Like it or not, we're all addicts. Each & every one of us!
Believe it or not, we all become oxygen addicts at birth, when we become addicted to air with our first breath, with each breath rewarding our brains with the euphoric rush of oxygen. Despite knowing this, I'd never thought of myself as an addict. I've never taken any narcotics, never smoked, & only ever drank alcohol to excess a handful of times, consuming at most one or two units at most in a month. I've never been unfaithful or sought pleasure through meaningless sex. Apart from natural life choices, I've never gambled, seeing the risk of loss as a waste of hard earned money.
So it looks like I take the safe route through life, so what could I possibly know about addiction.
 
Almost by accident, I've learned first hand about an addiction that almost all of us have, with few of us even knowing it.
 
Until in my early 30's, I was a super-thin, extremely fit individual, with a pretty good quality of life. I never cared much for food, often having to remind myself that it was time to eat, too busy with life.
With the arrival of children, my food intake gradually increased, often cooking far too much, in order to avoid not providing them with enough. All too frequently I consumed the leftovers from what I had prepared, to avoid food going to waste, a value that was instilled in me at a young age. But as an active father, always taking my children away on adventures, I soon burned off the food I was taking in. I was not an exercise fanatic. I was just active, always grabbing every experience from life that I could.

In 2008, as a keen open water swimmer, I decided to train to swim the English Channel. Interviewing many successful swimmers who had made the 40km distance from England to France, they had all talked about the importance of bulking up to create resistance to prolongued cold temperatures through fat reserves to draw upon. So I began eating pasta, by the bucket load, converting carbohydrates into a layer of fat.
Doing so, perhaps enhanced by my naturally slowing metabolism, my fat cells blossomed, waving goodbye to my well toned body and the six pack I had taken for granted for my whole life. But with one change in life circumstance and another, the swim was postponed time and again.
 
With my increased weight came a surprising feeling I had never had before. Hunger!
 
Eating 3 meals a day, with portion sizing growing gradually, my weight reached new limits. I soon grew from a low 60kg, to 70, then 80, and then during a difficult divorce, creeped ridiculously close to 90. Suddenly, seeing this value, I felt like half the man I used to be, and yet had seemingly gain half a man when I stood on the scales.
Eating the excess from the meals I cooked for my children that lived with me, not exercising as much, & hunched almost frozen still behind a laptop, I found myself using food respites as a way to break up the day. Cooking became a ritual twice or more each day, and determined to always provide for my children, I would regularly over-estimate quantities needed, further leading to my over-eating.
 
With more life changes, came more dietary changes, and soon I recognised I was riding a sugar rollercoaster, with regular and high volumes of sugary food and drinks to help me concentrate, or to avoid a sugar withdrawal migraine kicking in.
I justified these high quantities of sugar, as being an essential aspect of eating for my formerly active lifestyle, yet I was no longer leading it. So in an attempt to course correct for my sugar rich diet, I would sometimes, for weeks at a time, reduce my intake of easily accessed processed sugars, replacing with alternative substitute food sources, often eating several times a day just to distract myself from any signs of a craving. This too became a habit.

When I wanted a distraction from my work, I would go to the cupboard or fridge, open it, stare at the contents, and then close it. All too often, however, I would empty something out first, which I would frequently consume without even really noticing. I'd become an unconscious food junkie, cramming in more, and more often, until the point I was snacking 4 or 5 times a day, with 2 full cooked meals at lunch and dinner, often in portions enough to feed 2 or more.
 
In short, food was beginning to rule my life, and rule my waistline.
 
As a trained hypnotherapist, even teaching others to become hypnotherapists, I often met prospective clients who wanted to give up smoking. Many asked me if I had ever smoked and understood what they were experiencing. I always admitted that although I could help them, I never had an honest appreciation of their struggle. As I later discovered, they were right.
Acknowledging the position of importance that food had attained in my priorities, values, and even identity, was ironically difficult to swallow at first. I had convinced myself that everyone's life revolved around food, and in this increasingly more obese nation in which we live, it perhaps increasingly does. We only have to look at TV or internet adverts, and billboards to see just how many are dedicated to influencing us to this primitive act of refuelling.
 
Reflecting on a friend, who once or twice a year, went without eating for 7 days, while only drinking water, I decided it might be a good idea to have a self-imposed detox, only accountable to myself. So one morning, after the 3rd time wandering aimlessly past my kitchen cupboards, I decided I was going to not eat for 2 whole days. This short period certainly wouldn't kill me, and on doctors orders, I'd done it before some 20 years earlier, due to being hospitalised on the drip, with chronic food poisoning. That time was easy to do. I was unwell, didn't feel hungry, and there was a clear reason not to eat. But this time it was different.
 
