Eating again

[Muunray]

I never stop eating once I wake up it seems like.
I quit drinking last December. Now that seems easier than controlling my eating.
I'm way overweight..gained it with almost 30 years of drinking..
As someone mentioned before it's almost easier if you can just not have to deal with it at all- like quitting drinking.
Was anorexic as a teenager, alcoholic in late teens through now as middle aged adult..and now I can't find the control to moderate food intake.
It's frustrating. I wake up every day with a plan. And I easily ignore the plan after a while.
These last 2 weeks, I find I want to sleep too much. I take a nap in the morning and go to bed earlier than I ever did.
I work weekends, and on those days I don't have time to take a break and eat so I munch on candy I can keep in my pocket until I can get home and eat..a lot (and it's always after 11pm when I get home).
Anyways..I feel blah!

[boudiepitbull]

I strongly identify with your situation Muunray. I gained 80lbs in early sobriety and now I'm sure it all started with a glazed cruller every morning from the coffee wagon outside the outpatient clinic. I think many of us who stop drinking and drugging somehow become blind to our disease of addiction shifting into a food place as we continue old behaviors and seek happiness by taking in something external to fill that God sized hole in ourselves. Until quite recently my denial was huge and really felt that no one had the right to talk to me about pie and ice cream as long as I was clean and sober. I had earned it. I deserved it! Today I joke about being a garbage head who drank alcohol, smoked weed all day long, dropped acid, popped pills, snorted crystal meth cocaine and heroin, and now find myself struggling on a daily basis with Little Debbie snack cakes. Sugar is a bitch!

[Itchy]

Muunray,
I sure know the feeling. I gained a lot of weight in the last year I have been sober. I was not obese when I quit both smoking three packs a day and drinking 30 units of alcohol daily. I was trim for my age and pretty active before I drank from the moment I woke up to falling asleep 24/7. I actually lost some weight those klast couple of years pof really heavy drinking and smoking.

After I quit I started out with starlite mints and had a few here and there. And one or two in bed before falling asleep while reading. I never ate candy or cake or much sweets at all anytime in my life. But it soon became apparent to me that I was substituting sugar and carbs for the smoking and drinking.

I said what the heck, I can lose weight later, but I can't lose lung cancer or grow a new liver.

So in this my first year of sobriety I went from a size 34 waist (6 foot Guy) to a 40 and it started getting tight. I started to attend a weight loss group and wore a pedometer the first week and wrote down everything I ate and made my exercise goals for each day and was amazed at how much I ate! I walked a lot more which my pups love and the first weigh in I was . . . heavier!


That was last Thursday. I know what kicked mine off. See I have always skipped breakfast and lunch, drank a lot of coffee and diet cokes with no food during the day. Since I was getting healthy and quit smoking and drinking I listened to my doc and SH about eating small portions for breakfast, then a snack, and lunch, then a snack . . . .

I was devastated Thursday. I even threw a self pity party which I rarely do. See we are a group meeting and we have a workout trainer who really does nothing, a dietitian who cares as long as we do what she thinks is right, and a Psychologist. The group is about twenty people and a bit like the TV show biggest losers because there are a lot of really big people there that are over 300 pounds. I am 40 pounds over my ideal of 180. So in the group nutrition part of the meeting I made the mistake of announcing that I was going back to my old diet. Now please let me preface that by saying that for most my way is very unhealthy. But from age 30 until age 58 I did it that way and even with all the smoking and drinking still had and have a 120 over 70 BP, no cholesterol issues, no diabetes or liver problems or any other issues except for a slightly weakened heart valve. So am having some edema.

In other words my metabolism was one way for 28 years nutrition wise, and I eat healthy always have until this past year. So now I have several days "normal" for me and we will see where it leads. I now don't eat during the day at all. Just dinner and then some snacks like most of my life, and lots of diet drinks. See if I eat at all, I seem to not be able to stop. It is controllable in the evenings but unconscious about it during the day.

Anyway you aren't alone. I have stopped opening a box of saltines and eating a whole section (1/4) or half a box of vanilla wafers in one sitting. No more peanut butter crackers are in the house, I eat no more then four strawberry newtons at night and if I can't stand it I have some plain cheerios cereal with no sugar I can munch on which I actually like.

We'll see. But don't feel alone. I was like a non-stop food vacuum for the last ten months or so.

[loosingbattle]

I completely relate..everyday I get up with a plan and everyday I give in. I am a crack addict and a bulimic. I just need somewhere to go to talk it out and even though I feel embarrased on here..I know I have to keep trying to find somefriends to help me through this..people who understand how hard it is and how obsessive the thoughts are.

[LifeRecovery]

I always wonder why the eating disorder portion of this sight is not in use more.

I came to SR because of someone else's drinking behavior, but have also struggled with my own battle with an eating disorder for many years. In the reading I have done (and I witnessed this is my recovery too) at least 30 percent of people with eating disorders struggle with substance abuse/alcoholism also. I have never seen statistics on if a person struggles with substance abuse/alcoholism what is the chance of people having an eating disorder too, but either way that is a lot of people, and it impacts a lot of people.

Eating disorders are hard too because it is something that you have to learn to do in moderation (I am not trying to negate how hard quitting any substance is).

I just wanted you to know you are not alone.

[whenartdeparts]

ah, I so wish the only thing I had to deal with was substance abuse. But no. I also have to deal with eating disorders galore.
I am a recovering alcoholic. During my last year of substance abuse I lost 20lbs and "became" a poster child for anorexia.
Then I quit and embraced my "fav." e.d. - bulimia.
The most I have gone without purging in the last month was exactly 24 hours. And even then, I binged like hell.
Cross addictions are so glamorous :|

[LifeRecovery]

I was doing research for something unrelated to SR today and found that 10-15% or 8million people are living at some point along the eating disorder continuum. That is in the US alone.

That is a lot of people, and a lot of people coping with cross addictions.

I know in my own recovery when I was working really hard on one aspect, my coping mechanisms would come out sideways somewhere else. I have no words of wisdom about what to do except in my experience when I kept working on me it did/does get better. Also to let you know you are not alone.

[Jeff63]

In March I was up to about 240 pounds. I am 5/11". So my wife and I started the 17 day diet (cannot post links here, just google it). The book was 10 bucks, with recipes and all. A friend and his wife at work started it also. In 5 months I went down to 181 pounds and my wife went from 125 pounds to 103 pounds. I am 48. I have an office job and don't really exercise. This has been the only thing that really worked for me. I was like the OP where I would not eat breakfast. At the end of June, I started total abstinence on alcohol after trying to moderate, I failed at the moderation LOL. So now I have maintained 180 pounds for 3 months and total abstinence for lil over 4 months. I have had a sugar craving over the past 2 weeks which I indulged and now I am stopping that too! Sorry Hershey's!

[Littletori]

Hi
Glad to hear that i am not alone when struggling with alcoholism & an eating disorder!
Why is it so impossible to do anythin in moderation??