Addictions come easy. Addictions die hard.

There are commonalities in all of them – food, cigarettes, drugs, alcohol – they are different means of coping with a similar end result. Our addictions divert us from our emotions, our substances offer sustenance – they are reliable, easily available (or we ensure that they are), and they never let us down. However, our reliance upon them does. We let ourselves down, and the best pick-me-up is that next slice of cake or pint of beer that can extinguish the fire within.

Addictions are no different than the array of credit cards and loan offers in our consumer culture. They provide promise and comfort, opportunities to get needs met, offer the allure of fun and frivolity in the short run. They reel us in by making us feel powerful and as we get lost in the shuffle of insurmountable debt, insurmountable emotion, and irresponsibility to our own checks and balances, addiction and debt ensue. Eventually, we run out of credit in every sense of the word. It is no wonder that drug and alcohol addiction is also often linked to financial ruin and a sort of emotional bankruptcy.

The recent battles with addiction that seem to be present in the lives of people close to me trigger my own five-fire-alarm. I am immediately back in Weight Watcher mode – monitoring my food intake, weighing, measuring, and recording. I counted points. Others count days of sobriety. These checks and balances ensure our savings; we are saving ourselves from ourselves.

During times of strife, my protective instincts direct me to withdraw from others in my life in fear of greater disappointment, hurt, etc. I turn to food as alcoholics turn to drink; it is there, easily, and provides the warm nurturance we crave. There is no nurturance in abuse.

Psychologists often discuss the notion of us versus them. How we distinguish ourselves from others, much like animals – keeps us part of one pack versus another. Even on Will & Grace, Karen (an alcoholic) takes note of a friend who goes to Alcoholics Anonymous and says something (with a martini in hand) to the effect of “I can’t believe I am losing another friend to this disease”… meaning sobriety, of course.

In my heaviness, friends and I would often go on ‘food runs’. These ‘food runs’ were not obvious to us, but in retrospect, drives from bakery to restaurant and back across the city were not helping the cause. Our friends with whom we go out drinking are no different. I remember that immediately after losing weight, former ‘food run’ friends who were aware of my weight loss efforts would still take me along for this ride – the wafting scent of freshly baked goods, fast food and so on were an attempt not to “lose me to this disease”… meaning a healthy lifestyle, of course.

I learned to be weary of investing further in these friends whose unconscious aim was to interfere with my saving, but my checks and balances (my Weight Watcher points, my pounds lost, my desire to lose more) – and my anger – kept me going. Where anger used to incentivize eating, abstinence became my way of asserting my anger and also my way of knowing my psychology had changed.

As a culture, we celebrate interaction with food and with drink. For those batting the bulge and the booze – what a conundrum! Does this mean our days of celebrating are over?

Feeling at all can be overwhelming when we have never learned to process emotion. It can be the most beautiful and honest connection we establish with ourselves. It is a celebration in and of itself. There is much to celebrate!

It all sounds so clichéd. I will give you that! Give me this, however… next time you feel like going for that slice of pie or cigarette or glass of wine that ultimately undermines your efforts – think about your checks and balances. Can you afford to do this?

As a thin person, my cup runneth over - not because I am not drinking and not because I am not eating. Moderating is a means of salvation for me, and the emotional rewards I obtain are invaluable. Invested in myself, I have slowly but surely provided my own good credit – in myself and in my life. Consider these words and insights a loan of good faith!

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