I posted earlier on today that I have been drinking again and I had some wonderfully supportive replies, so thank you. I want to talk about multiple addictions and see if anyone has any experience of this, so I thought I’d put it in a new thread.

I have other long-standing issues with addiction alongside my drinking. I smoke cigarettes - about 20 a day these days - and I also have a problem with food, with a history of binge eating and restricting. Whilst my drinking has got progressively worse over the years, my eating has got a bit more stable, but I do still have periods of bingeing and weight gain, and periods in which I restrict to lose weight. I’m currently about two stone/28lb over the upper limit of my healthy BMI range, though I have been both lighter and heavier over the years.

I’ve learned over the years that drinking keeps me from eating too much, purely because, like all alcoholics, I don’t want anything ruining my buzz. I’ve used drink as a tool for weight loss. I find that there is a constant but shifting power balance between the three - drinking, smoking and binge eating - in that when I try to tackle one, my engagement with either one or both of the others increases to compensate. For example, when I try to cut down or stop my drinking, I’ll binge on food until I feel sick; or when I try to lose weight to improve my self-esteem and body image, I’ll cut right back on food but I’ll drink like there’s no tomorrow and smoke like a chimney.

Does anyone relate to this, or have any advice about how to tackle this kind of substituting behaviour? The ideal situation would be freedom from the desire to engage in any of these, but I just swap one out for another and ultimately get nowhere. Is it possible to free yourself from all addictive drives? I feel like I don’t just need to stop doing these things - I need to become a completely new person with better values, more self-awareness, and healthier self-soothing techniques, but I just don’t know where to start .

Anna and Peaceful, I identify with what you say about attempting to fill a void, and particularly with learning to like and love yourself. I have real problems with self-image, to the point that I never have my photo taken and I often avoid even looking in mirrors. I think I have a deeply-rooted sense of emptiness, insecurity and inferiority, and this is perhaps something I need to work on proactively. I had psychotherapy about ten years ago but I didn’t bond with the therapist so found it basically useless. Perhaps I could try again with a new therapist to attempt to tackle my self-esteem and worthiness issues.