It’s natural to turn toward food in times of heightened emotions. Eating can provide a distraction, offer comfort, and even lift your mood. We use food to embrace culture, celebrate occasions, care for ourselves, and connect with others. Eating is inherently emotional and a normal part of the human experience.
If there’s one thing we know in health care it’s this: The sooner we can act against illness or injury, the better the outcomes are likely to be. That’s why we vaccinate our children, visit the dentist, and get mammograms, prostate exams, colonoscopies, and flu shots. And that’s why it’s worth understanding what the path to drug or alcohol addiction looks like. Ideally, we want to be able to act on addiction before it causes irrevocable damage.