Posted by Crazy_Charlie on November 1, 2004, at 12:46:45
In reply to Re Alcoholism as Compared to Over-eating Disorders, posted by Allen770 on October 24, 2004, at 2:00:37
Hoi Allen
As far as I know alcoholism and eating disturbances are linked by genes, and not by the content of the stuff you put in your mouth.
The theory behind it is that they are both behaviours that are covering up for difficult emotions in ones life.. but I wont go in depth of that, simply because there are loads of litterature on this subject. But you are mentioning parts of it yourself with the "reasons" you are mentioning. Alcoholism versus eating disorders, two different ways of dealing with problematic feelings.. as some kind of inefficient defence mechanisms with profound effect on your life.
The snekaing comes from the shame the overeating person is experiencing while over eating. It exist some kind of "rules" in all countries about eating... e.g. you eat a certain amount of food on certain times a day, you eat untill you are full and not more etcetc. Eating in the night is usually not a typical thing, and overeating is often viewed upon of others as something bad (the ferson is greedy etc). Thereby sneaking and trying to hide the traces. Other explanations also include that over-eaters/alcoholics either don't want to admit that they don't have a problem (but still knows that they do, so to prevent confrontations they hide the symptoms) OR they don't want others to know that they have a problem (perfectionism, or not wanting to be any kind of trouble for anyone).
Food, as alcohol, is used to REPLACE a bad feeling. You can experience a certain "high" by eating some kinds of food (due to dopamin and/or serotonin release), but consentrating on eating can also take away the bad feelings. Thereby hunger is induced when you feel bad.. but it's not really a hunger for food, ut a hunger for something that makes you feel better. A kind of feeling in your stomach, as if it is empty, a kind of ache.... that you misplace with hunger.
When it comes to your comment about us not needing alcohol... well. I find it a bit easy to say that we need food and thereby it's understandable that we abuse it. The fact is that we eat a lot more than we actually need, and we eat a hell of a lot of thinsg that we DON'T need... just because it's good, or just because it makes you FEEL good (sugar makes someone feel good immediately after eating it for example- tho we don't really need sugar, but carbohydrates, and preferably something that works slower than sugar- and we certainly don't need as much as we eat). So. You drink alcohol, and that makes you FEEL good, and that is something we all like, isn't it? Thereby addiction is easier.
Actually I find this more intriguing:
When we eat something and throw up afterwards, we will usually have problems with eating that again afterwards... even if we KNOW that it wasn't what we ate that made us throw up. I'm sure most of you can remember eating something, getting the stomach flu afterwards, and then experiencing that you don't want to eat that food again... even if you have been eating it many times before and never gotten sick before. It is such a powerful survival mechanism that in certain cancer departments doctors give kids something weird tasting to eat before they treat them with chemotherapy. They do this because it's important that the child eat something first, since that make sthe chance of getting sick less. But at the same time, the child might as well get sick anyway, and throw up, and then refus eto eat that food afterwards. At some point it might get difficult to make the child eat anything at all.Now, to the part that I find difficult to understand in the light of this. In spite of this powerful survival mechanism, quite a lot of people will get drunk a second time even if they had a nauseous and puking hangover after the first time. Even though they KNOW that it was the alcohol that made them sick. They might try another brewage (like beer instead of wine), but it's the alcohol that make you sick, and not the type you drink...
Interesting, isn't it?
poster:Crazy_Charlie
thread:406544
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20041013/msgs/410073.html