The thing I question is how much of it is actual addiction, and how much of it is purely the hormonal (insulin, etc) reaction to a high carb diet.
I went to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting one time - only once, because by the end of that meeting, I realized that I wasn't having the same kind of reaction to food in general as others at the meeting were having. I didn't have a "trigger food" that the mere mention of that particular food could set of an eating binge, not even necessarily for that particular food.
If I ate something carby, I'd get into a vicious cycle of eating carbs, blood sugar high, blood sugar crash, eating more carbs, rinse and repeat all day long, but it was carbs in general - not terribly specific at all, I'd just eat whatever carbs I had available. Cake, cookies, donuts, pretzels, mashed potatoes, bread, potato chips, tortilla chips, candy, popcorn, pretty much all carbs, especially if they were also sweet. One carb binge led to another carb binge, and another carb binge, and another, each carb binge a few hours apart.
But the friend who talked me into going to that meeting told me one time about how she reacted when she was making a sandwich for her DH, and he wanted chopped lettuce on it. So she chopped up lettuce, put it on his sandwich, and it was the tiny little bits of lettuce that remained on the cutting board that she snarfed down - she went crazy stuffing those tiny bits into her mouth. LETTUCE. She wasn't craving lettuce, she was eating it purely because it was food. Her trigger for it might have been making/handling/seeing/smelling the sandwich she made for her DH, or some component of the sandwich, but not the lettuce itself. She didn't even crave or want lettuce, but that was what she went nuts eating.This seemed to be the kind of experience they were all having - even if they initially ate the trigger food, it didn't stop there, they would end up eating everything, even stuff they didn't really even like.
I realize that carbs in particular can set off the pleasure/addiction center of the brain (and I definitely enjoyed the taste of the carbs I ate), but I think the problem (especially in the case of those who stop eating obsessively when they stick to LC) is at least as much the insulin reaction as it is any kind of addictive reaction to food itself. Either way, despite the overweight being accused of gluttony, no self control, not pushing away from the table soon enough, not exercising enough, if there's any kind of addictive or insulin reaction (or both) to the food you're eating, then it's not truly your fault that you're overweight.
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