Dr. Charlotte Kasl's 16 Steps of Recovery

Who does not need recovery? Anyone? We've all been traumatized, some seriously and some less seriously but no less destructively. As I search for ways to heal myself and others from the inevitable traumas life throws our way, I found myself in 2008 drawn toward the 12-Step process. Initially I sought relief from my food issues - I like chocolate a little too much, and I wanted to loosen its hold over me. I like my body at 125 pounds, but I suffer and obsess too much when my weight climbs higher.

I wanted a more expansive view. I wanted to clear the head space that thinking about my weight consumes and fill it with more nourishing self-talk. I didn't want to wake up every morning bargaining with myself over what I would eat or not eat. I wanted to exercise for fun rather than for the endless calorie calculations I used to perform. I wanted what you might call... recovery.

Many have found solace and recovery in 12-Step Programs: Overeaters Anonymous, Food Addicts Anonymous, Food Addicts, as well as the earlier generations of recovery found in Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

As I immersed myself in 12-Step work with my doctor/healer hat as well as my addict hat, I found that it offers tremendous spiritual growth, a field guide to living a life that is "happy, joyous and free," and recovery from addictions of all kinds.

To be honest, though, my experience with 12-Step has been mixed. Mostly, I object to the patriarchal, anachronistic, and heavily dogmatic Christian vibe of the literature. There is also a lot of controversy about whether food may be actually an addiction. I'm not sure where the line exists between food addiction vs. a sticky relationship with food vs. normal eating behavior.  Are we all somewhere along a continuum from "normal" (my friends who eat one bite of chocolate cake and are satisfied) to "crazy" ("I kept slicing off small slices of that cake, and before I knew it the whole damn thing was gone!")? Science doesn't help us too much with this, but I digress.

One reason for my ambivalence is that the 12-Step main message: we are self-centered jerks before recovery, and our physical problem of being addicted to sugar (or alcohol, or sex, or debt) requires a physical, emotional and spiritual solution. So far, so good. But the path to working the 12-Steps often offends and irritates me. For instance: take ego deflation. The idea in 12-Step is that ego deflation is the only path to recovery. Here is where I see a few options. Traditional 12-Step has us perpetually catalog our character defects, accept blame for our part in any conflict we are part of, and own it. There is some risk here, especially for women who are trauma survivors and have eroded self-esteem. Dr. Charlotte Kasl, PhD shares my concerns about 12-Step and offers an alternative.

Dr. Kasl offers believes that recovery must include an awareness of the patriarchal and political systems that contribute to addiction and co-depency. She offers an alternative to the 12-Steps (listed below) that urges addicts and those of us with dependency issues to "take charge of their lives and examine beliefs, addictions and dependent behavior in the context of living in a hierarchical, patriarchal culture."

Here are her 16 Steps of Recovery....

1. We affirm we have the power to take charge of our lives and stop being dependent on substances or other people for our self-esteem and security.

Alternative:  We admit/acknowledge we are out of control with/powerless over _________ yet have the power to take charge of our lives and stop being dependent on substances or other people for our self-esteem and security.

2. We come to believe that God/Goddess/Universe/Great Spirit/Higher Power awakens the healing wisdom within us when we open ourselves to that power.

3. We make a decision to become our authentic selves and trust in the healing power of the truth.

4. We examine our beliefs, addictions, and dependent behavior in the context of living in a hierarchal, patriarchal culture.

5. We share with another human being and the Universe all those things inside of us for which we feel shame and guilt.

6. We affirm and enjoy our intelligence, strengths, and creativity, remembering not to hide those qualities from ourselves or others.

7. We become willing to let go of shame, guilt, and any behavior that keeps us from loving ourselves and others.

8. We make a list of people we have harmed and people who have harmed us, and take steps to clear out negative energy by making amends and sharing our grievances in a respectful way.

9. We express love and gratitude to others, and increasingly appreciate the wonder of life and the blessings we do have.

10. We learn to trust our reality and daily affirm that we see what we see, we know what we know, and we feel what we feel.

