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Sugar, alcohol, and shame
I was talking to a psychiatrist the other day. She’s worked extensively with addicts and we were talking about the similarity between food addicts and alcoholics. She said that a characteristic of alcoholics is their deep shame and remorse over their inability to control their drinking. Other kinds of addicts don’t have this shame and remorse. I said that food addicts also have deep shame. Of course alcoholics and food addicts are both caught in the compulsive use of refined carbohydrates, alcohol in the former and sugars and flours in the latter.
Shame can keep food addicts from telling colleagues about their problem, even after abstinence and recovery have been established. I wonder if shame in the overwieght is about the biochemistry of refined carbohydrate addiction in that it appears to interfere with the functioning of beta-endorphin. This is the transmitter which gives us messages of good. Do we just simply lose the ability to see the good in ourselves because our beta-endorphin is not working? Do we project shame in its absence? Is this the link between sugar, alcohol, and shame?
Joan
ETC Study
We started a new study this week at Employment and Training Centers. I am so proud of the employees and the management for their enthusiastic support, their abilities, and their caring attitudes. Watch this space for results and progress. If you would like to host a study at your organization, please contact me.
Joan
Music and appetite
I had a wonderful conversation with a music director the other day. He reported that during a holy week filled with music, his ususally overwhelming appetite disappeared. I explained that in his particular case, it sounded like music stimulates his comfort neurotransmitters and thereby decreases his drive to comfort his brain with food. We could all take a lesson from this. That we need to figure out, each of us for him or her self, what activity both comforts us and has healthy consequences. This keeps us from turning to lethal foods for false comfort.
Joan