Breaking up with Overeater's Anonymous

Aug 9
8 min read

Updated: Aug 11

What Happens in Food Addiction Programs?

For decades, "food addiction frameworks" and 12-step programs like Overeaters Anonymous (OA) have offered what seems like hope: abstinence from "trigger" foods, structure, and a path to freedom.

If food were an addiction like alcohol or drugs - then, theoretically, recovery would look similar to protocols in alcohol or drug addiction treatment. This is the premise of OA's framework - whether it's sugar, fruit or fat - if you are behaving like an addict around it, complete abstinence is the only way!

So what actually happens when people try to recover from food in the same way?

I’ve spent a number of years in OA and mixed addiction groups. In this article I'll discuss my issues with OA's core concepts of abstinence, and addiction - and why I ultimately left the program.

The Morality Focus in 12-Step Programs

Research on binge eating shows that shame and self-criticism worsen symptoms - not reduce them

As mentioned, 12-step programs were originally designed for substance addictions (like alcohol), and they rely heavily on moral and "spiritual" frameworks - although you do not need to be religious to make use of the program. Recovery involves:

Admitting “powerlessness” - You agree that you have no control around food
Abstinence of trigger foods - Permanently cutting out foods that usually lead to overeating
Admitting defects of character - Agreeing that you eat trigger foods because of character traits - such as selfishness
Readings in offical literature about how being "fat" is in itself, reprehensible

The idea is that we must relinquish our individual desires, feelings and decision-making around trigger foods, by committing to abstinence. Our eating of these foods cannot be trusted, and will incur an addictive-like response akin to alcohol or drugs.

The Problem with Abstinence in Food-Based Programs

In traditional 12-step programs for substance use, it makes sense that abstinence can work - because the body does not need alcohol or heroin to survive. However, we obviously cannot abstain from eating.

Still, programs like OA ask people to abstain from certain foods (often sugar, flour, or any enjoyable “trigger foods”), defining abstinence as a strict commitment to food rules and sometimes to a plan.

In practice, this often looks like:

Attending daily meetings or phone calls
Praying and reciting affirmations admitting powerlessness
Weighing, measuring, and logging food
Reporting food intake to a sponsor
Reporting “slips" to sponsor along with your corresponding personal defect of character

"My sponsor told me I wasn't doing enough. I was desperate to stay on plan, and burned out doing 30 hours a week addiction work while trying to keep down a full time job. It broke me."

In more intense programs (in which the founders note that traditional OA groups are stated to have a very low success rate), people need to dedicate 25-30 hours per week on talks and homework, daily sponsor check in, and daily outreach calls to other members. This can be difficult to sustain.

How this is similar to dieting and binge eating thinking

When I first started OA, this level of support was a dream. I was desperate, and nothing was stopping me from the binge eating cycle. In fact, I was trying to maintain a weight loss I'd had after a break-up, and my binge eating episodes were worse than ever.

But when standing back to look at it properly - this framework isn’t all that different from the traditional diet mentality that caused my disordered eating in the first place.

“I felt like I had sinned if I ate a piece of bread. I wasn’t just off-plan - I was a bad person.” - former OA participant

Both OA and diet programs rely on strict rules, all-or-nothing thinking, and a belief that your desires around food are inherently bad or untrustworthy. In both, the “solution” is to avoid, suppress, or override these desires, and constantly remember to restrict this food in the background of daily life - rather than to more deeply understand or work with urges to eat.

It also praises strict, unrelenting control over food - with no wiggle room at weddings, parties, caught short at a motorway services - you name it, the food and “addict” storyline dictates your life. So, unless you live a highly regimented and militantly controlled life at all times - you eventually are going to have to eat food that is off plan.

Are We Really Addicted to Sugar Like We’re Addicted to Drugs?

One commonly cited quote in my OA group was “sugar is more addictive than cocaine”. Sugar was blamed for ailments, disease and addiction.

It was only when I became a nutritionist and understood how to read research that I realised these studies involved rats that were starved before being given sugar. Yes, the rats preferred sugar over cocaine - but only after periods of food restriction.

In fact, follow-up research has shown that this “addictive behaviour” around sugar disappears when rats are allowed to eat freely without restriction. Meaning that the behaviour we label as “addiction” is more likely a byproduct of intermittent access (whether real, anticipated, or perceived) - not a dangerous, pathological attachment to cake.

What about in binge eating?

Let’s not deny the truth here. It’s correct that people with Binge Eating Disorder (BED) show increased activation in reward centres of the brain, particularly around highly palatable foods.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re addicted. These people are more sensitive to reward and likely stuck in common patterns of restriction, emotional distress, and dysregulation which causes a sharper drop in mood after finishing pleasureable foods (especially as people have corresponding issues such as depression). This is not the same as substance dependence.

It's also important to make room here for the fact that people suffering with binge eating disorder show stronger concerns with weight and shape than "obese" people without the disorder. We must remember that in programs like OA that sometimes do use fatphobic rhetoric, the increase in shame and reinforced negative body image keeps people stuck in disorder is completely unhelpful at best and counterproductive at worst.

