To truly deal with the complex issue of eating addiction/compulsion, you must approach it with a personalized multilayered biopsychosocialspiritual recovery process. You can never forget the eating issues, but must keep in mind the many levels of addiction and recovery.

In eating addiction recovery, many have found it is critically important to abstain from addictive behaviors around eating. This means changing basic eating behaviors or eating patterns that support compulsive overeating, such as abstaining from gobbling, eating all the time rather than only at meal times, eating while driving, standing, etc. This is similar to alcoholics in recovery being told to stay away from drinking juice in a wineglass or nonalcoholic beers in a bar to avoid being “triggered” to drink alcohol. Likewise, some alcoholics in recovery have found the tinkling of ice in a glass can bring on urges for alcohol and are encouraged not to use ice in drinks to distract themselves from their recovery. These suggestions help addicts avoid the triggering of cravings and possible relapse.

Addictive behaviors around eating can also trigger relapse. This is why compulsive overeaters find it helpful to be mindful of not just what they eat (a healthy meal plan), but also how they eat (healthy eating patterns), when they eat (a healthy meal schedule), and how much they eat (healthy portion control). Getting clear on what, how, how much, and how often you eat will make your recovery process smoother with less cravings. It will also reduce your incidence and length of relapse. All of these components are included in an overall Healthy Living Plan.

As part of your Healthy Living Plan you need to choose a number of activities to deal with the various aspects of your eating compulsion/addiction. There are many possibilities in each of the biopsychosocialspiritual areas to support you in developing your personal plan. I strongly encourage you to not do this alone, but to seek help from qualified people such as certified nutritionists for meal planning and an exercise specialist working in collaboration with your doctor. Your plan will probably change or evolve over time, but it is important to make some decisions, commit to those decisions, and follow them through. Making a commitment to a plan, and then sticking to it, is a way to confront the ongoing onslaught of your addiction/compulsion. What are you willing to do—beginning now?

Last year I wanted to address the entire spectrum of “Eating Addiction” and asked Dr. Shari Stillman-Corbitt, the Executive Director of TouchStone Treatment to co-author The Eating Addiction Relapse Prevention Workbook. Dr. Corbitt brought a long history of working with eating disordered patients to our project and we believe it is now a much better instrument to help people with eating addictions to get and stay in a true recovery process.

The Eating Addiction Relapse Prevention Workbook is designed to increase patients’ knowledge and understanding of the nature of eating addiction. Some people may be a normal weight, if their metabolism is such that they don’t gain weight, or some of them may purge calories through excessive exercise. However, many of them will probably be overweight, or “see-sawing” up and down, as they try first one magic pill, diet or program, and then another. Some of them may be obese, the definition of which means that they are more than 20 percent over the weight suggested by actuarial tables. These people may know that they are destroying and distorting their body, but be unable to stop eating compulsively.

The Eating Addiction Workbook is for compulsive overeaters, food addicts and binge eaters. These terms describe people who use eating and food to manage feelings and cope with life. Although the primary purpose of this workbook is to help patients develop a relapse prevention plan and create a schedule of activities to assist in that goal, we believe they must first develop a definition of abstinence that works for them and an effective recovery plan that is life enhancing which we refer to in this workbook as a Healthy Living Plan.

To read more about the workbook please go to my article Eating Addiction Needs a Strategic Relapse Prevention Protocol that you can download for free on our Articles page. To purchase this book or the Eating Addiction High Risk Situation List Pamphlet please Click Here.

To learn about two skill trainings coming up in Sacramento California designed to teach treatment strategies for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including disorders including addiction please Click Here.To listen to a radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

Some patients with chronic pain who use addictive medication for pain management never experience negative consequences.  So why do other patients develop an addictive disorder?  The answer to this often depends upon various factors, such as genetics, co-existing disorders, and environmental dynamics.  For further comprehension it is also important to have a good understanding of addiction.

So why is there a transition that chronic pain patients make that go from using the pain medication for pain relief to using it either for emotional coping or perhaps for its euphoric effects?  This question can be answered, in part, by understanding the relationship of brain reward mechanisms and the behavior of using psychoactive medication, or alcohol and other drugs.

