Food for Thought for Over Eaters Anonymous

[MajestyJo]

Food For Thought

October 28

Food Is Not Home

Breaking abstinence may be an attempt to go home emotionally. Since we associate food, and especially certain foods, with early experience, we may turn to food when we crave the emotional support of home.

Perhaps our early home life did not provide the emotional support and security we needed, causing us to attach a false significance to the food, which we were given. The habit of turning to food and eating as a substitute for love, acceptance, and security may be deeply ingrained in our psyche. We may have come to depend on food instead of people to satisfy our emotional needs.

The problem is, of course, that food is not a satisfactory substitute for love and acceptance. However much we eat, the emotional satisfaction will be only temporary and soon disintegrate into despair and self-hatred. The home we crave can best be built here and now by working the OA program and loving the people our Higher Power gives us to love today.

May I realize that food is not home.

When I think of home sweet home, real or imagined, we think of comfort and a safe place to be. Food can be a comfort, until it gets to be too much. When we want to stop we can't. When I find myself reaching for more, I have to ask myself, am I hungry or am I stuffing my feelings?