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Let me speak to the shock part first. Yes, I drank - a lot – in college. So did everyone else I knew. So did everyone in my family. In fact, most of the people in my family drank a whole lot more than I ever did! After I got married, I quit drinking on a regular basis. When I did drink after that, I usually drank to get drunk – true. It’s also true that I drank less after I got married because I started taking codeine – very rarely, at first – for bad migraine headaches. Over time, however, I took it daily because codeine helped me to not feel. Anything. At most, I took maybe three in a day. I thought addicts took lots and lots of pills! So when I was given the alcohol and drug addiction screening, I was certain I wouldn’t meet any criteria for alcoholic, and most definitely not for drug addict. Well, I got one heck of a case of the “Yeah buts…” in a hurry when the therapist said, after scoring my test, “Connie – you’re an alcoholic and a drug addict.” As she talked to me about the items that indicated addiction on the test, every one of my responses to her started with, “Yeah, but…” For example, “Yeah, but I could have answered that question either way.” “Yeah, but I don’t drink nearly as much as most of the people I know, especially the people in my family.” “Yeah, but, drug addicts take a lot of pills throughout the day.” “Yeah, but I was able to take care of my kids and work and go to school.” “Yeah, but I’ve never been in trouble with the law.” When I had exhausted all the “Yeah, buts” I could think of, imagine or create, I got quiet and let it sink in. I am an addict. And then I felt it. Relief. It made sense. What made sense to me about my being an addict is understanding, for the first time, the reasons I continued to do things that went against my own values. I started to understand the reasons I did things I said I would never do. It began to make sense that things I promised I would stop doing seemed impossible to stop doing. I am an addict. I have a disease that “hijacks” the brain. When I am in active addiction of any kind: the disease of addiction that affects my brain doesn’t allow me to listen to reason but stays locked in denial mode the disease of addiction that affects my emotions keeps me in a protective mode so I defend myself by blaming other people and things for my behavior the disease of addiction that affects my spiritual self says, “do what feels good in the moment” and hides the part of me that says, “what I value is good and decent” the disease of addiction that affects my social self, brings out the loud, obnoxious, hurtful voice I am capable of using the disease of obesity that affects my physical being takes dangerous risks, eats poorly, doesn’t exercise and doesn’t care Accepting the truth that I am an addict was a relief. NOT AN EXCUSE. I understood my poor choices better. It made sense that it was so difficult for me to follow through with the convictions I made to myself and the promises I made to others. I began to understand why my behaviors went against the person I wanted to be. Addiction is a brain sickness and a soul sickness. And a protector. All at the same time. Food, alcohol, shopping, pain medication, and other things I engaged in addictively protected me from my feelings. That is what I wanted most of all. To not feel. I didn’t want to feel the reality of my sadness, my anger, my pain and my shame. The trade-off for not feeling was to use addictive substances/behaviors and betray myself by doing things I was embarrassed about, ashamed of, and seemingly unable to control. Being an addict was in no way an excuse for the behaviors I engaged in. It’s very uncool to use being an addict as a way to avoid taking responsibility. “I danced with the boss’s husband at the holiday party. What can say – I was drunk.” NOT COOL. “I told her off but she had it coming and besides – I was drunk and couldn’t keep my mouth shut.” NOT COOL. For food addicts, it is similarly bogus to make excuses for overeating because the kids were acting up, you were late for work and got yelled at, your mother was sick, or your spouse ticked you off. Each one of us is 100% responsible for our behavior – even if we have addictions. If we have an addiction, once we realize that truth, we are responsible for getting help and learning healthy ways to deal whatever life brings us. We are responsible for learning to deal with our feelings in appropriate ways. We are responsible for learning to work through losses, past abuse or neglect, present hardships, frustrations with family and friends, and all of life’s realities. Without the use of addictive chemicals or actions. The addictive substance or behavior, whatever it is, isn’t the problem. Sure, alcohol is a problem for alcoholics. Certain foods are problems for food addicts. Shopping is a problem for shopaholics. But those are only the surface problems. Addictive substances and behaviors are symptoms of the real problems, which are almost always rooted in shame: “I’m not good enough.” That shame stems from many possible places. To treat addictions, we must first remove the substance or behavior. No, one cannot eliminate food from their life. But they can eliminate the food(s) that cause them problems. Once we are free of chemicals or the addictive behaviors, we can work on the real problems and choose who we want to be. When we don’t “use,” our actions can reflect our values. “Connie – you’re an addict.” WHAT A RELIEF! I understood why I couldn’t STOP doing things I didn’t really want to do. I finally knew there was hope. I knew I could learn to live life in healthy ways and according to my values. But I first had to be willing to live without the addictive chemicals and behaviors. So I needed help. I couldn’t do it alone. And I didn’t have to. Together, we can support one another into a life of RECOVERY. What a relief!

