Nowhere do the Four Stages of Addiction come into play more strongly than when you resist changing a food-related habit that you self-medicate on. For most of us, those foods are instant and readily available: bread, drink, dessert, or alcohol. For others it is fatty foods, and plenty of them. You can choose from large portions of steak, burger and fries, huge bowls of salad with drops of dressing. Maybe cheese chunks appear as part of your daily food intake.
Whether it’s a basket of bread, a huge salad, or a box of cookies, your body needs a lot more time to process the extra food (more food than it can burn) that it can’t easily process. The body wears itself out. You get tired
Calories are units of energy. After eating your meal you want to feel energized, not tired.
Eating more than you need makes you feel like you’re high. This altered state zones the brain and helps you escape feelings.
Stage one – Resistance to change
The Program comes along and says, “Let’s not have a drink at every breakfast. Sometimes choose to have a drink every two or even three days. Soup is a meal. Put down your fork between bites. Weigh yourself twice a day.”
This is scary stuff. You may be thinking that you are comfortable in this old way. Therefore, a new way cannot be so comfortable. He mistakenly concludes that he will be uncomfortable. You do not know that this will be the result; you’ve never tried the new way before; but you resist the change even though you know the old way isn’t working. One component of addiction is that you keep doing what you’re doing even though there are negative consequences.
It is your old addicted brain resisting change by projecting a negative outcome, even though you have no knowledge or experience that your projection is valid. Addiction twists your way of thinking to justify your behavior.
Stage two: reluctant attempts
You join a weight loss group or buy a book and decide, however reluctantly, that you’ll give it a try. “I don’t want to do this, but I will choose a day without coffee. I don’t want to weigh myself twice a day. I don’t want to write down everything I eat. I don’t want to eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I don’t want to eat breakfast, but I will because I want to weigh ________ pounds.
Third Stage – Surprise, I enjoyed it
“I had hot cereal for breakfast and enjoyed it. I had the most wonderful soup for lunch one day. I didn’t think I would like it, but I did. I had a cup of hot water instead of tea one night and it was actually very nice I left food this week and no one died. I said no thanks to the alcohol at dinner one night and no one seemed to care.”
Stage four: the new shape becomes the comfortable and preferred shape
However, it is important to know that the attachment you seem to feel for certain foods is not based on how much you love that particular food. Rather, it indicates how addicted you are to falling asleep to that food. Thinking about food, getting the food, eating the food in a certain way, has become an integral part of your self-medication ritual. The thought of not acting (not getting your drug) causes you great anxiety. You eat the item (bread, drink, candy, popcorn, etc.) to alleviate the discomfort caused by not eating the item. Consider not drinking coffee and having a headache and then having a cup of coffee to ease the discomfort caused by not drinking coffee. It’s like a puppy chasing its tail.
Knowing that there are four stages to breaking an addiction will help you be proactive in traveling through stages two and three and moving from resistance to change to knowing that the new way is the comfortable and preferred way. This information will free you from the eating rituals you use to calm your anger, anxiety, or other uncomfortable feelings or thoughts. Then you can deal with the feelings more directly, more appropriately.