this day, bread is my issue.
Last edited by Wannabehealthy; 06-07-2014 at 07:40 AM.
Here are some examples of my behaviors which lead me to believe I"m a food addict:
-My dr. told me that I was pre-diabetic and I continued binge eating massive amounts of sugar-laden food. I didn't care at that time but afterwards, I'd experience intense remorse and panic over becoming diabetic and being unable to do anything about it.
-In front of others, I'd try to fake normal eating, but I would hide food in my pockets and sneak it into my bedroom, shove food in my mouth when nobody was looking and keep it stashed in places where nobody would find it. I would also hide wrappers and evidence with other trash, even though externally, I can gain a lot of weight in short periods of time so I wasn't fooling anyone.
-If I would run into someone after not seeing them for a month or two, I could see the look of shock in their eyes from the drastic change in my appearance.
-Eating the addictive foods made me feel very sick and depressed, yet I couldn't stop completely...eventually, I would go back to my foods of choice. Even though I had severe heart burn and other symptoms, I just couldn't get myself to stop. For 27 years I battled this monster and it only kept getting progressively worse. I couldn't believe my own lies anymore (I'll eat well tomorrow, I'll work out and burn these calories off like Michael Phelps, yeah right, etc...).
-I would often eat so much that I could feel the food coming back up. I wouldn't even taste much of what I was shoving into my mouth. I usually couldn't remember what I had even had or how much.
-I was always chasing a better taste. Nothing ever really satisfied my expectation of how delicious something should taste. I always thought I could do better and I could find something that would satisfy me, but it was incredibly rare and eventually, non-existent.
-In the supermarket, I would hyperventilate trying to figure out which foods I should buy that would give me my fix. I was very embarrassed to buy anything and was afraid someone I know would see me. Once I would buy something, I couldn't wait till I got home to have it...I would eat it while driving but would try to drive so that people in cars next to me wouldn't see me eating an entire box of ice cream candy bars at 9 a.m. or whatever crazy things I was having.
-I went from occasional binges to all day non stop stuffing myself. I felt completely powerless and I wished I could go to a residential facility for eating disorders, yet I didn't think I qualified because I wasn't anorexic and only occasionally bulimic...I knew that purging was useless because after purging, I'd go and get more food to stuff into my body.
-I tried diets, meds, purging, restricting and eventually, I would give up because I could only white-knuckle it for so long.
-I felt like I was slowly killing myself. I absolutely believe food addiction has deadly consequences and even though they're not as swift as those of heroine, they eventually lead you to the same 6 feet under ground.
I know this all sounds very dramatic, but I take this very seriously. I don't believe every overweight person is a food addict, but I do believe every food addict can manage their addiction if they come to realize that it's not about willpower....at least that's how it is for me anyway.
I could have written this post. Bravo Luckymommy for saying it.
Thank you for sharing. This is word for word an exact description of my eating disorder.
Quote:
Originally Posted by luckymommy
Here are some examples of my behaviors which lead me to believe I"m a food addict:
-My dr. told me that I was pre-diabetic and I continued binge eating massive amounts of sugar-laden food. I didn't care at that time but afterwards, I'd experience intense remorse and panic over becoming diabetic and being unable to do anything about it. I'm not pre-diabetic, but I don't doubt that I am on my way there if I continue on with this eating disorder.
-In front of others, I'd try to fake normal eating, but I would hide food in my pockets and sneak it into my bedroom, shove food in my mouth when nobody was looking and keep it stashed in places where nobody would find it. I would also hide wrappers and evidence with other trash, even though externally, I can gain a lot of weight in short periods of time so I wasn't fooling anyone. I keep numerous plastic bags in my car. When I go through a drive through I have to drive to a remote parking lot where nobody knows me so that I can dispose of the evidence, concealed in trash bags, in public trash bins. I'm the classic case of going through the drive thru window and ordering enough food for 4 people, making sure that I order 2 different drinks so that the people there wouldn't know that the food was all for me. A diet coke and a sprite.
-If I would run into someone after not seeing them for a month or two, I could see the look of shock in their eyes from the drastic change in my appearance.
-Eating the addictive foods made me feel very sick and depressed, yet I couldn't stop completely...eventually, I would go back to my foods of choice. Even though I had severe heart burn and other symptoms, I just couldn't get myself to stop. For 27 years I battled this monster and it only kept getting progressively worse. I couldn't believe my own lies anymore (I'll eat well tomorrow, I'll work out and burn these calories off like Michael Phelps, yeah right, etc...). I felt like this often, why couldn't I stop? I was really afraid that one day a doctor would tell me "if you continue to eat xyz you will die" and yet I knew I'd still eat those foods.
-I would often eat so much that I could feel the food coming back up. I wouldn't even taste much of what I was shoving into my mouth. I usually couldn't remember what I had even had or how much. Oh yes, bringing myself to that point at least gave me something to feel.