As with any addiction, there was no clear urgency to detox now. And this challenge of doing it later, was perhaps the first noteable battle to face.
 
Fired up, and deciding that this 48 hour cleanse might be a good thing, I considered how not stopping for food might allow me to focus more on my work. Staying alone, I had no-one else to cook for, or mealtimes to revolve around. I could genuinely go without food, and not affect anyone else.
Opening the fridge, and seeing the leftovers that would be wasted, I thought "I'll start tomorrow", and with a wave of relief, I consumed those expiring fridge contents. "I'll start it later", I thought to myself. "Maybe not tomorrow, maybe I'll do it next week" I began to bargain with myself, putting off this personal challenge. Suddenly, I could see the negative behaviours creeping in, ready to find an excuse not to ever begin. After all, there could be no failure during a 48 hour fasting if it never actually starts.
 
Realising that I had successfully bargained with myself to avoid beginning, I carried out my day as normal, wondering if I should fast from the next morning. Never one to give up, the next morning, I made a firm decision.
 
With no food in the fridge to go to waste, I decided to not let anything go to my waist.
 
No excuse. It was time to prove my word... to myself. Skipping a few meals for 48 hours should be a walk in the park. This really seemed like no big deal. It was all so easy to say.
 
My 48 hour fast was to begin at that precise moment. Perhaps the longest 48 hours of my life to date.
 
With each moment, I found myself running so many habitual patterns, like simply walking to the kitchen for a stretch. As each moment went on, I was resisting the urge to break this 48 hour fast. My saving grace was the thought that I would then have to restart the process, determined to complete this task. Any time to that point would have been a 'sacrifice' for nothing. The fact I viewed missing a few meals as a big sacrifice was a clear reflection of just how engrained in all my habits, this food addiction had become.
 
I had become an true addict and didn't even know it.
 
Each time that my mind called for a break, I found myself venturing to the kitchen, where I made a cup of tea. The bargaining soon began. "Perhaps today wasn't the best day to begin". "What if I restarted it tomorrow?". "Perhaps if I had a soup, that would count as a hot beverage". "Perhaps if I ate something that suppresses hunger, like cinnamon, ginger, or liquorice". The self talk grew. Temptation loomed.
My mind was trying to find ways of taking in something, just to chip away at my promise, just to break this 48 hours. I had to stand firm. Giving in to one thing may well create a domino effect, and soon I'd be off the wagon. My addiction to eating had become clearer and clearer to me, with food always on hand and available if the desire arose. Never had I been forced not to eat before. Eating was alway an option and a deliberate choice.
 
This surprised me. Often in the past I'd had busy days of meetings or been so engrossed, that eating did not cross my mind until late afternoon, some 20 hours since my last meal. And it wasn't either difficult, or any notable thing at all. Because I knew this was a deliberate self-imposed starvation, I found my unconscious mind quickly seeking a loophole, before I consciously became aware of it.
 
Just 5 hours had passed, since waking that morning, and I had visited the kitchen about the same number of times.
 
Bathroom trips had increased, perhaps only to do something else rather than venture to the kitchen again, further demonstrating just how interwoven these food oriented habits had become to my life.
Speaking with a friend, I mentioned I was fasting. Having always kept my promises, never making any I could not honour, as a passionate man of my word, this created a sense of accountability. Failure would show my word meant nothing. No matter what, I could not give in.
 
I found myself less able to concentrate, with a heightened sense of awareness of my surroundings. Although productive, and felt distracted at the same time, as my mind dreamed up reasons to escape this self-made promise. Never knowingly breaking a promise in my lifetime, I felt myself testing my own boundaries, but somehow hanging in there, where one simple act could put me back at the start, like a crooked game of snakes and ladders, where the house always wins.
 
For the first time in years, time seemed to go so slowly.
For once, this time slowdown didn't feel like something I've long wanted. Instead, I began counting down the hours. The 8 hours that had passed felt like an eternity. Despite it feeling never ending, I knew that my fasting only had a finite period, albeit 40 more hours left, which gave me a sense of hope of meeting my target.
 
I realised that was a feeling recovering addicts would never gets to experience, instead focusing never-endingly on each day at a time, with no finish line to cross.
 
After a few more hours, lots of pacing, and countless distractions, it was bed time. Feeling that not eating was such a monumental task, I had survived my first day. Other than a wide range of herbal teas, nothing had passed my lips. I felt pleased that my first day was coming to an end, perplexed about why the thoughts of food had dominated my mind so intensely. I felt like the hardest bit was surely behind me.
 