Any program offering to help someone with eating issues needs to hold all of the sufferers in unconditional positive regard, it should not be remotely interested in what they look like, especially when the relationship between body-stress and binge eating are so intertwined.

Where is the nuance?

"I woke up when I realised that the OA food mentality was identical to when I had my first eating disorder - anorexia."

I subconciously felt very conflicted about the addiction theory of this program. It did not feel quite right. But the program disallows nuance - instead stating that this is the addiction talking.

However, sometimes I would eat sugary foods and feel absolutely fine afterward - satisfied, even. I was confused... was I an addict?

Other times I would eat something forbidden at a birthday party, and then eat more - even if I didn't enjoy it. I took as a sign that I was addicted.

The mind is conditioned to make sense of a complex world by telling stories about ourselves and our identities. We believe those which seem to fit best with our underlying beliefs.

This means that the more we believe we are powerless, the more we may feel compelled to rebel or "relapse" when our willpower slips. And the more we tap into feelings of "f-it" or being out of control. This framing of food choices as moral failings (rather than signals of unmet needs, stress, or dysregulation) can lead to shame, secrecy, and a deeper entrenchment of the binge-restrict cycle.

This is exactly what happened to me. Ironically, I've never had a worse aggravation of my previous eating disorder, and disordered eating, than during OA.

Moving forward

Let's not forget that nobody in OA is qualified to lead people in recovery, and it's not based in formal, recognised, propely trialed research. The capacity for enduring harm is enormous. I have had a number of terrible sponsors, I still remember their words which caused me immense harm and setback:

"I have come to the end of my resources with you"
"You are still being resistant"
"You're not doing enough"

Although I can now thank these (unwittingly) terrible sponsors for teaching me that unconditional and endless patience is one of my core values in my work… at the time I just felt like I was the worst case scenario. Like everyone could be fixed but me. It didn’t matter how many hours I put in, or how badly I wanted to be better. I was barely scraping by. I was in a pit of despair - and this outcome could be very dangerous for many people with eating disorders or extreme depression.

What’s more, in therapeutic settings, these thoughts and beliefs about the self as powerless and victim would probably be challenged as cognitive fallacies. In cognitive behavioural therapy, a cognitive fallacy is a mistake in reasoning that comes from the way our minds naturally think (rather than from a lack of information).

I realised during one of my outreach calls that I didn't even want food in that moment. I wanted to be happy. This was a turning point in my focus away from food and eating "perfectly" as the root cause of my disordered eating

Restriction is not the only way

Identifying cognitive fallacies does matter, because leaving inherently negative and labelling thoughts unchecked easily leads to flawed decisions, misunderstandings, or persistent false beliefs - even in intelligent, well-informed people.

In therapy, the way out is reframing how we think about ourselves in negative and victimised ways so that we begin to grow our agency. The opposite of mental illness is detaching from the identity stories that we repeatedly form which hold very little meaning, but rather act to expose the core, human fears that we are clinging to in that moment of time. Often this can signal abandonment fears, or childhood trauma. Ultimately, we deserve to lay these to rest - not perpetuate and pander to our secondary food problems.

Just like in my eating disorder, I was giving food way too much power

OA leaves people missing out on the chance to go deeper beyond the label of “defective addict”… Relenting all of our agency, constructive self-talk, and opportunity to rediscover the relationship we have with our own thoughts and feelings - is entering into a life long war and relentless identity struggle. It's lifelong because life is very much arranged around food - we need to eat and drink very regularly, and social gatherings usually involve food. OA's restrictive approach overemphasises and overestimates the importance of focusing on food in trying to ensure the cessation of our obsession with it.

In reality, the only place that we can dwell, avoiding food will always demand of us a level of effort that we cannot guarantee to provide. And importantly - it acts in some ways to let us off the hook - avoiding taking ownership and responsibility for how we relate to our body. "Because I have an addiction" is far easier as a blanket rule and feeling of certainty for the future than working to eat normally, but experiencing reactive eating flare-ups, depressive episodes, messing up, and all the enormous spectrums and unknowns that we encounter along the way.

Perhaps it's because we truly believe that we could never achieve a normal way of eating, because we have tried without having any of the tools. But the truth is that we can always strive to become more aligned with the precious, inbuilt signals of our body - rather than retreating further into the riddles and sagas of the mind. One thing is for sure, if we demand black and white rules and conditions in a world of greys, we'll always be set us up for failure.

Knowledge is power

The body, and all of its stress signals, becomes calm when it feels safe. There is great safety in understanding that we are going through something normal, wired-in to our biology, that has a clear and well-trodden way out.

I’ve not had a client who hasn’t felt relieved, seen, heard, and understood once they have understood why they eat like they do. And I’ve had incredible results from simply holding constant and unconditional acceptance for clients that take some time to build up the self-trust (and trust in me), to put their aims into action.

If you’re here because OA wasn’t right for you, please know that there is healing on the other side. And if it didn’t help, it’s good that you know what doesn’t work for you.

Who knows, perhaps just like me, OA might be the best - worst thing, that ever happened to you.

If you need support, reach out.

Lizzie x