:rolleyes:Has anybody ever told you the worst kind of smoker is an "X" smoker? Not that I don't respect them for the intestinal fortitude required to set aside an addiction, but tune down the preaching for a sec and look at people as individuals!!!

Here's my problem; my support group counselor, i.e. the gate to my surgeon is a recovering alcoholic. Which doesn't say anything about her character; she is a wonderful individual who truly cares about her clients. However, she looks at us through the same lens; we are all food addicts, and if we are insistent that we are not, then we are deluding ourselves and probably wouldn't benefit from this operation. Well, I won't get into how I am sure I am not a food addict; as any defense would simply appear to be a mealy-mouthed attempt to convince myself and so defeat my point, but she doesn't listen to any rational debate about it. She shuts down by sitting back, crossing her arms, placing a smug, "I know better than you about what makes you tic," smirk on her face and shakes her head in the negative while you ply your case. I find this a big negative to my working through my issues about the surgery in general and it is becoming an obstacle. I mean, I can play the game and totally agree with her to achieve my approval for surgery, but do I really have to admit to an addiction I don't have? How is that productive? Shouldn't a counselor have a more rounded approach to treating everyone as individuals? Even if 99.9999% of people you deal with on a daily basis are emotional eating, bottomless pits of self loathing and bargin basement self esteem who don't have the ability to push away from the table before their guts fairly burst without ever hearing their brains say STOP.....You still need to treat each and every one as a unique set of life experiences and circumstances, right?

You would think so, but as a recovering addict herself, she knows all the arguments, she's used them on herself. She's heard every justification, every nugget of self delusion, she understands the psychology of total loss of control. What makes her good at her job also handicaps her. If you are here in this class than you are over weight; if you are over weight than you have no self control (where food is concerned); if you have no self control than you are an addict. This is a logical thought process. However, sometimes (and I am well aware of the microscopically small percentage of people we are talking about here) people end up needing surgical intervention for reasons other than a lack of self control. Health conditions that wreak havoc on metabolism, i.e. thyroid malfunction, auto immune disorders such as Lupus and chronic pain as in rheumatoid arthritis; work together to both hamper with calorie absorption and trap the body in a jail cell of stiffened, inflamed and painful joints. All this is most usually accompanied by severe depression which further zaps the ability to move about as one should. Given a period of 1-2 years spent living in this hell a person who is NOT addicted to food can gain a considerable amount of weight!

So, I don't know. Does it really hurt me in any way to just go with the flow? I guess it just pisses me off that I have spent 42 years on this planet exhibiting total self control. I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't experiment with recreational drug use; heck I don't even take all the pain meds prescribed for my conditions because I don't want to be a pill popping addict! So it ruffles my feathers that this women insists she knows that I am addicted to food!

So you know one way I know I am NOT a food addict? Because when I get angry I don't down an entire bag of doritos with a big gulp from 7/11; no, I write a blog instead!:frown::ohmy: