NY Times Article

Well, well, look what I bumped into while searching the web this morning....Even though it was written in 2006, it's timeless!

Strung Out on Love and Checked In for Treatment

I can soooo identify with the writer. I honestly didn't expect to see anything in the public media that confronted this issue. I remember being embarrassed while checking in to my program--I wasn't an alcoholic or on drugs. Yet again, I had one of the invisible scars, the psychosomatic reactions that I couldn't whip out and show anyone to prove that something was wrong inside of me. I hunched up in the waiting room, and glanced suspiciously at the other participants, feeling defensive and angry and most of all, unworthy of even being in a treatment program. All I knew was that I felt like SHIT, I was ready to give up because someone didn't want me anymore, and what the FUCK was wrong with me???? I remained in this state for the rest of that day. By the next morning, though, I knew I was in the right place. And I felt very safe--especially in the cafeteria. I chuckled as I read that the author stuffed herself with cookies...the cafeteria was our comfort zone. Always some fragrant aroma of comfort food wafting about. And we all ATE, as in four-course meals, three times a  day. We were encouraged to transition our pain, for the time being, into the comfort of food. And not to mention that this therapy--the psychodrama, family sculpture, never being alone, was HARD work, and we were all famished by the time we walked (in a group of course) to the cafeteria. Of course, exchanging one addiction for another is a no go, but in desperate circumstances, we needed SOMETHING to cling onto when our worlds were dissolving in front of our eyes. And the therapists helped us deal with transferring our addiction and then disengaging from it. And I wouldn't really call comfort eating an addiction (even though I have) in this case. It worked. And it works for hundreds of suffers going through the program each year.