Southern Ohio Christian Recovery Coalition

Recovery from Eating Disorders

We engaged in a high intake of sweets and unusual rituals while eating. For some of us it was Compulsive Overeating, Bulimia, and Anorexia. We used our bodies to create an illusion that gave us a false sense of self-worth. We jeopardized our relationships, health, jobs, morals, and values; we even neglected our children. All the while, we rationalized our addictive behaviors. "Why can't I have a little something like everyone else?" "It's just food" or "What they don't know, won't hurt them." As we lived a double-life, we became disconnected from reality making true intimacy with God, or another, impossible. We took God off His throne and replaced Him with our behavior.

Why? We were running. Running from love, running from pain. From pain of shame, self-hate, and multiple forms of abuse. We lacked self-worth, realistic body image, and feared intimacy. We tried to connect; we tried to escape. We felt abandoned. We had a need to be in control and have power over others and/or situations. Spiritually we were bankrupt.

We have learned to numb our feelings and to cope with our inadequacies by reaching out for a cure that would ultimately destroy us. This in effect defined our belief system in a way that was not in line with God's plan for our life with food.

Food addiction is progressive. What starts as a little curiosity or negative self-talk, the line we chose to cross, sets us into motion for the next line we choose to cross. Ask the recovering compulsive overeater, bulimic or anorexic when and how they started, and how it ended. We tell ourselves that tomorrow our food behavior will be better, but it never is. Eventually our behaviors resulted in kidney damage, destruction of teeth, malnutrition, cardiac arrest, or diabetes. For many, the risk of death is now a reality. And hopefully before that happens, we hit bottom.

We've asked ourselves, "How did we get here?" Sometimes, we don't even remember why we started in the first place.

Does This Sound Familiar?

  • Throughout our lives many of us have turned to food to ease our pain or fear
  • We felt comfort in eating and found ourselves turning to food whenever we were hurt, angry or frustrated
  • Food became our comforter, our friend
  • Some of us may have one specific food that we have trouble eating in healthy amounts, and that once we start eating it, we cannot stop
  • Some of us may have been emotionally, physically or sexually abused and use food to cope with the emotions of those events
  • Some of us may have had healthy eating habits as children or young adults, but at some point in our lives we chose to overeat and lost the ability to discern when we were physically hungry or when we were physically full
  • Some of us may have turned to food after obtaining sobriety in other areas
  • We thought food was "safe," not realizing it could become our "drug of choice"
  • We have focused on our body image instead of our health
  • Many of us have tried various diet programs, exercising, medications or many other ways of trying to control our eating habits
  • We have failed over and over and are left feeling guilty, incapable and unlovable
  • We have given in to the idea that there is one perfect diet or pill out there that can save us if only we could find it
  • Some of us believe that thin people do not struggle with food addiction
  • As a result of our food addiction, we feel out of control and may struggle with many other areas of our lives
  • Some of us have low self-esteem which may affect our motivation, and our relationship with God and others

To determine if you suffer from an Eating Disorder, ask yourself these Questions . . .

  1. Do thoughts about food occupy much of your time?
  2. Are you preoccupied with a desire to be thinner?
  3. Do you starve to make up for eating binges?
  4. Are you overweight despite concern by others for you to lose weight?
  5. Do you binge and then vomit afterward?
  6. Do you exercise excessively to burn off calories?
  7. Do you overeat by bingeing or by grazing continuously?
  8. Do you eat the same thing every day and feel annoyed when you eat something else?
  9. Do you binge and then take enemas or laxatives to get rid of the food you have eaten?
  10. Do you hide stashes of food for future eating or bingeing?
  11. Do you avoid foods with sugar in them and feel uncomfortable after eating sweets?
  12. Is food your friend?
  13. Would you rather eat alone? Do you feel uncomfortable when you must eat with others?
  14. Do you have specific ways you eat when you are emotionally upset, sad, angry, afraid, anxious or ashamed?
  15. Do you become depressed or feel guilty after an eating binge?
  16. Do you feel fat even when people tell you otherwise?
  17. Are you ever afraid that you won't be able to stop eating when you are on binge?
  18. Have you tried to diet repeatedly only to sabotage your weight loss?
  19. Do you binge on high-calorie, sugary, forbidden foods?
  20. Are you proud of your ability to control the food you eat and your weight?
  21. Do you have weight changes of more than 10 pound after binges and fasts?
  22. Do you feel your eating behavior is abnormal? Do you try to hide it from others?
  23. Does feeling ashamed of your body weight result in more bingeing?
  24. Do you make a lot of insulting jokes about your body weight or your eating?
  25. Do you feel guilty after eating anything not allowed on your diet?
  26. Do you follow unusual rituals while eating, such as counting bites or not allowing the fork or food to touch your lips?

If you checked five or more of the questions numbered 1, 4, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, you may be dealing with compulsive overeating.

If you checked five or more of the questions numbered 1, 2, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, 25, 26, you may be dealing with anorexia nervosa.

If you checked five or more of the questions numbered 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 22, 26, you may be dealing with bulimic nervosa.