It’s only food

How many times have we wondered how a person can be out of control with food, after all it’s only food. Nevertheless so many are afflicted with an eating disorder – either overeating or undereating. It is a life threatening addiction. People who suffer with anorexia lose so much weight that their organs waste away and finally stop working. Those who suffer with bulimia have their insides torn up from the binging and purging. Those who are overeaters stress their organs with the excess weight and are at risk of developing diabetes, or when they already have it then they risk loss of limbs and death. Those who overeat and don’t put on too much weight have raised cholesterol which can reach dangerous levels and they don’t deal with their condition because they don’t believe it is dangerous. Then there is the madness of this addiction where we are preoccupied with food all the time – being driven or compelled to eat in order to satisfy the urge which is insatiable. Only in recovery are we free from that obsession and compulsion, and then we experience the feeling of serenity.

as I sat watching a movie in my lounge room
I enjoyed sipping my cup of tea after dinner
how great it is to be in recovery
free from struggling with my mind being
constantly in my fridge, wondering
what I could eat next and knowing
it wouldn’t be enough – insatiable
that was then and this is now
it feels so great to be satisfied and
enjoying the movie in serenity
at peace at last
after all it’s only food
but what a demon it can be!