-I was always chasing a better taste. Nothing ever really satisfied my expectation of how delicious something should taste. I always thought I could do better and I could find something that would satisfy me, but it was incredibly rare and eventually, non-existent. This is probably the factor that put me over the edge and made me reach out for help. Food had lost all its taste.
-In the supermarket, I would hyperventilate trying to figure out which foods I should buy that would give me my fix. I was very embarrassed to buy anything and was afraid someone I know would see me. Once I would buy something, I couldn't wait till I got home to have it...I would eat it while driving but would try to drive so that people in cars next to me wouldn't see me eating an entire box of ice cream candy bars at 9 a.m. or whatever crazy things I was having. Food anxiety, last supper syndrome, secrete eating,hide the evidence, constantly feeling that what I want is not normal.
-I went from occasional binges to all day non stop stuffing myself. I felt completely powerless and I wished I could go to a residential facility for eating disorders, yet I didn't think I qualified because I wasn't anorexic and only occasionally bulimic...I knew that purging was useless because after purging, I'd go and get more food to stuff into my body. This is a real eating disorder, you would be diagnosed within seconds of sharing these symptoms. I was.
-I tried diets, meds, purging, restricting and eventually, I would give up because I could only white-knuckle it for so long. White knuckling exacerbates the symptoms.
-I felt like I was slowly killing myself. I absolutely believe food addiction has deadly consequences and even though they're not as swift as those of heroine, they eventually lead you to the same 6 feet under ground.
I know this all sounds very dramatic, but I take this very seriously. I don't believe every overweight person is a food addict, but I do believe every food addict can manage their addiction if they come to realize that it's not about willpower....at least that's how it is for me anyway.
This is not dramatic, I identify with every word you say. That is why I am so passionate about getting the help that I needed. This ^^^^ is how I have lived for 20yrs. If you think a diet can cure that type of behavior you could not be more wrong. Abstinence cannot cure that either, just like abstinence from alcohol would maybe treat the addiction, but not the causes that led to it.
I do not at all think this is addiction. This is an eating disorder. Food does not cause an eating disorder, nor can it cure an eating disorder. I'm really glad you wrote this out, this was my life up until a couple of months ago. It feels very very far away now but I remember every moment of it and how out of control and helpless I felt. Based on how I'm doing now I know that it's not possible for me to ever get back to that rock bottom, I have too many life lines to sink that far. I can't tell you what to do or where to go from here because you have your own methods that have worked and gotten you to where you are, but I can tell you that I've been there, exactly there, and I'm not there anymore. I can tell you that what you describe is not addiction, it's an eating disorder. There is a big difference, at least to me.
Last edited by Palestrina; 06-07-2014 at 08:48 AM.
Maybe mind over matter works "miraculously" if you have less than 50-60 lbs to lose, but I've never met anyone over 250 lbs who was able to turn that switch so easily.
The struggle each person faces is very personal. You may not diminish what I have been through, the extent of my eating disorder, or the amount of work that I put into addressing it. There is a difference between finding the right method and finding the method that everyone else says is the right method. I can only speak through my own experience, I may not have as much weight to lose as you but that does not mean I have not faced my own struggles.
I've given a lot of thought to this issue of food addiction in my own life.
I certainly can't speak for everyone but here is what I've discovered about myself.
1. I can't say I'm addicted to food the way a drug addict is addicted to drugs. For example, I really can't resist birthday cake-- it is a binge food for me. AND YET when I buy a birthday cake for my kid's birthday, I absolutely never sit down and mainline it before the party. It never occurs to me. I also won't touch it after the birthday if I think my child still wants it. In fact I won't be unable to resist scarfing it down until I'm sure it's okay-- i.e. my kid doesn't want it anymore.
When I had that realization, I realized that I absolutely have control over my behavior around food. When it's not appropriate to eat something, or too much of something, I don't. That, to me, is not the behavior of an addict. That is the behavior of a person who is, at some level, choosing to eat too much.
It doesn't feel like a choice when I eat something I don't "want" to eat. But in fact, it's a choice.
My problem is not that I can't resist food. My problem is that resisting foods I like is unpleasant, and I find it hard to sustain the feeling that I REALLY REALLY care about losing weight-- enough to deny myself the pleasure that I want in the moment.
For me, I think that at some point a very long time ago, I developed the habit of eating more than I needed because I found it pleasurable, and then pretty soon it became an ingrained crutch, and it's such a deep-seated habit, and so comforting for me that I really HATE giving it up.
I lost more than a hundred pounds and kept it off for quite a while, but I definitely recall thinking to myself, as I was putting the weight back on something along the lines of "who cares?"
At any given moment, my desire to lose weight and my desire to eat more are at war.
