[anonthrowaway32]

I've been off alcohol and drugs for 2.5 years, and abstinent from compulsive overeating for almost a year. Food was harder to get a handle on than meth, no joke. Quitting refined/added sugar in particular was almost as bad as quitting smoking. (Haven't smoked in 1.5 years either.)

In my experience, compulsive overeating is every bit as much an addiction as alcoholism, smoking, or hard drugs. I saw myself exhibiting the exact same behaviors around food as I did around alcohol (splitting my shopping up between multiple corner stores so none of them would know how much I was eating) and feeling the exact same way about myself (I'm a worthless piece of shit, I'll never get a handle on this, I might as well just dive in and die young).

You might argue that had I not learned those behaviors while being an active alcoholic, I wouldn't have put them into use with food. Maybe. I think that's beside the point. The point is that I couldn't stop even though I desperately wanted to.

In my case I had food problems before I got sober. I hear about people turning to food after they stop drinking (in fact one very well-known program explicitly recommends it), but for me food, booze, drugs, nicotine, and casual sex were/are a package deal. They all hit the same place in my brain, perform the same function for me emotionally, and are impossible to quit on my own.

(Posted anonymously for reasons I hope are obvious.)