Nutritional Sobriety – I wrote this for a local AA Newsletter because I was asked to apply the same principals of sobriety to recovering from disordered eating and body dysmorphia. 

…

Sobriety.

We often associate sobriety and abstinence with substances like heroin, alcohol, cocaine or methamphetamine. Sobriety eludes to ingesting substances that intoxicate our senses. Less often do we consider sobriety as a gesture of self love, self care and self awareness. Society has an epic way of stigmatizing, categorizing and manhandling people into boxes with labels that reduce a person to a single judgment. After all, humans only have the capacity to maintain a connection to a maximum of 150 people – now consider the advent of social media and the thousands if not millions of followers people attract based on such tiny bits of information. More often than not we mistake love for understanding. 

Gestures.

Let’s go back to gestures though. I like that word. Gestures are like small gifts we give ourselves and our community, gift wrapped with intention. Each time this gift is given or received the joy of alignment is experienced. If we do this often, alignment becomes a pillar of strength that holds us even through the worst of circumstances. More often than not this alignment magnetizes us toward better outcomes so we know more acutely when we’re being honest with ourselves and when we’re not. 

One of the most profound gestures of self love is the gift of intentional eating. What we eat matters. Food matters. Diet culture dogma and the lack of interest people have in their own bodies and the trust that was lost all too young prohibits most people from engaging in honest dialogue with themselves. Food is a therapeutic lens. We falsely assume we’re living to eat rather than eating to live – after all, modern food satisfies our desire for pleasure, avoidance of pain and conservation of energy. We’re hardwired this way. Convenience foods have a psychologically savvy way of luring us in and making us more hungry. This falsely satisfies many of us with unhealed trauma wounds – at least temporarily.

Food is life itself.

Like the trees and flowers but is quickly made lifeless when manufactured to the point of nutritional emptiness. Our bodies are incredibly intelligent. They know how to tell us when something isn’t right (a headache, a digestive issue, acne etc). When we open ourselves to pure unadulterated food we begin to open clearer channels of communication between each organ to our brain. There’s a scientific explanation for this that goes deeper into hunger hormones like leptin and grhelin but we’ll keep things light and airy for the sake of time.

Food is as easily abused as any substance – and likely one of the most underrated drugs available. People “use” food to check out and until the dynamic interplay between the person we bring to the table and the person that craves growth & alignment meet and eat together, we’ll likely continue to blur the lines between convenience food and convenience dieting with longterm sustainable health and wellness.

Let’s continue this conversation xo.