That Dirty Addiction No One Talks Much About

See those three bottles of Ranch dressing? Meet my vice. Or at least, my vice before last Friday, when I was told that my borderline diabetes was creeping up to be full on diabetes if I didn't make a change. So if you'll notice, what you're looking at is three bottles of ranch dressing, a bag of spicy jalapeno chips, and a container of croutons.

All currently in the trash.  

I can tell you this hurt throwing them away. 

I can tell you I nearly cried when I emptied out my fridge of all ranch dressing. 

I can tell you, but you probably already guessed it from the above two sentences, that I have an unhealthy relationship with food, and have for years.

Looking back over my most unhappy years of my short 27 years of life, I can see where food slowly became a companion because I didn't have any other humans to act as a companion. I can see where food slowly but surely began to be a replacement for friends. I can see where I ate to convey every sad and pathetic and depressed and even happy emotion that I had for years.

Somehow we don't talk much about food addiction in the culture where I live. Sure we talk about alcohol addiction (at least sometimes we do) and we talk about sex addiction (but in a sort of taboo kind of way) and I'm grateful for the talks and tears and aches and Godly wisdom I've received from my circle about those things. But food addiction is just something that doesn't really come up in conversation.

And yet I can't possibly be the only one who does everything with food: I celebrate small and large victories with food, I reward myself with food, I eat to cope with hard emotions, I suffer alongside of food.

I know I'm not the only one.

So let's talk about it.

Let's talk about how much easier it is to be overweight, or how much easier it is to go through the drive through of Wendy's than cook a healthy dinner at home, or how much easier it is to sit on the couch with a pizza box and Netflix than swim 20 laps at the pool. Anyway, it sure is for me.

Maybe not everyone needs a kick in the pants to realize that as cliche as it sounds, the best things in life take work and determination. But like fun I do.

So I'm learning to be grateful that I'm a diabetic and I'm grateful that I have possible food-induced panic attacks and I'm grateful I have Meniere's disease.

Without these things, I would never have thrown away the three bottles of ranch dressing in my fridge.