Here in the U.S., we’re in the middle of summer. There are picnics and parties and food all around us. I’ve been thinking about how we orient toward that food, whether someone is staying Bright, eating addictively, or relapsing.
This brings up a question: Do you need to binge to be a real food addict? The answer is no. There are different flavors of addiction and they’re all equally legitimate. Think about smokers. Nicotine is addictive. Cigarette smokers are addicts, engaging in an addiction. But it’s not a binge addiction; it’s more a steady, slow drip. It’s a grazing style of addiction.
Alcoholics come in either variety. Some are binge drinkers, and some are just maintenance drinkers, who may drink steadily through the evening, but never get black-out drunk. Caffeine is another addiction—but it’s probably more often the grazing, slow-drip variety of addiction.
With food, we have both varieties. Some people may graze all day long, a little at a time, never eating to the point of getting overly stuffed. Others may binge. Both can be food addicts.
Most people who are active in binge eating disorder also have food addiction. Not all, though. For a diagnosis of binge eating disorder, your bingeing must be pretty intense and pretty frequent. But there are food addicts who binge periodically, or have a subjective experience of bingeing but do not eat enough for it to qualify as a technical “binge.” So they wouldn’t qualify for binge eating disorder.
What that means is that they may lose control over what they eat. I have a family member like that. She might be prepping a rotisserie chicken for storage, for example, and suddenly gobble up a bunch of that chicken and feel like she’s lost control, but in actuality she may not have eaten more than four ounces of chicken. She may have eaten it quickly, though, with a sort of furtiveness and loss of control. That might not qualify for a binge eating disorder diagnosis, but it is a symptom of food addiction.
It's important to keep in mind what addiction is about. It’s about having difficulty stopping when you want to stop. That could mean bingeing, or it could mean grazing. It might be that when you stop, you have difficulty staying stopped. Addiction is about mental chatter in the mind, the will-I-won’t-I insanity. Addiction is also about continuing to eat (whether you're bingeing or grazing) despite consequences that start piling up—physical, social, practical, or psychological consequences. That’s addiction.
So when we think about it this time of year, and what it looks like when someone relapses, it could be a binge, or it could be someone who just eats an extra ear of corn at a cookout and then feels demoralized and desperate. They know it was off the plan and they’re sick in their guts about it. But they’re not bingeing.
Addiction is terrible, even without the binge. Obsessing over that ear of corn is indicative of a disordered relationship with food, which is a component of addiction.
One of the questions on the Food Addiction Susceptibility Scale asks about bingeing. But you can be a 10 without giving a high number to that question. If you’re 10+, you may binge, and bingeing does add a layer of experience to the addiction. But it’s not necessary for food addiction.
