During the holidays, food fests dot the countryside like land mines. The whole world becomes food obsessed. Lifestyle magazines deck supermarket newsstands, presenting all kinds of options for unwholesome food and drinks in ornate silver and gold wrappings. Every holiday boasts its unique edible fare.

No wonder why food addicts find the holiday season to be a formidable challenge. One of the obvious pitfalls of the season is the abundance of tempting food and drink. Foods that will trigger addiction (see below) and its attendant life of horror are displayed in innocent and gorgeous splendor. Even delicious baking smells can trigger food urges. For those who are predisposed to this addiction, holiday foods are particularly devastating in all their sticky, pasty, greasy grandeur. For them, those addictive foods should be photographed with a skull-and-crossbones “poison” label.

Then, there are always those folks who are urging everyone to eat “just a little” of such trigger foods. Or worse yet, there are others who offer to prepare appropriate food without any real effort to do so. Some hostesses even lie about the ingredients, thinking they can “put one over” on the food addict. With a sly smile they say, “There is no sugar in this dish.” Under any of these circumstances, the best way for our clients to maintain abstinence throughout the holiday orgy of addictive substances is to eliminate and restrict the number of occasions attended, to show up prepared with acceptable food, or to eat before the party.

Increased stress is certainly another complicating factor in holiday activities. The season brings more pressure, date books are fuller, “to do lists” become longer, and all together, it’s a busy time of year. During these fast-paced periods when support is most needed, our clients are tempted to cancel therapy sessions and recovery meetings, forget phone calls, and postpone step work until after the holidays. After all, isn’t the reason for recovery to enjoy life? The temptation rings: take a holiday from recovery.

Before the holidays become frantic, it would be a good idea for clients to outline, with the counselor’s guidance, their “best recovery program,” formulating a checklist based on those activities which best support their personal recovery process. This checklist might include the optimum number of meetings to attend, a commitment to daily phone calls, sponsor contacts, reading, writing, prayer, and meditation. It might look something like this:

RECOVERY CHECKLIST
Phoned sponsor ___
Attended meeting ___
Exercised ___ minutes
Journal writing ___
Gratitude list ___
Meditation ___ times
Prayer ___
Literature selection (identify selection)
Food planning ___
Phone calls to ___ and ___

Client complacency and overconfidence are killers. Whatever the excuse for letting up on recovery activities, the “24 hour principle” of recovery still applies. It is crucial to maintain recovery programs and to remember the “24/7” concept of working a recovery program 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Each holiday is nothing more than another 24-hour time frame, which requires focus and attention on recovery tools. Food addicts cannot stay abstinent on yesterday’s program.

The delight of saying “no”
During the winter holidays, “peace on earth, goodwill toward men and women” may not be the prevailing mood for all families, especially those with addictive disorders. For instance, a client named Shelly says:

“Family situations are not the easiest ones to handle. When I started making changes, my family members were threatened by these changes and my newfound strength and determination. My mother-in-law once said, ‘I made this just for you.’ She well knew that I was in recovery. She never got over the fact that I would not eat her special dish. That was her problem. It was very unpleasant for me, but I stayed abstinent.”

Recalling her firm commitment to recovery worked for Shelly. She had spent much time working on her need to please others. In the past, she had been unwilling to express her needs because it would be too “offensive.” This was one of her core irrational beliefs that affected her recovery: “I am not a worthwhile person”; “No one could love me as I am”; and “I am responsible for others’ feelings and behavior.” The food addict typically has low self-esteem, is fearful of abandonment and is therefore willing to ditch recovery for acceptance. She worked hard to reframe those irrational ideas into positive, personal, powerful, affirmations: “I am worthy of a good life in recovery” and “I put my recovery needs first.”

With clients like Shelly, a recommended technique is to role play saying “no.” Clients can practice ways to turn down additive substances in group therapy:

• I don’t like the taste.
• I have allergies.
• It makes me break out — in fat.
• No thank you, not now.
• I have eaten my share.
• None today, thank you.

And then there is the elaborate saying-no scenario developed by a client:

“Yes, go ahead and cut me a piece of that cake. But first go ahead and call Wal-Mart because I will have to buy a bunch of bigger clothes. And Tom will want me to move out because I treat him like crap, so I will want to go ahead and plan on moving in with you. But of course you will need to pay for the movers because I will be spending all my money on binge foods and fast-food joints. Tell my family that I love them because they won’t want to have anything to do with me because I’ll get so irritable. And do call my employer so they can start interviewing. I miss a lot of work when I am bingeing. I will need a bottle of about 1,000 laxatives because I will want to start using those to take away that feeling of bloating. I will also need lots of laundry detergent because I get incontinent when I do that. Call the bank to tell them I will soon be defaulting on my car and house loans. So, yes, after that is all taken care of, I will have that piece of cake.”