I do think a very deeply ingrained very bad habit is different from an addiction, in that if I understand correctly, an addict truly can't control the behavior. I'm never going to hold up a convenience store because I need money to buy twinkies. That's the difference, in my mind.
No, they are basically one and the same thing. An addict CAN control the habit. The brain's reward center's, which are tied to anatomical structures reflect similar activity whether it's sugar or heroin. The reason you are never going to hold up a convenience store has more to do with the fact that your addiction is for a legal, cheap, readily available substance. And other factors.
Here are some examples of my behaviors which lead me to believe I"m a food addict:
-My dr. told me that I was pre-diabetic and I continued binge eating massive amounts of sugar-laden food. I didn't care at that time but afterwards, I'd experience intense remorse and panic over becoming diabetic and being unable to do anything about it.
-In front of others, I'd try to fake normal eating, but I would hide food in my pockets and sneak it into my bedroom, shove food in my mouth when nobody was looking and keep it stashed in places where nobody would find it. I would also hide wrappers and evidence with other trash, even though externally, I can gain a lot of weight in short periods of time so I wasn't fooling anyone.
-If I would run into someone after not seeing them for a month or two, I could see the look of shock in their eyes from the drastic change in my appearance.
-Eating the addictive foods made me feel very sick and depressed, yet I couldn't stop completely...eventually, I would go back to my foods of choice. Even though I had severe heart burn and other symptoms, I just couldn't get myself to stop. For 27 years I battled this monster and it only kept getting progressively worse. I couldn't believe my own lies anymore (I'll eat well tomorrow, I'll work out and burn these calories off like Michael Phelps, yeah right, etc...).
-I would often eat so much that I could feel the food coming back up. I wouldn't even taste much of what I was shoving into my mouth. I usually couldn't remember what I had even had or how much.
-I was always chasing a better taste. Nothing ever really satisfied my expectation of how delicious something should taste. I always thought I could do better and I could find something that would satisfy me, but it was incredibly rare and eventually, non-existent.
-In the supermarket, I would hyperventilate trying to figure out which foods I should buy that would give me my fix. I was very embarrassed to buy anything and was afraid someone I know would see me. Once I would buy something, I couldn't wait till I got home to have it...I would eat it while driving but would try to drive so that people in cars next to me wouldn't see me eating an entire box of ice cream candy bars at 9 a.m. or whatever crazy things I was having.
-I went from occasional binges to all day non stop stuffing myself. I felt completely powerless and I wished I could go to a residential facility for eating disorders, yet I didn't think I qualified because I wasn't anorexic and only occasionally bulimic...I knew that purging was useless because after purging, I'd go and get more food to stuff into my body.
-I tried diets, meds, purging, restricting and eventually, I would give up because I could only white-knuckle it for so long.
-I felt like I was slowly killing myself. I absolutely believe food addiction has deadly consequences and even though they're not as swift as those of heroine, they eventually lead you to the same 6 feet under ground.
I know this all sounds very dramatic, but I take this very seriously. I don't believe every overweight person is a food addict, but I do believe every food addict can manage their addiction if they come to realize that it's not about willpower....at least that's how it is for me anyway.
I want to thank you as well for sharing this. It seems it speaks to many of us and I know for me, there were parts that were exactly what I have felt and been through over the years.
I haven't read this whole thread, so I might be asking something you already answered, but how have you been managing this food addiction? Are you abstaining from sugar and/or carbs? I have found this to be the most effective way to manage this addiction for me, but at the same time I have difficultly with feeling restricted, as that leads to a binge as well.
You are so right to refer to it as a monster. It absolutely is a monster. It seems to be the last addiction that does not receive support or validation from society. I see so many programs for drug addicts, alcoholics, or even gamblers. Tell someone that drugs addicts are lazy and should stop through will power, and you would get a ration of sh!t, but its perfectly acceptable to say that about "fat" people. Its perfectly acceptable to say we are lazy and weak...I feel that food addiction is really shamed in the public eye and in my opinion, that makes it harder for many people to seek help. We feel that unless we are 80 lbs and obviously anorexic, that we do not have an eating disorder, we just need to try harder and put down the fork... and so we continue to deal with shame and guilt and feeling like failures....which only drives us towards our drug of choice. Its a very sad and lonely cycle.
Thanks for saying it better than I can Olivia. I just finished The End of Overeating (thanks for the suggestion, I believe it was Kaplods some time ago) it was very eye opening for me. It opened up the possibility for me to forgive myself a bit for making so many bad food choices in my life, I'm not just a morally bankrupt moron with zero self control, I am a human in a toxic food environment and now recognize some of the reasons why overcoming this addiction/habituation/whatever has been such a challenge. Even better, I gained some useful tools to fight against it. If anyone would like I would be happy to pass the book along to someone else who might stand to benefit from it. 
