Why Do People in Recovery Experience Sugar Addiction?

Because it tastes good? –

Nov. 9, 2020 – Susannah Gerber is a chef, nutritionist, and food behaviorist. By food behaviorist, she means that she is a behaviorist that works on health behavior change and relationships to food. “When we’re talking about food behavior, food behavior can mean things like disordered eating or it can simply be dispositional,” says Gerber in an interview with The Temper. “Almost all of the behavioral theories that can be used for addiction can also be applied to food.”

A big part of sugar addiction in early recovery is also the idea of replacing alcohol with something that is more benign, according to Gerber. “When it comes to addiction and recovery, I think the predominant feeling I’ve experienced in the literature and my own personal relationship to myself and others is that you’re likely to adopt a mentality of ‘I’m trying to overcome this huge obstacle’,” she says. Suddenly, it becomes okay to smoke cigarettes or ingest a large amount of sugar. Anything that keeps us away from drinking again is okay.

We see this a lot around recovery fellowships. It is a running joke in 12-step fellowships that if you want to find the meeting, you should look for the crowd of people smoking outside. Similarly, meetings often have coffee or sugary treats available for the people in attendance. In some detoxes, support staff have chocolate on hand for people in the early stages of withdrawal.