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Originally Posted by kwikdriver
That's not what addiction is about. Addicts know damn well their addictions are bad for them, and most wish they could change them, but are powerless to do so. It's actually part of the definition of addiction: to be powerless over the substance/situation/person/behavior to which you are addicted.
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I meant to say addicts either know their addiction is a problem, but feel powerless to stop (for they don't feel they have the power to do that, because they don't know other coping mechanisms besides the abused behavior/substance they are addicted to)
OR
They are so deep in denial that they don't truly "get" their behavior is the problem, and so they really aren't trying to change. This was how I was with food. Every day I observed the results of abusing food, every day I wished those results would "go away", but yet I never made an attempt to try to stop. One day it clicked that I COULD do something about this. I was lucky enough to find low carb, which provided the other "missing half" to the answer and in that moment I knew it was only a matter of time until I was thin.
I do consider myself a food addicted person, however that feeling of being "powerless but to sabotage myself", I cannot relate to it. I CAN relate to a feeling of powerlessness over food
in the moment with food when "unarmed" (due to poor planning or being put in a circumstance I can't control). However, I DO recognize my strength and power to prevent myself from getting to that point where I am disarmed and vulnerable before food.
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Addicts can't say no, not consistently. It transcends "willpower." I have a ton of willpower in certain situations, but in others, none at all. So does everyone I know who battles addictions. The best you can do is try to build a wall between yourself and whatever the addiction is, to minimize the temptations, because eventually the temptation will almost certainly wear you down. It's simply a matter of time and Murphy's Law. To point to someone struggling with an addiction, cluck your tongue and say, "They just need some willpower," is one of the emptiest, most ignorant things people can say, but it's done all the time, particularly with food.
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I really don't agree.
Yes, I do expect someone to employ personal responsibility, to draw on their willpower reserves and try to say NO and not start in on something that they full well understand they will lose control of.
Addiction does not absolve one of the same personal responsibilities as everyone else. All it means is you have a disease, and therefore you have the additional responsibilities of planning your life around it. If someone has diabetes, I full well expect them to be responsible and control/plan their diet and lifestyle so as to avoid a lot of excess sugar. If someone has food addiction, I expect them to be responsible and to control/plan their diet and lifestyle so that their meals are planned, structured, controlled, and to eliminate or moderate impulsive eating ("snacking").
The nature of psychological/behavioral diseases is such that it's easy to confuse symptoms of the disease with self-destructive behavior that is the product of laziness, fear, or irresponsibility (and not loss of control with a substance/behavior). An addict uses their substance to cope, true, but there comes a point where you can't justify EVERYTHING because "you're an addict". If you go out of your way to sabotage yourself, that's your fault. You can only blame the disease so far.
Unfortunately, many addicts - as a result of learning to lie so often (to themselves and others) as is necessitated by addiction - become experts at it. They become very manipulative and dependent and toxic to others around them. They become experts at lying to others and denial. They do this, using their disease to skirt personal responsibility and to elicit undue support, so they may continue their self-destructive habits.
However, these (becoming irresponsible, lazy, and shirking personal responsibility and refusing to acknowledge your own power and self control) are SECONDARY effects of addiction. They just go along with the "lifestyle" one leads as an addict - sort of how one might become a smoker if they tend to work in a bar (working in a bar does not EQUAL becoming a smoker... but it makes it a lot easier to pick up the habit since you're socially surrounded by smokers).
Ultimately, these are the plain facts. Being an addict is not a "get out of jail free card" that you can just throw up any time you do stuff that's bad for you. The diabetic doesn't have control over their body, any more than the food addict has control over their compulsivity with eating. That's true. This is a problem that is out of your control, but it is NOT out of your control to take responsibility and prevent the problems and complications associated with your disease. Being an addict does not mean you are helpless but to give up. It does not mean people should say it's ok because you rooted out your wife's stash of junkfood, and then proceeded to blame her for that.
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In a way, those of us with food/eating addictions are lucky, because you really can force your addiction into abeyance with a low carb diet -- and one slip won't beat you, as it would with drugs or alcohol, and one slip doesn't have catastrophic consequences. If you're a drunk, one slip and you're almost certainly going to be a drinking drunk again; if you're a carb addict, one slip isn't going to add 50 pounds to your thighs, and you have the next meal to get back on track.
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I don't think it's true that one slip will lead to relapse for all addictions. My boss was an alcoholic and I remember one episode where he fell off the wagon for a day. The following day he got back on as if nothing had happened. I've observed this quite often with alcoholics and smokers in fact.
I think whether or not you fall off - and stay off - depends primarily on your desire to recover and the circumstances in your life at the time.
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At any rate, slight digression aside, people really need to get a better grip on just what an addiction is, even, perhaps especially, here. When it comes to eating issues, this is a community of glass houses, and throwing stones like "You just need some willpower," is likely to lead to a whole lot of broken glass and cut up feet.
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You know, if the story were more like "my wife baked my favorite cake and left it right on the counter during my first few days of induction, so I slipped and cheated" I think people would be a lot more sympathetic. Furthermore, I think people would have been extra sympathetic if the OP also expressed some
intimation of accepting of personal responsibility by saying something like "oh man I really screwed up, oh well next time I will ask my wife to cover the cake and put it out of the way so I am not tempted".
In fact, I know they would be more sympathetic, because I've seen these kinds of posts before. Many of us know that feeling, many of us are food addicts.
BUT that's not what happened. The OP said his wife WAS hiding the "bad foods", she was going out of her way not to tempt him or let him know they were around... yet he STILL went out of his way to sabotage himself in this already very safe, supportive environment. Not only is it he and he alone who caused the cheat, but he seemed to be blaming his wife and not at all recognizing or accepting personal responsibility for his behavior.
That's why he got the response he did. Ya know, I would agree with it.
I'm sorry, but his "addiction" cannot justify that. Being an addict ONLY means you have no power but to control yourself in certain activities or with certain substances, period. It does NOT mean you are absolved from the same personal responsibilities as everyone else. If you know this about yourself, that you can't control yourself when you eat certain foods, then you SHOULD be told that going out of your way to "break mommies rules" and stick your finger in the electrical socket
is not an acceptable behavior and
it is a behavior you consciously CHOOSE for yourself, and it has nothing to do with your addiction. If people don't tell you this then they are basically enabling you to fail. People need to know they have power. If they feel they are powerless, then they won't make a real effort.
Perhaps you should ask yourself why you want to believe so very badly that you are powerless but to relapse? Perhaps it is because, subconsciously, you are not really ready to change?