I have worked as a psychologist, providing psychological evaluations prior to bariatric weight loss surgery for the past eight years. For the most part, people need a power tool to help them lose and keep off the weight they have lost over and over again in their lives. The gastric sleeve, bypass, and now balloon are those tools. However, every once in a while, I will encounter someone who believes these procedures are the magic bullet. I can pick this up in five seconds when I learn that: this person has no exercise plan to maintain their weight loss a barrage of excuses as to why they can't exercise anymore zero insight into why they are overweight ("I don't know why I am overweight, I just eat steamed vegetables and grilled chicken mostly.") a lack of motivation or understanding for why they also have to engage in behavioral modification in addition to the surgery "Why would you reveal all of this?" you ask. Aren't I giving away the keys to the kingdom to anyone who reads this and wants to pass a psychological evaluation? Perhaps- but who are you really cheating if you don't go within and face the real demons that got you here in the first place? When I ask people about their eating styles, I tend to group them into four categories: 1) emotional eater- someone who uses food when they are bored, stressed, tired, lonely, sad, or even happy in addition to eating when they are hungry 2) skip and binger- someone who fails to think about food until it is too late, and when they are ravenous end up going for whatever is available which is usually some type of carb and calorie laden fast food 3) miscellaneous- someone who just recognizes that they eat too large of portion sizes and/or the wrong types of food 4) food addict- usually someone with a history of other addictions, trauma, and a significant amount of weight to lose. They usually have comorbid psychological diagnoses that have been unaddressed or ill-addressed. Out of the four categories, the 4th is the most troubling for a psychologist. This particular person is most correlated with the patient who fails to address their core issues, eats "around the sleeve," or bypass, experiences dumping syndrome, comes back a year later and asks for the bypass, or a different procedure. This is the person who, ironically, is usually the most resistant to my recommendation that they seek therapeutic support prior to the surgery. They want it done YESTERDAY. They want it NOW. It is this type of thinking that got them into trouble in the first place. The impulsivity and lack of emotional regulation. I've witnessed people fail to address their maladaptive eating patterns and never quite get to their goal weight. I had a male that would buy a bag of pepperonis at the grocery store and snack on them all day and couldn't understand why he wasn't losing weight. This daily "snack," which was a mental security blanket, served as a veritable IV drip of fat and calories throughout the day. I've had a woman who figured out how to ground up her favorite foods into a liquid form because she never quite let go of her attachment to "comfort foods." One of her most notable liquid concoctions consisted of chicken and Cheetos. I'll just leave that for you to chew...er swallow. They say with drug and alcohol recovery- you "slay the dragon," but with food addiction recovery, you have to take it for a walk three times a day. If you don't fundamentally shift your relationship with this dragon, you're going to get burnt when you are walking it. My number one tip for transforming your relationship with food is to start looking at eating the same way you do as brushing and flossing: You don't necessarily salivate at the idea of what type of toothpaste you will use, where you will do it, who you will do it with, right? You just do it twice a day because you don't want to lose your teeth and you want to maintain healthy gums. Food has to be thought of in the same way. You fuel up. You don't use food as a place to define your quality of life. You don't use food to celebrate. You don't use food to demarcate the end of a long day. You don't use food to help you feel less alone. You figure out healthier coping alternatives to meet these needs. Loneliness-call a friend for support Celebrate- get a massage Demarcate the end of a long day- start a tea ritual and use essential oils Another reason you must say goodbye to comfort food is that it triggers the pleasure center of the brain, which ignites our dopamine, which perpetuates the addiction. Many people think we are just telling them to get rid of the comfort food because of the carbs or calories, but there are unique and harmful chemical consequences to ingesting these types of food we know are bad for us. If you are ready to take a modern approach to weight loss and stop dieting for good- check out my wls/vsg psychological support course here for free.

In the forum, I've seen a lot of concern about cheating on the pre-op diet and eating certain foods too soon after surgery. I understand these temptations. (Oh, boy, do I understand.) It is natural to crave what we can't have. Foods like pizza and pasta suddenly seem preternaturally delicious. If we give in and eat something that's not on our diet plan, we react with guilt and shame--and we usually realize that pizza is not as awesome as we remembered. Unfortunately, cravings come back again and again, promising a taste explosion. If we don't learn to resist most of these cravings, we can derail our weight loss efforts. The next time a craving hits, try thinking about your smaller stomach as a set of training wheels instead of a set of restrictive rules. Your current body--your bicycle--is functional, but you have your heart set on that sleek racing model or muscular mountain bike. You yearn to zip down the street or take that rugged path through the forest. Before you can master the better bicycle, though, you have to learn to balance on the one you have--under all road and trail conditions. You have to be ready for the challenges ahead. Training wheels are boring, but they help us avoid the worst of the bumps and bruises that can happen when we lose our balance and fall off the bike. We can still slip up and take a spill, but it's likely to be much less painful than if we were careening down a street unchecked, with no extra wheels to keep us upright. Our smaller stomach does the same thing for us: it helps us maintain our balance while we're learning to nourish our bodies again. Before surgery, most of us had the freedom to eat a large variety and amount of food. We lost our balance repeatedly, and we paid for it with increased weight and medical problems. We injured our body--and mind--over and over. We've already invested a lot of resources in our weight loss surgery, and we have a limited amount of time to make use of these training wheels. If we take the extra time and effort to learn the fine art of balance, we will be better prepared to handle the freedom that comes with the new, better models of our bodies. The excitement and adventures waiting for us down the road are worth a little boredom with the training wheels now.