TEMPORARY HAPPINESS –
Jan. 13, 2023 – …but the differences are telling: The big one for me starts with the fact that you need to eat in order to live, but you don’t need cocaine, heroin, or alcohol to live. Among other things, this impacts treatment options. When you have a food addiction, you can’t abstain from food. You need it to sustain life.
Two other differences between food and drug addiction relate to tolerance and withdrawal. In drug addiction, tolerance is needing more and more of a substance to gain the same effect. This rarely, if ever, happens with food.
The same goes for withdrawal, which happens when someone stops using drugs or alcohol cold turkey. Symptoms may include nausea, muscle aches, sweating, depression, anxiety, and extreme fatigue. Without medication assistance and physician supervision, drug or alcohol withdrawal can be deadly. With food addiction, withdrawal has not been well studied, but it’s clear the symptoms don’t reach the level of drug or alcohol withdrawal. Some people report having cravings, headaches, sleepiness, and temporary insomnia when they stop eating certain highly processed foods.
