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this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2024
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Alcoholics can stop drinking alcohol. But people can't stop eating. It's not possible. You cannot avoid all fat, sugar and salt like an alcoholic avoids alcohol.
So true. Fasting is easier for me than eating some and then choosing to stop, but I know I can't do that every day.
Just like an alcoholic has the problem, that he can't just stop after a beer or two.
It's the same mechanism.
Everything you use to cope with emotions can produce that.
Like nicotine itself isn't hard to quit - not much of a physical addiction. But as one used cigarettes as little self rewards and uncomfortable situations, you can't just give up your tool to manage your emotions.
The only way out is to face those emotions and solve the original issue. Else you'll just be hopping through different "helpers"
Edit: maybe to give an even more extreme example:
Cocaine doesn't produce any physical addiction, but because it gives you the feeling of being awake and you suddenly can handle the stress, you'll fell completely lost and alone without it in those situations.
That's why trigger situations are a thing.
With food, just like cigarettes, it's even worse, because you use them for good and bad times.
So the association with feeling good is much harder to break.
As we need food, this addiction is probably even worse, because you can't just stop eating all together and face your emotions. So you're daily tempted with it.
I personally can't relate with overeating/"food addiction", but having spent a month tapering opiate teas (which I used to still be able to work during my burnout), I understand the feeling of constantly looking for an excuse to still do a bit more - just today...
Because this day was especially bad and I desperately need the crutch, or especially nice and I feel like I wanna celebrate it somehow.
This is food for so many families. Having a bad day? Let's go get some dessert to make you feel better. A good day? Let's celebrate with a big meal.
Yeah, that's exactly what I mean.
Just replace the family with loneliness and the meal with some substance, that makes you feel less shit, and you have the same thing
You can't stop drinking alcohol without medical assistance once you're an alcoholic, or you will die.
That’s true for a certain percentage but misses part of the point here. Once an alcoholic has successfully detoxed, it is possible and highly encouraged that they do not partake any alcohol going forward.
That simply isn’t possible with obesity as humans require food to survive. So this is where the analogy with alcoholism breaks down as it is never possible for the obese person to be the equivalent of “sober.” Instead they have to learn moderation which is conceptually a different challenge than becoming a teetotaler.
Food isn't addictive in the same way alcohol or other drugs are though.
Ah yes it is.
That's a good point. I read that a lot of morbidly obese people process food the same as normal people process drugs or vigorous exercise. Their body produces endorphins when they eat, which is what leads to the excessive eating. They're literally addicts, getting high all the time. Is there any medication that can block the endorphin response to their eating, since it's pretty much a chemical abnormality? Maybe something like naltrexone?
Im told by people who use Ozempic find it works for them that way. I don't know how it works inside the body though.
As your stomach fills and stretches it sends a chemical "I'm full" message (GLP1) to the brain. When this signal is low you are hungary, medium you are full, and high you get nauseous.
Ozempic causes that message to be produced at low constant levels in addition to what is produced by the stomach.
So you don't feel as hungry, you hit satiety faster, and if you continue to eat you get nauseous. This results in behaviors that reduce calorie consumption.
It also delays gastric emptying which also keeps you feeling full longer.
This is factually incorrect. Source: me stopping drinking.
It's factually correct for people who have developed a physical dependency on alcohol.
Source: thousands of medical examples, studies, data, and decades of research.
We all know what the original commenter meant, though: that alcoholic drinks are not a necessity of living.
You can't say that about food
This is highly dependent on so many factors its basically not true. If they're heavy alcoholics who shake when not going with a drink for a few hours then its likely, but not guarunteed, for them to need assistance to quit cold turkey