The Abstinence Experience Project: Addiction And Food Behavior

Addiction is an extremely complex, moreover, controversial issue that has affected the many lives of individuals for ages. Addiction is comprised of biological, physiological, psychological, and social components that articulate behavior related to addictive behavior. Although, there are some that will not acknowledge their repetitive behavior as addictive, they may recognize there is a dependency, however, do not understand that they have no control over it. This abstinence experience project challenged myself, even though I may might as well have chosen to quit alcohol or drugs, just as easily, as choosing a food behavior was almost as difficult. I know myself to have a form of an addictive behavior or an addiction to a substance, food.

It was a tough behavior to quit without some considerable trauma for over the course of almost six weeks there was an experience of mild to severe triggers, and changes in mood which caused minor relational issues, and most often excuse for lapse. Mild changes in mood that were experienced were boredom, isolation and loneliness. Though, these mild irritating changes in mood, at times, turned occasionally severe. The changes became apparent and were not easily ignored. When first starting the experience, the over-confidence was deceptive, as I was oblivious to how the importance of triggers in relation to addiction should be noticed. Feelings before I started were that those who are addicted have a free choice to stop anytime they choose, and that they should be able to control their urges if they wanted. As the experiment started to progress I started to experience triggers such as doing my homework late when I got home from work, forgetting to eat, then automatically going to the fridge for food. This was my nightly routine that there was a dependency on. It was very far into the experience when I lapsed into previous behavior and found myself eating on que after the time

The experience was similar to what my current clients go through, albeit, not truly as hard, because in comparison to a real addiction, late night food, although unhealthy, does not create a physiological dependence as do alcohol or drugs. The feeling of reality set in, when the cravings started occurring before bed, those in and of themselves made me feel worse about my addiction. I just wanted to understand why I could not resist the temptation at times and looked to blame others for my own