I was at the gym doing my cardio on the elliptical machine and I totally didn’t feel like working out today at all.  In order to pass the time a little, I grabbed a Newsweek that was at the gym.  Obviously it had gotten some good use since it was all wrinkled and torn.  The headline read The Hunt for an Addiction Vaccine.  It was kind of like someone was addicted to the magazine and went crazy with it.  This gave me a funny mental image in my head, and my dread for working out today was quickly overcome with humor.  

Onto a serious note…

I have had friends who have struggled with addiction (i.e. alcoholism and drug abuse and cigarettes) so I read this article to maybe gain some insight on the subject.  The article asks, “What does it mean to be an addict?  For a long time the answer was that someone lacked willpower…In the current jargon of the recovery movement, addiction to alcohol, drugs or nicotine is a ‘bio-psycho-social-spiritual’ disorder…” 

I didn’t know this but the term “addiction” comes from the Latin addictus, a debtor who was indentured to work off what he owed.  I thought this was so interesting and I can now draw so many interesting visuals in my head that play off this relationship.

There are some new drugs out there that completely erases an alcoholics desire to drink.  It’s not the old one that makes you vomit once you’ve digested alcohol (Pavlov’s Dog Syndrome), but it calms down the wiring in an alcoholics brain (their brains are wired differently than non-alcoholics brains) and causes them to simply not desire alcohol anymore.  There’s also this new drug out that gets rid of the feeling of intoxication.  This would surely put every bar and college Frat house out of business, but for the sake of alcoholism, it’s like, “What’s the point if I can’t feel drunk?”  

The article mostly talked about alcoholism, nicotine and drug addiction like heroin and cocaine.  It didn’t talk at all about food addiction.  I thought this was interesting because the article’s message is that people who suffer addictions have an illness, not just a crutch, and therefore, their illness should be treated just like any illness.  We don’t shun our friend who needs to take their insulin shot, do we?  

What about food?  Our society looks at overweight people as lazy and fat.  It is so the opposite.  Unfortunately, fat is worn on the outside at all times.  This is the double crutch of obesity.  At least an alcoholic or a smoker can still look good on the outside?  But sucks for them that they don’t really know what they’re doing to their body.  

I was never teased for being chubby.  It was usually for my curly hair that got all of the attention.  I always had friends.  Well, except those middle school years where I only had one friend.  We both played the flute.  I think everyone in middle school had that “one friend who played the flute.”  My family and our sense of humor was my saving grace in those years.  But I wasn’t lacking friends because of my weight, it was because I was so shy (believe it or not!).  And luckily, my two best friends went to another middle school so on weekends, when it *really mattered who your friends were at 13, I had them to hang out with for pizza parties and prank calls.  

So not everyone who is overweight has these sob stories of having no friends and people yelling names at them at the bus stop or during that Red Rover game.  I always faired pretty well.  Just like, not every alcoholic has that wake-up call story of coming out of a blackout, waking up in their own vomit, at 3AM.  Sometimes, alcoholics and cocaine addicts are the life of the party.  

This Newsweek article just got me to think about addictions.  I know that alcoholics miss alcohol and drug addicts miss the drugs and smokers miss having their excuse to step outside, get away from it all, and pull out a drag.  

What about the social side of eating.  It’s everywhere.  Is my LAP Band equal to one of these drugs?  A little plastic personal assistant?  When I eat too much I get this pain in my chest.  It’s not really bad enough where I am on the floor, rolling around saying to myself, “Never again!”  But it’s there.  My brain listens more closely now to when I am full.  

What do I miss about being able to eat like I used to?  I think I am still mourning the fact that I can’t eat as much as I used to.  In all actuality, I am surprised how much I can still eat with my 2nd fill.  I don’t have one pea and a carrot on my plate; I actually have a meal.  Just much smaller portions.  Sometimes, my urge is to keep eating.  To have seconds.  Usually when I am eating at home with my family or at a dinner party – when there’s just so much leftover food.  Or after I go grocery shopping and have an amazing, beautiful array of fresh, colorful foods at my display.  So yes, I am still mourning my portions.  The idea that one serving is 99 percent of the time enough.  

People who really, really enjoy things that can put them in physical, emotional, financial or spiritual debt have to put off instant gratification for the long term reward.  A practice I think we can all learn from in many areas of our lives.

Now, I am looking forward to eating things like quinoa and sushi wrapped up in brown rice (a shout out to Whole Foods!).  I do miss those chicken tacos from Chile’s.  Anyway, food still gives me a bit of a dopamine rush when I think about it.  Does it do that to everyone?  Everyone has to eat, right?  I am curious.  But I am working on keeping it in check.  Knowing I have a choice in how happy I’ll be if I eat that piece of cheese.  It’s still a journey, but I am so glad I am on it.  Right now my stomach is growling as I write this blog.  Oh, the irony.

The Newsweek article ends with this:

“The 12 Steps begin with a confession of powerlessness over addiction.  But there’s hope that science may some day help put that power within the reach of anyone who needs it.  And then who would choose not to grasp it, and begin the long war for sobriety – a war without end, but one worth the fighting.”