Addiction

Posted on March 4, 2025

I’ve always been fairly adamant that I don’t have an addictive personality.

“My grandma was addicted to gambling,” I’d tell people, “and my parents were addicted to smoking. But me? I’ve tried all those things and just can’t get addicted to them.” I was breaking the cycle. I was immune.

Actually, I was just naïve.

About a decade ago, I realised I was addicted to food or – more specifically – to comfort eating. Every time I felt a bit shitty about something in my life, I’d comfort myself by overeating junk food. It provided temporary relief because, unknown to me at the time, the ultra-processed foods I was consuming were designed to get me hooked on them.

I went from twink to dad bod in the space of a few years, with the stretch marks to prove it. And as I grew in size, I grew in unhappiness – which meant more comfort food, more weight, more comfort food, more weight, more co…

You can see the issue.

It’s taken me ten years, but I’ve worked hard to redefine my relationship with food and am generally doing better. I’m seeing slow improvements to my health and wellbeing as a result, and while it’s frustrating how much slower recovery is than doing the damage was in the first place, I’m proud of the work I’m putting in.

Turns out I’m only treating a symptom.

When I started to get my food addiction under control, I noticed quickly that other things had started to fill the void. No longer was I comfort eating when I needed to switch my brain off – I was scrolling endlessly on social media, or stimming with a repetitive mobile game. These things were giving me the same endorphin rush that eating junk food did, but with less of the negative health benefits. Right?

Right?

Yeah, no. It’s become a mental drain on my life that I find hard to break free from. I think I can well and truly put to bed the idea that I don’t have an addictive personality, as I struggle to not use Instagram far too much as I mindlessly scroll reel after reel from people I don’t know.

Just delete it, I think to myself. But I know if I did I’d lose contact with 50% of the people I really value knowing. It’s not their fault that I can’t control my social media use. There’s also all the FOMO, knowing that so much of life seems to play out there.

Sigh.

I wish I knew what the answer was. I find myself more and more drawn to the dumb phone, low contact, low social media life. But is that just what happens to everyone at that crucial mid-life time where these existential crises often occur? Would it really make me happier? Or would I just find new things to give me endorphins when my brain says it needs them?

Who knows. Stay tuned, I guess, to find out!