The next day began with a trip to the kitchen to put on the kettle. All items of food seemed to be calling to me, without words, suggesting that a minor discretion was merely trivial, with no real significance. "What's the harm", I thought, almost finding myself unconsciously grabbing a small box of corn flakes to nibble on as a snack. Stopping myself in time, I had already endured by going one day without food. The harm would be the waste of unnecessary effort I had endured until that moment. And I'm someone who hates waste.

How had I covertly become so controlled by something so many others could never even take for granted. Pride for not giving in was combined with a sickening feeling that I was trapped in a game of will about food, when so many others had to endure so much more.
 
I found my body trying to almost convince my mind that some of the available foods were almost like liquids, making them somehow acceptable. "It's just a glass of milk". "It's just a fruit juice". The internal deception became an increasingly stronger and more active battle, many times during the day whenever I ventured near temptation. The safest way to not give in was to simply not be around my addiction. Deliberately focusing on other things became the main activity for the day.
 
Although, time gradually was counting down, the second day felt even longer. I glanced at the watch, and the seconds seemed to tick slower than when I was a child. Despite knowing that I would engage in eating, with only a few more waking hours ahead, my mind even calculated how long it had been without food, throwing back to the exact time I had last eaten, working out where 48 hours really should run until. Desperation was felt on every breath.
This addiction, albeit just to regular food, was far stronger than I had ever given it credit for. I began thinking of how I could be oblivious to the passing of time, even temporarily considering going to sleep, just to pass the hours on the clock. My focus was constantly drawn back to the desire to eat, felt in a way I've never known throughout my entire lifetime.
 
Distraction seemed like the only answer. I had to fill that void.

On the evening of day 2, my stomach began to ache, remind me that it was devoid of food to digest. In a state of fasting, with the body turning to consuming itself for energy, the instinctive processes to seek out food, kicked in stronger and stronger. Each time I felt my stomach pulsate and spasm, in my mind, I tried to think of it in a different light. "The feeling was not one of hunger, but one of losing weight" I said to myself. It was a sense of really proving something to myself, not expecting to find it such an all encompassing challenge.
 
Unfortunately in this state of mind, there was no win. Just draw. Reframing my thoughts, despite my many years of personal development training, was not as easy as I had previously assumed, with many voices giving reasons to given in, and only one holding firm.
 
If this is how I felt, as a healthy person by simply not eating a few meals, imagine how a more deeply addicted individual would feel, facing a combination of both physical and mental withdrawal, coupled with social challenges, in avoiding a relapse.

Though this small challenge, I had uncovered a weakness. I had to prove I was strong enough.
With a few hours remaning, I was determined not to give in. Reminders of food seemed everywhere, and for the first time in my life, I could truly understand the mindset of a recovering addict, even if only scraping the surface. With only a few hours left, my learning experience was almost over. I had no interest in planning my first meal. Instead, I imagined the journeys through the eyes of an addict, their family, and the support network that might help them.
 
The whole picture of addiction seemed clearer, and perhaps more complex than previously considered.
 
Will power had shown itself as just a small element for the success of an addict in kicking any habit. Removing temptation, changing habit patterns that encourage a relapse, having accountability to friends, or even strangers, & seeing the loss of the addiction as being a gain all had a significant contribution, but perhaps the hardest one to account for was that battle with the demons, expressed as overwhelming and compelling voices.
 
The voices mounted, to an almost overwhelming level, always ready and finding new ways to tip the see-saw towards giving in.
 
For the majority of this time, the only thing holding up that wall to avoid being crushed under the weight of addiction were strong reminders; not of how it would feel to have food, but of how simple it would be to break this self-imposed fasting, alongside how important it was to find strength not to compromise my promise. Building a strong enough character to stand tall against the crushing wall seems like the only way to survive.
 
For 48 hours, I had frequently asked myself "what is it all for". Seeing my mind always racing to uncover a new tactic to push me towards eating, the emotional drive grew stronger and stronger. Feeling the thoughts of food as some form of reward for breaking the fast, I could sometimes notice my mouth watering. The intensity of focus on my body's strategies to seek food increased. Sounds became louder. My peripheral vision increased. My heart felt stronger, louder even, even if the pace did not noticeably change. Colours seemed brighter. My sensory awareness was not dulled, but heightened, as perhaps my body sought to increase awareness in a need to fulfil the urge to eat.
The variety and depth of physiological alarm bells were greater than I had imagined. I had started the mission to simply prove I could not eat for 48 hours, and maybe just see if it had any effect on me, benefitting from a brief detox. I never imagined just how dominated my thoughts would be on this primitive addiction to seeking food.
I could only imagine how much stronger that would be for so many others. I could not contemplate the thought of so many in not knowing what if I would ever find food again.
As I went to sleep on my second night, I felt shame. Shame that I had taken food for granted, and incorporated it into my habits, eating, sometimes excessively, without giving it a second thought. I had gradually increased my portion size, and often spooned in food, barely for long enough to chew, not savouring the flavours, simply to consume it, in an animalistic gorging.
 