The brain reward mechanism demonstrates that the tendency toward drug seeking behavior is strongly linked to progressive alterations in the function of the brain, and in late stages to the development of structural damage to the brain and other organ systems. The NIAAA (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) research clearly shows that there are biomedical processes that occur within the brain that reinforces the regular and heavy use of psychoactive chemicals. These biomedical brain reinforcement processes are different from the classic withdrawal syndrome. 

The mind is capable of formulating thoughts that produce strong positive biological reinforcement.  These thoughts often take the form of positive judgments about behavior that reflects itself in self-talk such as “Doing this is good for me!” Positive judgments about behavior can be reinforcing of and by themselves because they are capable of activating the release of the biologically reinforcing brain chemicals.  When this occurs the positive judgment is said to trigger the state of reinforcement.

Psychological Reinforcement  =  Gratification

When the biologically reinforcing brain chemicals are automatically released in response to a behavior, the person feels pleasure and is more likely to judge the behavior as positive, which stimulates the release of more reinforcing brain chemicals.  When this occurs the judgment a person makes is said to enhance the state of reinforcement. It is really important to have an appropriate medication management plan and this is another instance of the more you know the safer you are.

In APM™ Module Four: A Guide for Managing Pain Medication in Recovery you can learn to explore how you can use pain medication using a recovery oriented approach. First you will look at some misunderstood terms, then you will be asked to list the benefits and disadvantages of using pain medication. Next you’ll write your pain history story and then be shown how to develop your own effective pain medication management plan. The final step is to review a Recovery/Relapse Indicator Checklist and complete a final call to action.

For a brief overview of some of the information in this module please check out my article Managing Pain Medication in Recovery that you can download for free on our Ariticles page. To purchase APM™ Module Four please Click Here.

For an additional resource regarding medication management please go to our Publications page and check out my Addiction-Free Pain Management® Module Two: Examining Your Potential Medication Management Problems. To purchase this module please Click Here.

To learn about two skill trainings coming up in Sacramento California designed to teach treatment strategies for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including disorders including addiction please Click Here.

To listen to a radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

Many years ago I learned the value of being in the solution rather than the problem. When life gets rough many of us start complaining; at least I know I do. One day I was going on and on to a good friend of mine who, after listening for awhile, asked me if I would be willing to make a list of all the things in my life I was grateful for instead of just complaining. I was very surprised as I went through this exercise and had about 50 things I was grateful for. I thought it was a great list. My friend didn’t. He asked me to triple that list. At first I couldn’t understand how I could find that many things to be grateful for, but with his support and coaching I finally did it. I was amazed and the problems I had been complaining about no longer seemed so bad. He even gave me a bumper sticker that said Attitude of Gratitude.

About ten years later I ran across a book Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude by Sara Ban Breathnach. The journal asked readers to write down at least five things each day that they were grateful for and at the end of the month summarize the results. The first time I did it I made sure to complete an entire year. Then I pulled away for a few more years.

I started writing another gratitude list because I caught myself complaining and remembered my old friend’s advice. I wrote my lists for just over a year and then stopped again. Almost four years ago I ran across one of my old Gratitude Journals and decided that I want this to be an ongoing part of my life. Now what I do is list at least ten things a day I’m grateful for and at the end of the month I list my top thirty for the month. At the end of the year I put my entire top thirty for each month in the same document. I then choose my top thirty for the entire year after reviewing every single entry I wrote that year.

The most interesting thing about my end of year process this past December was that I was feeling very sad and a bit anxious about the year ahead. As I started going back over the year I noticed many of my gratitudes were about my recovery, my relationship with my wife, my mother and good friends and how we were much closer than any other time in my life. My mood and energy started shifting the more I read. By the time I made my top thirty list for 2008 I was again centered, peaceful and happy.

I have worked with many pain patients over the years that I taught this process to. Those who wrote daily gratitude lists reported that it was almost impossible for them to be in gratitude and suffering at the same time—most of the time they chose gratitude. I would like to encourage those of you reading this blog to try writing daily gratitude lists for at least a couple of months and see what happens for you. I would love to hear about your experience.

To learn about two skill trainings coming up in Sacramento California designed to teach treatment strategies for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including disorders including addiction please Click Here.

To learn more about the difference between pain and suffering , please read my latest article Pain is Inevitable but Suffering is Optional when Living with a Chronic Pain Condition that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people in chronic pain or living with chronic pain yourself and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing the pain and coexisting psychological disorders including PTSD or addiction effectively please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To listen to a radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.