Anorexia is My Vodka

I have almost zero time for television, beyond having CNN as background noise while I'm writing, but there are a handful of shows that I TiVo to watch when I'm doing TV-friendly workouts.  Intervention is one that I watch faithfully every week.  I have never had a problem with drinking, drugs, etc.  I've smoked a total of 2 cigarettes in my entire life, and although I do have an occasional drink (within calorie budget), I have never been drunk.  Never tried pot (the fabled Munchies are the best anti-drug campaign ever, for me at least), don't even like taking headache medicine unless I really feel incapacitated.  But I always find something to identify with in the cases on the program.  I'm a strong believer that many addictions have the similar themes and issues, and I don't think it's a stretch to classify an ED as a type of addiction, or at least that has been my personal experience with mine.

So, did anyone see last week's episode with Tiffany?  (If not you can see a preview here, it's episode 83) She was a 24 year old struggling with alcoholism, consuming unbelievable amounts of vodka and other drinks every day.  

There was one scene that hit me like a ton of bricks: her parents invite her over to visit one evening, for dinner, talk, board games, etc.  She does the bare minimum to be polite, but wants to leave as soon as she can after dinner.  She needs to go home and drink.  She loves her parents but at the same time switches into being obstinate and abusive when she's pulled out of her "safe-zone" where she can drink her pain away. They are worried about her, they want time with her, and they know what she'll do when she goes home.  But she is blind to all of that, all she knows is that she needs to get out of there and get some alcohol.

That's me.  I can't count the number of times I've cut time with my family so that I could go  exercise, or get home in time for my meager, ritualistic meal.  I only go to see my parents once or twice a year, and I can't remember the last time I stayed more than 18 hours at a time with my grandparents.  I have missed graduations, promotions, first communions, fun vacations, you name it and I have copped out so it wouldn't disrupt my disordered routines.  Even when I lived at home, I quit eating dinner with my family sometime when I was 13 and never had another evening meal with them (except for holidays) for the remaining 5 years that I lived there.

 Tiffany had issues with her parents (they were both alcoholics too) and didn't get along with them, I can't even use that excuse.  I get along great with my family and I love them with all of my being, but they still get shoved aside, without fail, when the ED beckons.  

It cuts me like a knife to think about it, but how painful must it be for them?  

Tiffany "needs" her vodka just as much as I "need" my aerobics DVD, and somewhere in there is a reluctant need to need that has been grossly displaced and distorted until it has replaced those that love us--those that we really do need--with illusions of needs that destroy us.