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If you suffer from an eating disorder and are abusing drugs and alcohol you need help. Treatment works. Lives can be reclaimed. Call Recovery Connection now at 1-800-993-3869, and find a treatment program right for your needs. Our helpline is open 24/7, all calls are confidential and free of charge.
Eating disorders are psychiatric conditions that require medical treatment. People with eating disorders often have extremely distorted perceptions of body shape, size, and poor self esteem. Typically, one who suffers from an eating disorder also has issues with attempting to control their environment, and/or an inherent lack of internal emotional regulation.
As a result, eating disordered patients have unhealthy and extreme eating behaviors. These behaviors range from eating too much, to not eating enough to live, to eating large amounts of food in a short period and then purging the meal to prevent the absorption of calories. Someone with an eating disorder might overeat, binge eat, purge after overeating, exercise too much, not eat enough, or use drugs and alcohol to keep his or her weight down.
According to the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), girls and women are much more likely to have an eating disorder. Teenage girls who regularly diet are especially vulnerable. Societal pressure to be thin, psychological or emotional distress, or family attitudes toward food can all lead a young woman toward unhealthy eating patterns.
People with restricting types of eating disorders limit the amount of food they consume in a day. Anorexics, for example, will progressively consume less food, or stop eating altogether. At the other extreme, patients with a binge eating followed by purging type of eating disorder will consume large amounts of food and then eliminate the food forcibly. For example, after eating an entire meatloaf in one sitting, a bulimic may proceed to the bathroom to induce vomiting shortly after consumption. Finally, there are those who binge eat or consistently overeat in order to manage their emotions, without subsequent purging, which can lead to severe obesity.
Learn more about each eating disorder’s signs, symptoms, dangers, and treatment:
There is a strong connection between eating disorders and other types of addiction, such as alcoholism and drug addiction. Some anorexics abuse alcohol and then skip meals to stay thin. This trend, drunkorexia, is growing on college campuses nationwide. Female college students with this disorder over exercise and/or under eat to stay "skinny" and be able to drink in excess.
It is not uncommon to have a co-existing eating disorder along with a drug dependenceor alcohol dependence. Further, getting treatment for a alcoholism and drug addiction, without concurrent treatment for the eating disorder, can worsen the severity of the eating disorder, and vice versa. This fact may be most evident in an obese patient who undergoes bariatric surgery and subsequently loses a significant amount of weight. Without proper psychological treatment, the same person may then increase his or her use of other unhealthy behaviors, such as an increase in alcohol or drug use.
In general, drug addiction and alcoholism afflicts almost half of eating disorder sufferers, but only 9% of the U.S. population; and, only 3% of the people in the U.S. have an eating disorder compared to 35% of addicts. Opiate, stimulant, depressant, and alcohol abuse in this case is often an attempt to cover the emotional distress that comes with an eating disorder. Without eating disorder treatment, this population has an increased risk for:
Could I have an eating disorder? Common signs and symptoms are:
If any of these sound familiar, you or someone you love might need eating disorder treatment.
Quality eating disorder treatment addresses any coexisting addiction and utilizes:
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