For those of us with other addictions, we have even one more excuse as we go to eat: “Well, at least I’m not… drinking or drugging (or fill in the blank).”  I can use that excuse up to 400 pounds or more on the way to dying a slower death. The fact was – for me – that since I was a compulsive eater and an alcoholic, as long as I continued to eat, I was not sober. The A.A. Big Book says that sobriety is and was soundness of mind. How sound was my thinking as I continued to eat compulsively, knowing all the time that it was a self-destructive act?

One of the things I have seen of lot of in 12 Step programs are people who put down one substance only to pick up another substance or addictive behavior. Food is often the second addiction for people who giving up drinking or drugs. For those of us for whom food was the main addiction, a secondary addiction might be spending, or sex, or any one of numerous substance or process addictions.

These various addictions are all just roots of the same tree – a soul sickness that can only be cured with the application of the 12 Steps of recovery. If you decide to simply treat the symptom and not the underlying causes of your addiction, you’re setting up either an inevitable relapse or a turn to another addiction. If you cut back on the branches of a tree, it immediately begins to grow new ones, as it needs to “feed” itself. The same is true with addictions. If the Step work doesn’t get done, the addiction will find other ways to “feed itself.” If the pressure builds up enough in an addict, the disease will find another way to dissipate it – unless you do the inner work.

At the bottom of addictions in many of us is what I call “fear of dead air.” In the radio business, “dead air” means silence – especially prolonged silence. For many of us who have been holding onto various “demons,” the last thing we want is to be alone with our thoughts. Often, this leads to the urge to turn to anything that fills that void. This can be another substance or different addictive activity, or even just an unrelenting urge to constantly be active and never slow down.

If you are already involved in a second addiction, you need to get help for it immediately, or all of the work done in the first program is in peril.  Why?  No growth can happen if you are still “self-medicating.  I love the phrase “self-medicating,” as it perfectly describes the relationship most compulsive eaters have with food. Normal eaters, even ones that like food a little too much, eat for the taste and the desire to stop hunger. Compulsive eaters, however, use food in a pharmaceutical way, to alleviate uncomfortable feelings.

One of the hardest questions we have to ask ourselves is, “Have I switched addictions?” At first, the answer might seem to be “no,” but it might be worth your while to ask yourself a question: “Is there anything I’m doing in my life that is not in moderation?” For some it might be shopping, for others sex, gambling, or (for those previous non-drinkers) drinking. I have a friend who was not part of a 12 Step program, but was a compulsive eater that got one of the many forms of stomach surgery. In my mind, that simply treats the symptom, which often morphs into another symptom. In her case, within a few months of the surgery – at 50 years of age – she went from being a moderate drinker to a full-blown alcoholic.

Again, your answer to the above paragraph might be “nope, not me!” Let’s move to some more benign behaviors not often associated with addiction, but which are – more and more – being identified as examples of “addictive behavior.” Some of us throw ourselves headlong into work, keeping late hours, and not living a full life. Again, as is said in various pieces of program literature “we recover to live, not live to recover.”

Do you surf the ‘net for hours on end? How about watching TV for most of your waking hours? After my father quit drinking (not because he wanted to, but due to a mild stroke), his life became totally about smoking and reading fiction books. I even know someone who began chewing so much gum that she got herself sick.

If any of these behaviors describe a part of your life, you might want to consider that you are still not going through life truly clean and sober. While this book is dedicated to working on compulsive eating, there is also an assumption that all other addictive behaviors have been addressed as well. Without living life free of all substances and addictive behaviors, we will never get the full effect of working the Steps. It might very well eventually lead to relapse.

The reality is that for some of us, life is hard to do without something to protect us. Having no more substance or behavior to act out with means we need to deal with life on life’s terms. This gets easier with more recovery, but in the beginning it may be hard – and the temptation to find another way to “bleed off some pressure” will be great. It’s important to remember that some emotional discomfort is the price we will have to pay for the recovery. Besides, it isn’t avoiding that pain, just delaying it. In many ways, continuing to act out is only adding to the existing pain by adding more things to feel bad about. An old timer says “Fight for your right to be uncomfortable.”

If you continue, the hard work pays off.