For most people the upcoming Holiday Season is a time of hope and celebration.  For others it is a dreaded time of year because they don’t enjoy a life-style that matches the media hype regarding this season.  For People in recovery from any addictive disorder it can be a major high risk situation for a relapse.  For people in recovery from eating addiction the holiday season is even more problematic.

Earlier this year I wanted to address the entire spectrum of “Eating Addiction” and asked Dr. Shari Stillman-Corbitt, the Clinical Director of Sierra Tucson to co-author The Eating Addiction Relapse Prevention Workbook. Dr. Corbitt brought a long history of working with eating disordered patients to our project and we believe it is now a much better instrument to help people with eating addictions to get and stay in a true recovery process.

The Eating Addiction Relapse Prevention Workbook is designed to increase patients’ knowledge and understanding of the nature of eating addiction. Some people may be a normal weight, if their metabolism is such that they don’t gain weight, or some of them may purge calories through excessive exercise. However, many of them will probably be overweight, or “see-sawing” up and down, as they try first one magic pill, diet or program, and then another. Some of them may be obese, the definition of which means that they are more than 20 percent over the weight suggested by actuarial tables. These people may know that they are destroying and distorting their body, but be unable to stop eating compulsively.

This workbook is for compulsive overeaters, food addicts and binge eaters. These terms describe people who use eating and food to manage feelings and cope with life. Although the primary purpose of this workbook is to help patients develop a relapse prevention plan and create a schedule of activities to assist in that goal, we believe they must first develop a definition of abstinence that works for them and an effective recovery plan that is life enhancing which we refer to in this workbook as a Healthy Living Plan.

With the Holidays on us it’s crucial to learn to manage high risk situations for using food to copy or escape instead of food.  The last five exercises in the Eating Addiction Workbook help people identify and manage high risk situations that could set them up for relapse despite their commitment to their Healthy Living Plan (recovery) and develop an effective recovery plan designed to help them manage those high risk situations.

To read more about the workbook please go to my article Eating Addiction Needs a Strategic Relapse Prevention Protocol that you can download for free on our Articles page. To purchase this book or the Eating Addiction High Risk Situation List Pamphlet please Click Here.

To listen to a recent radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

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