addiction isn't always about doing things to excess

I wasn't sure if I wanted to put this down onto this blog or my ED blog. But I felt that it was a more personal thing than a more ED in general thing. So here goes.

I think, if I wasn't trying to grab a headline I would have labelled this as - What is Anorexia to me?

Its an addiction.

If you speak to anyone about addiction they would say it is abusing something to excess.

I would agree.

But the substance I abuse to excess, is the endorphin and the adrenalin I get from starvation.

Let me be a bit biological (If I was a L'oriel advert, I'd say "here's the science part") and take you back 2 million years (exaggeration maybe).

Humans - homosapions - were hunters. If they were attacked they had a choice... fight or flight.

this is what in more recent times is called anxiety, i think someone once told me.

Ultimately. the body creates a chemical reaction within your body that will help you. To survive. You may have heard that when you starve yourself for prolonged periods of time you will no longer feel hunger. Why do you think this is? because you don't wanna stop fighting someone, or running away from someone, to have a burger. You need to keep running.

How does this work? well I am not massive on biology, but I have always believed that the body/brain released endorphins and also adrenalin and probably a whole load of other enzyme's that will help you carry on your normal way of being. Or more particularly. Your current course of action.

So: I starve to get through a difficult day at work. My brain releases all the gubbins it needs to get me through that task... but other things fall at the way side. The chemicals that allow me to be romantic or loving to my partner, say.
The maternal instincts that allow me to accept my mother
The brain functioning that allows me to thing around subjects and think "outside the box"
and many....many more.

But why do I keep doing?

Because those chemicals that my brain releases, I'm addicted to them. Ok, the cause is an abstinence, but the outcome is chemicals that I like and a feeling that I crave.

I hunger for... well hunger.

People find this hard to understand because they believe an addiction to always be about excess of external chemicals... Caffeine, Cocaine, Nicotine, Alcohol, (even) Food.

But I am addicted to the internal chemicals that the starvation make my body give me.

I would suppose that all of the above drugs also give me the same sort of chemical reaction. But I have found sollice in the starvation. I have found my addiction.

But, there is also a small problem with this fact.

Starvation isn't my only addiction. Let me name a few:

• Work
• Nicotine (although I am on the road to recovery on this one)
• Alcohol (on and off - never really got to alcoholic levels, but I do rely on it sometimes)
• Caffeine (EDAW is sponsored by starbucks, but caffeine tablets have been used before now)
• Sex (in an odd way, which I really don't wanna go into it)
• Exersise
• Texting (odd I know)
• Gambling (again, nothing major - but a problem)
• Self Harm (in a more frequent and more serious way)

Someone once told me too that I was addicted to caring for people. Like I would block out my whole life, all my emotions because I would lay down my life to care and help other people.

But what do all of the above, plus my starvation, have in common? They help me feel like I can get through the day, like I can achieve something, like I don't have to think or face up to anything else. Some are about excess, some are about abuse, some are about just plain old wanting.

But they all fall in, some way shape or form, to a definition of addiction.

It's weird that there is one thing that is missing from the above list and it is the one thing I am most proud of.

Drugs

For a long time I have thought this, long before I was admitted into hospital and really embarked on recovery.

I'm addicted to addictions

I can't get enough of them. Whatever it is, as long as it is something that is going to let me escape, take away my focus, help me get through the damn day, I'll use (and abuse) it.

It is for this one fact that I have never used, in any way shape or form, drugs. I went to Amsterdam for the weekend and used and abused most of the other addictions to great amounts, but I didn't touch drugs.

I am just so scared. every addiction I have had or used has taken me down a route that has been so difficult to pull myself out of. But (i suppose being brought up in a middle class background in an affluent society has made me see this), turning to drugs would be a one way street to nothingness... I would start with Weed, move to whatever then onto the next, then be skint and then who would know? using drugs always felt a little like I would be resolving to death really.


So why do I feel compelled to talk about this at this moment in time?

I keep turning to addictions, I'm addicted to Addictions. WHY?? what is it that is causing me to need them?

I start eating properly, I smoke more.
I stop smoking, I'm drinking more,
I stop drinking I start gambling,
because I'm gambling more, I'm skint so i starve myself to save money (I'm not very good at gambling)

its a circle, if its not one, its the other, if its not the other is the other one.. etc . etc.

I'm running from something, and although I felt like I had dealt with it, I'm thinking I have not.

I have dealt with, but I have not dealt with how its made me feel and think.

What happened in my life has happened. Cant change it.

But I need to change the way I think.

But I can't talk about it tonight.