One of Shelly’s group members, Pam, discussed her first attempt at recovery:

My big mistake was that I was a people-pleaser and I would cave in just to keep the peace. If my recovery got in the way of my family’s plans, I would drop my plan. I just didn’t have the commitment, and in a way, I think that I didn’t trust that recovery really works. I had a feeling that I couldn’t do it. This second time around, I am making my stubborn streak work for me and I am willing to do everything. I do my recovery plan even when others don’t like it.”

Pam dropped the excuses and became willing to go to any length to recover. When she didn’t feel worthy, she “acted as if.”

Facing the family
Family reunions may bring up old feelings of resentment and fear. Preparing food-addicted clients to deal with these feelings is essential for recovery. In my practice, we use five questions to move from uncomfortable feelings to more peaceful ones:

• What is the feeling?
• What is the thought that produces that feeling?
• Is that thought helpful?
• What would be a more helpful thought?
• What is the new feeling?

By answering these questions for themselves, clients take responsibility for their own thoughts and feelings, moving away from old ways of judging, criticizing, and blaming others for their discomfort. One group member says, “I have found this exercise to be most helpful, since I have found that my disease will use my anger as a way to justify bingeing.”

Although family situations may be difficult, staying away can result in isolation — a powerful barrier to recovery. Alone time breeds thoughts of food, which ultimately lead to overeating and binge eating. Isolation is a process of gradually eliminating recovery tasks. Recovery is accomplished in relationships, including contact with sponsors, calls to others in recovery, people, and interactions at meetings. Spending time with supportive friends, volunteering to do service, or going to meetings eliminates unstructured time to isolate.

Be vigilant for client expectations
Just as family members have expectations, our clients will have them too. A
cautionary word and discussions about expectations of the holidays might be in order. The idealized versions of the season, as depicted in the media, may not materialize for everyone. Unresolved family feuds and discord do not automatically go away because the holidays have arrived. Glorious gifts may not appear. A cooperative spirit of give-and-take, love, and laughter might not occur.

Despite disappointments, clients have recovery options. Staying recovery-connected with phone calls and meetings will provide support, encouragement, and good ideas for dealing with real-life families. Problem solving, coping skills, and good communication practices learned in therapy provide the needed tools for recovering food addicts to survive the holidays.
In addition, planning activities other than sitting around staring at the buffet works well. When her meal is finished, one of my clients puts on her running shoes and makes for the door. A brisk walk puts her in a favorable frame of mind to deal with family matters when she returns home. Instead of gorging on sweets, she stays on task, eating abstinently and incorporating exercise into her holiday program.

Sometimes practical solutions are in order. For example, since she is triggered by food smells, Janice has given up baking sprees. Inhaling can be as bad as ingesting for triggering bingeing reactions. Putting safety first, she no longer handles trigger foods: the sugar, flour, and fats commonly used for holiday dishes. Instead she buys foods that are not on her plan and sends leftovers home with guests.

Celebrating recovery
In any season, the bottom line is that each individual is responsible for his or her own recovery. Food addicts in good recovery, such as Corrine, have learned to enjoy the holidays and overcome the pitfalls:

“When it comes to abstinence from binge foods, I don’t need to worry about holidays. One sign of recovery that I see in myself is peaceful feelings about all the upcoming favorite-food holidays and special occasions. Previous to recovery, they centered around food for me, big time. Before I truly surrendered to the fact of my food addiction, I worried and felt deprived that I wouldn’t get to eat the family’s famous stuffing and pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, all the Christmas goodies, or my favorite Cadbury Eggs at Easter. It went on endlessly!

“The ‘special occasions’ when I felt deprived of being able to eat like other people happened at least twice a month or more. All of these are just ‘another day’ to me now. I eat my meal and move on, focusing on the human company and reason for the celebration or get-together! I know that all the desserts and trigger foods are not for me, so I go ahead and eat my healthy meal and then I am done with it. What am I left with? A sense of relief, a lack of guilt, and another occasion when I didn’t have to eat addictive foods, which lead to out-of-control bingeing and purging.”

As Corrine’s example demonstrates, despite all the challenges that food addicts face during the holiday season, it isn’t necessary to take a holiday from recovery.

Kay Sheppard, MA, is a licensed mental health counselor and certified eating disorders specialist. She is the best-selling author of Food Addiction: The Body Knows, From the First Bite: A Complete Guide to Recovery from Food Addiction, and Food Addiction: Healing Day By Day. Her Web site is http://www.kaysheppard.com/.

This article is published in Counselor,The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, December 2003, v.4, n.6, pp. 52-55.

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