11. We promptly admit to mistakes and make amends when appropriate, but we do not say we are sorry for things we have not done and we do not cover-up, analyze, or take responsibility for the shortcomings of others.

12. We seek out situations, jobs, and people that affirm our intelligence, perceptions, and self-worth and avoid situations or people who are hurtful, harmful, or demeaning to us.

13. We take steps to heal our physical bodies, organize our lives, reduce stress, and have fun.

14. We seek to find our inward calling and develop the will and wisdom to follow it.

15. We accept the ups and downs of life as natural events that can be used as lessons for our growth.

16. We grow in awareness that we are sacred beings, interrelated with all living things, and we contribute to restoring peace and balance on the planet.

Local Hero Michael Pollan's Top 10 Food Tips

These are Michael's favorite food rules from his readers, reported last month in the New York Times.

1. Don’t eat egg salad from a vending machine.

2. Don’t eat anything that took more energy to ship than to grow.

3. If you are not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you’re not hungry.

4. Eat foods in inverse proportion to how much its lobby spends to push it.

5. Avoid snack foods with the “oh” sound in their names: Doritos, Cheetos, Tostitos, Ho Hos, etc.

6. No second helpings, no matter how scrumptious.

7. It’s better to pay the grocer than the doctor.

8. You may not leave the table until you finish your fruit.

9. You don’t get fat on food you pray over. (Meals prepared at home, served at the table and given thanks for are more appreciated and more healthful than food eaten on the run.)

10. Breakfast you should eat alone. Lunch you should share with a friend. Dinner, give to your enemy.

11. Never eat something that is pretending to be something else (artificial sweeteners, margarine, etc.)

12. Don’t yuck someone’s yum. There is someone out there who likes deep-fried sheep eyeballs and, well, more power to them.

13. Make and take your own lunch to work.

14. Eat until you are seven-tenths full and save the other three-tenths for hunger.

15. I am living in Japan and following these simple rules in preparing each meal: GO HO – incorporate five different cooking methods, GO SHIKI – incorporate five colors, GO MI – incorporate five flavors.

16. One of my top rules for eating comes from economics. The law of diminishing marginal utility reminds me that each additional bite is generally less satisfying than the previous bite. This helps me slow down, savor the first bites, stop eating sooner.

17. Don’t eat anything you aren’t willing to kill yourself.

18. When drinking tea, just drink tea. I find this Zen teaching useful, given my inclination toward information absorption in the morning, when I’m also trying to eat breakfast, get the dog out, start the fire and organize my day.

19. When you’re eating, don’t talk about other past meals, whether better or worse. Focus on what’s in front of you.

20. After spending some time working with people with eating disorders, I came up with this rule: Don’t create arbitrary rules for eating if their only purpose is to help you feel in control.

Food Addiction = Disease: Stages & Consequences

I'm going to draw heavily again from Kay Sheppard's book on food addiction along with my professional and personal experience to lay out for you the stages and consequences of the disease of food addiction. It's when we look at food addiction as a bad habit that needs to be changed by sheer force of will that we get into trouble - we fail inevitably and then the roller coaster of despair, anxiety, depression, mood swings and self-loathing begins.

The conventional medical world has been slow to see the connection between food addiction and obesity, or food addiction and anorexia and/or bulemia. The link is obvious to me, although the classic criteria of food addiction have not made it into the conventional bible of such problems: Our Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. However, if you look under "Bulemia," you'll find there is tremendous overlap with food addiction.

Kay Sheppard states that the path of food addiction is one of ups, downs and many side trips. I happened to own my food addiction relatively early in the process, mostly because I had the blessing to care for many women who were food addicts who recovered through an abstinent eating plan and 12-step. I had never seen people maintain a healthy weight as these women, and it intrigued me.

Kay talks about how young food addicts have more interest in food than their peers, who can often take it or leave it. She recommends a careful assessment of past behavior and attitudes as they relate to food to reveal addiction. Below is a list of symptoms taken directly from her book.

