Addiction, Overeating And How One Can Aid The Other

If you’re going to describe overeating as an addiction then you’re going to have to tread a thin line. It’s a good way of describing it as long as you take into account that regardless of how strong your compulsion to eat is, it’s never going to be the same as a smoker’s compulsion to smoke or an alcoholic’s compulsion to drink. Providing you accept that we’re now using a watered down and weaker version of the word addiction then it’s okay for us to call it that, anything else would be fallacy.

If we do look at overeating as an addiction then we can use some of the ways of treating addiction in our battle against overeating. This is wonderfully useful as some people do genuinely struggle with the constant desire to eat until they can’t eat any more.

Often times this is the power of habit taking over. Many smokers have said that after they’ve stopped smoking they’ve had to find something to do with their hands at times when they’d otherwise be smoking. Many buy stress toys or take up hobbies like knitting. You can use this method for taking you mind off eating too, if you go and get a glass of water whenever you feel the overpowering desire to eat then you might actually convince your body that you’ve eaten and you’re now full. If this doesn’t work then distract yourself. Never doubt the power of distraction when it comes to beating cravings.

Another method used when treating addiction is the power of community. Alcoholics Anonymous are a great example of this. A support group full of people going through the same thing that you’re going through can be fantastically useful when trying to find the motivation to push through the pangs! It can be nice to have people to talk to who understand and don’t just feign sympathy. It can also be handy to have people who’ll help to stop you from falling back into old habits!