A Dangerous Mix: Anorexia and Alcohol Abuse

I haven't been sober more than a few days each month since October. I have only eaten a handful of what would be considered real meals in several months.

I consume more calories in alcohol than food, and simply admitting that has to be one of the hardest things I have ever done.I promised myself I would always be open and honest when I started writing Surviving ED last fall. I felt that was the only way to establish credibility with HealthyPlace readers and to truly help those struggling with eating disorders.

But I didn't have any idea what the year held, and several of the things I have written about have been both personal and painful. I have wrote about how anorexia basically destroyed my marriage, and how my husband and I permanently separated in September. I have written about both my triumphs, such as when I reached my goal weight in January, and my ongoing struggles with restrictive eating and anxiety when my husband and I attempted reconciliation this past spring and fall, and my weight again began to drop.

And I wrote about how my abuse of alcohol started soon after our separation. It started out as a way to relax, to ease the tensions and anxieties I was feeling both from the separation and my work in graduate school.

No one sets out to develop an eating disorder. I remember restricting my eating more and more, and at some point in during the 2007-2008 year, I crossed the line from restrictive eater to someone with anorexia nervosa. I soon became addicted to both the high of restricting food and becoming thinner. It felt great, and I didn't care what anyone else thought.

It is the same with alcohol abuse. I didn't plan to mix restrictive eating with drinking alcohol, but once I discovered it could help me cope and feel better about myself, I crossed an invisible line from being someone who had the occasional glass of wine to someone who can't imagine a day without a few drinks and little food.That is the nature of addiction and addictive behaviors. At some point, you get caught and then you find yourself sitting inside a psychiatrist's office trying to explain why you think starving yourself is a good idea. Or why drinking "just a few glasses" of wine is okay. Or why doing both together is not going to kill you, and since you feel your best after a few glasses of wine, why not?

I know that I am not the only one who has struggled with anorexia or another eating disorder, and alcohol abuse. Kendra Sebelius, author of HealthyPlace's Debunking Addiction, covered in-depth the connection between eating disorders and substance abuse. I will leave the statistics and analysis to her, since she did such a wonderful job.

I would like to discuss how restrictive eating and drinking has personally impacted me, and perhaps some readers might see themselves within my words. I half-heartedly joked in an October blog post that I knew having a glass of wine at 9:30 a.m. was not a good idea.

I didn't realize then that would become my regular practice. Get up in the morning, start the coffee, get ready for the day and then pour myself a glass of wine. Sit down and work on my graduate school work until I had too much wine and could no longer focus, and finally passing out on the couch. Repeat every day with few exceptions.

I thought that I was still handling things well. After all, I was attending class and turning in my assignments and was considered a very good student who added a lot to the class.

Then one day I realized I had not even started an assignment due that day. I e-mailed my professor in a panic, and he granted me (and in fairness to myself, many other students) an extension. But the fact that I needed an extension solely because I was too drunk to understand and complete the assignment troubles me. I finished the class with a perfect grade, bringing my total GPA to 3.9.

But I tell myself not to be cocky. I still have to write my thesis, and I have to be both sober and reasonably well fed to be able to research and write a 150-plus paper that is the culmination of my studies. I can still fail, and alcohol and restrictive eating can still both make things more difficult and could harm me.

Then there is how excessive drinking makes you feel. I feel great at first, but when the high wears off and it is all gone, I just feel empty and sad and very, very tired. I am now reaching out for help, as I realize I can't handle this alone. I started attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings last week. I also talk with my eating disorders psychiatrist about it and how the drinking impacts my eating, since the two are intertwined because I eat less when I drink because of fear of the calories.

I still feel uncomfortable revealing such personal information in public. But if it can stop one person — you — from picking up a glass of wine or some other alcohol, and mixing it with restrictive eating, it will be worth it.

I feel the tide turning as more people understand eating disorders and alcohol abuse, and that it can be very dangerous both body and soul.

Find me on Twitter and Facebook.