In less that 48 hours, I'd moved from a position of seeing an addiction as a self-inflicted highly deliberate conscious act, to a position of empathy of how an addiction has unconsciously crept up on someone, often without them ever becoming aware.
 
No-one choses to become an addict. Most even start to take well publicised highly addicted compounds, with full awareness of how all others become addicted, but with no association to how this dependency may one day apply to them.
Within just two days of skipping meals, I became humbled to the plight of more chronic chemical addictions, such as narcotics, nicotine & alcohol, or hormonal and habitually driven addictions, such as gambling or even tattoos. With so many addictions, such as fast food, shopping, exercise, or plastic surgery, breaking a habit is not as simple as just saying no.
 
After the 48 hours was up, my morning began with a thought. How long could I really live without food, without developing an uncontrollable urge to eat?
Many other thoughts passed through my head of people with eating disorders, and some of the struggles they face, with many triggered by trauma, anxiety, or medical complications. My thoughts went to the billions of people less fortunate than I, who could not simply wake up and know that they would be eating the next day, or even having the choice to easily eat within the next hour.
I was in no rush to eat anything. I knew it was there, to eat at my leisure. All of those thoughts to fight the urge were no longer needed, but still continued.
After a few morning chores, I returned to the kitchen. Seeing the small box of cereal, I opened it, put it in a bowl, and poured on milk. I felt nothing. I then began to eat, knowing I was breaking no rule, yet with a sense that eating had no gain. Perhaps at a slower pace than usual, I finished the bowl. Where normally I would then hunt for something else to have, I simply packed up. Breakfast had become a non-event.
 
This accidental 2 day experiment had taught me so much more than I imagined.
 
But would I really change? Only time would truly tell.
 
I grabbed a bag of fruit and nut mix, a comparatively healthy snack, to take through to where I was to work on my laptop. As a sat down, I asked myself why I was bothering. Glancing at the back, and working out the 1000 calorie content the bag contained, it seemd foolish to even open it, knowing that once I opened, there was no half-way mark to stop at, and eating could simply continue until th packet was empty.
 
Just how long would me apathy towards food continue?
 
Thinking about just how dependent I had become on food, should I set myself new rules, such as to only eat at certain times, to skip meals if I forgot rather than cram in extra ones, to limit trips to the kitchen that result in eating something, or perhaps to use smaller plates to help reduce the possibility of over-eating? Perhaps limit my intake by not simply eating food just because it is there, and would soon go to waste. After all, this perhaps only encourages unconsciously buying far more food than needed, just to have that unconscious effect of stocking the fridge with excessive amounts of food, and then setting a timer.
 
I wondered if I could learn to cook with a smaller volume of food. It seemed counter-intuitive to go through all that cooking effort for such a small serving.
 
Could I really trust myself to cook 2 portions and split them for 2 days?

I had often laughed condescendingly at the expression "No society is more than three meals away from revolution". "Where was everyone's will power if just 3 days of no food could really have such a drastic effect", I had thought, when a healthy body can go without food for nearly a whole month if pressed. This exercise had exposed the voices behind a revolution. And none of them really seemed to consider my best interest, or that of a society. Although I'd like to think I wouldn't descend into chaos, just how many days would it take before the inner demons brought out the darkest side of my character.

For myself, the only one thing I knew for certain, was that my relationship with food had to change.
It already was clearer now why, more than ever. Getting into shape was essential, without that shape being a shameful blob. Instead, finding some way to take pride in achievement of finding better alternatives, while not giving in to voices encouraging the addiction was a battle I knew I would not win overnight.
 
For nearly 2 decades, I had been raging this war, and never even knew it.
Temptation and devilish self-talk were my two worst enemies. I knew I had an arsenal of tools to help me deal with them, from all my NLP training, coaching, and applied psychology training. By denying it was going on, who was I really kidding? Awareness and acceptance were clearly the first real stage of truly taking on an addiction, no matter how trivial.
 
At 82kg, although overweight, I had not a major pressing need to lose vast quantities of weight. A few kilograms perhaps, maybe even 10 or 12. Even at 70kg, I would still have enough reserves on my torso for open water lake or sea swimming, and knew through bitter experience how quickly I could gain it again should I get confirmation of the channel swimming date, if I can afford the opportunity to finally re-arrange, after almost a decade and half since first planned.
 
My 48 hours was up, and I was now aware of this battle, faced by so many, which had the potential to continue forever. My relationship with my addiction was one I know I will face again and again.
But it's up to me to set the terms, as I move from 'the unaware victim of myself', to taking charge against the many enemies that rage within.
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