Stage I: Preoccupation with Food
Food addicts spend an "inordinate amount of time seeking, talking about, and involving" himself or herself with food. Movies = popcorn, Holidays = special food (e.g., my mom's yummy Yorkshire Pudding for Christmas, latkes for Hannukhah) ; "the food addict sees life in relationship to the next opportunity to eat."

Other facets of Stage I: Sneaking food and/or stealing food & money; discomfort in no-food situations; keeping secrets; concern about weight; self-loathing; and eating after others stop.

Stage II: Loss of Control and Attempts to Control
Kay describes this next phase as loss of control over the amount of food consumed and over behavior. Life becomes unmanageable. This leads to many attempted diets: Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Fat Flush, Nutrisystem, etc.

Other features? Self-deception; making excuses; lethargy, irritability and depression.

Stage III: Final Stages -- Efforts to Control Binging Fail Repeatedly.
This includes over-exercising, use of laxatives or diuretics, and cycles of failure may become more frequent.

Eventually there is a withdrawal phase of greater isolation and "numbing out" in food - with loss of interest in family, friends and other pursuits, work and family problems, emotional , physical, moral and mental deterioration, neglect of good nutrition, food is the main source of security, panic: obsession and compulsion take over, and then, in time, complete defeat.

Medical consequences of food addiction are legion: high blood pressure, pre-diabetes or diabetes (adrenal fatigue helps hasten this regardless of weight), high cholesterol and cardiovascular disease (our #1 killer in the US), and cancer. There are also lesser known conditions such as gallbladder disease, hepatic steatosis, lung impairment, hormonal imbalances (especially estrogen dominance and adrenal fatigue), obstetric complications, gout, joint dysfunction, etc.

The emotional and psychological effects may be even worse: bulemia, depression, anxiety, guilt, poor self-esteem, shame and self-contempt.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Kay's book is a great start along with joining a 12-step program such as Overeaters Anonymous or Food Addicts. If you are suffering and want to heal, call today or show up at a meeting.

F L O U R + S U G A R = E V I L

Some of us are as addicted to food as an alcoholic is to alcohol. Kay Sheppard wrote a great book about this, entitled Food Addiction: The Body Knows. I am especially interested in how addiction to flour and sugar leads to depression, anxiety, over-exercise, distorted body image, lethargy, irritability, PMS, weight obsession, and strained relationships, and by extension, how recovery can heal these conditions.

Here is her questionnaire for self-diagnosis:

1. Has anyone ever told you that you have a problem with food?

2. Do you think food is a problem for you?

3. Do you eat large amounts of high calorie food in a short period of time?

4. Do you eat to overcome shyness?

5. Do you eat when you are disappointed, tense or anxious?

6. Can you stop eating without struggle after one or two sweets?

7. Has your eating ever interfered with any part of your life?

8. Has being overweight ever affected any part of your life?

9. Do you weigh yourself once or more per day?

10. Do you eat more than you planned to eat?

11. Have you hidden food so that you would have it for yourself?

12. Have you felt angry when someone ate food you saved for yourself?

13. Do you worry that you can't control how much you eat?

14. Have you ever felt frantic about your size, shape or weight?

15. How many of these methods of weight loss have you tried in the past?

• self-induced vomiting
  
• laxatives
• diuretics
• fasting
• compulsive exercise
• amphetamines
• cocaine
• OTC diet pills
• sorbitol
• chewing and spitting food
• acupuncture, acupressure
• hypnosis
• urine shots
• special foods, drinks & supplements
• weight loss programs: how many? how often?

16. Have you ever felt so ashamed of the amount you eat that you hide your eating?

17. Have you ever been so upset about the way you eat that you wished you would die?

18. Do you overeat more than twice/week?

19. Do you invent plans in order to be alone to eat?

20. Do you seek out companions who eat the way you do?

Next time... stages of food addiction and how to recover, with the latest thinking from Dr. Mark Hyman, MD, and data on the role of dopamine in the food addict's brain.