Eating disorders are compulsive. They can not be helped by willpower. As with any addictive behaviour, they are stronger than any individual. This is why Overeaters Anonymous refers to the need for help from 'a higher power than self'. Their Twelve Step programme provides the necessary daily reprieve. Without that day-to-day commitment, relapse is inevitable. Why take the risk of reverting to the degradation and wretchedness of an eating disorder when such effective help is freely available?
The sad fact is that we sufferers from eating disorders, just like other addicts, want help on our own terms. We don't want a daily recovery programme. We want a magic fix - now! We don't want to take responsibility for ourselves - we want a doctor or psychologist or nutritionist - anybody - to do the work for us.
Ideally we want to be able to be in control - absolute control - of our feelings and our behaviour. We like to be educated and we are happy being told what to do, provided that it is all on our terms. We don't want to be shown that we are out of control and that our daily lives have become unmanageable. Yet that is the truth, and making this acknowledgement is the first step of the highly effective Twelve Step programme.
Bulimia means 'to eat like an ox'. As a result, compulsive overeaters become progressively fatter.
Some of us try to control the consequent weight gain by going on crash diets. We may become so terrified of weight gain that we become anorexic.
Others deliberately vomit out the food on which we have just binged. Or we may use laxatives and other purgatives to prevent the food from being absorbed.
Or we may take excessive exercise in order to burn off the calories.
In these ways we condemn ourselves to a life of disappointment and despair.
When faced with an impossible challenge, the sensible thing to do is to give up - to surrender. Why go on fighting a battle that we shall inevitably lose?
The Twelve Step programme was created by people who understood this sense of hopelessness - and found a way through it.
If we think we have better ideas we should try them - provided that we remember that there are other people who have been equally self-willed - and equally unsuccessful in their determined quest. The Twelve Step programme - the help that we need - is often the last resort. No matter - so long as we do eventually and have the humility to ask for help.
Individual counselling or a time of intensive rehabilitation may be necessary to enable us to be rid of the demons of our past and look forward to a happy and creative future. But, one way of another, we can have hope that other people who have been where we have been are now living free from all compulsion. They are able to choose their thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions. They have peace of mind in spite of unsolved problems. They have happy and mutually fulfilling relationships. They are spontaneous, creative and enthusiastic. No other therapeutic approach offers such wonderful help and tangible benefits.
Dr Robert Lefever is regarded as the pioneer of addiction treatment methods and rehab centres in the UK. He was the first person to offer bulimia help and recovery in rehab alongside alcohol and drug recovery patients in the UK.
He established the very first rehabilitation centre that treated patients with eating disorders, alongside those with drug and alcohol problems. He was also the first to treat compulsive gambling, and workaholism.
In the last 26 years, he has worked with over 5000 people suffering with stress, depression, and various forms of addictive behaviors, (principally problems with alcohol, drugs and food), as well as running a busy private medical practice.
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