In Sobriety, I Began To Heal My Relationship With My Body

A thought popped into my head the other day. Let’s just say it was something negative about my body, or what I had eaten/was eating. I’ve had some variation of this thought consistently since I was about sixteen years old. It’s nothing new. But my reaction to it is new. Because I chose to dismiss the thought. 

For fifteen years, anytime a negative thought relating to my body, food or exercise would enter my body, it would consume me. At sixteen, I was formally diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, and even through the years that I considered myself to be in recovery (and doctors considered me to be “recovered” because as far as they were concerned, eating disorders looked a certain way, and I didn’t – but that’s a whole other issue). These thoughts would derail me, send me into a spiral and plunge me into the same toxic patterns that almost saw me hospitalised in my teens. 

But, at 31, when even a year ago these thoughts would have gripped me – now, I can mostly shake them off. And what I believe has changed my attitude to my body is the fact that I’m over 600 days sober.

I started drinking heavily when I was about eighteen. At the time, this was fairly normal – everyone drank. Everyone blacked out. Everyone vomited. We were young, we were silly, we were inexperienced. But then friends around me grew up and grew out of it, and I couldn’t understand why I didn’t. Why every time I drank – even when I didn’t want to – I’d end up going overboard. No matter how hard I tried over the years, I couldn’t control my intake.

Now, if you look into the research, multiple studies have identified eating disorders and substance abuse co-morbidities. A 2013 study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, for example, stated that “rates of alcohol dependence are elevated in women with eating disorders who engage in binge eating or compensatory behaviours” (compensatory behaviours refers to things like restriction, excessive exercise etc). 

It’s unsurprising when you consider that some of the underlying shared traits of people with eating disorders and what often drives people to drink in excessive amounts. An Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry study reveals that 65% of women presenting with an eating disorder also met the criteria for at least one anxiety disorder. Stress and anxiety were for me personally and for many others, a factor in my drinking — not just social anxiety, but a general thrum of anxiety keeping my body tense 24/7 that a glass of wine (or six) was brilliant at numbing.

So already we have two disorders that, in the worst way, complement one another. They also aggravate one another. I started drinking a few years into my eating disorder recovery and the two fed into each other. I drank for confidence about a changing body, then spiralled after 3am McDonald’s and hangovers of greasy food and inactivity, then I drank more to feel better, and so on.

Alcohol is a destructive force on our self-esteem. What we often forget, amidst that second champagne glow, is that alcohol is categorised as a depressant. Also, I’m pretty sure everyone is familiar with hangxiety, right?

After drinking, I would wake up a bundle of shame, anxiety and self-loathing. And that little eating disorder voice in my brain loved to use this as a platform to dredge up those deep, dark parts of me that formed at the age of sixteen. So while I would diligently go to therapy in an attempt to heal my relationship with my body, I was setting myself up for failure by hitting the town every weekend. 

Then, I got sober. 

The first few months of sobriety were about filling the time. Occupying my mind so that the absence of what used to be a huge part of my life wasn’t noticeable. I started to write. I created a lot of art. It was summer, and I went to the beach almost every weekend. I hiked with my partner. I took up long-distance running. 

At some point, I started to be, well, impressed by the things I was doing. It was unsettling, because as a society we’re taught never to toot our own horn. But occasionally, I’d think, Wow, I managed to run really far or, That sentence I just wrote is great. I was in turn surprised and delighted by the ways in which my body worked — how it could move, and how it could create.

It sounds cheesy, because it is. Cringey, cheesy — all of the things that make us squirm. It’s hard to fall in love with yourself, because we’re supposed to be self-deprecating. It’s hard to fall in love with yourself, especially if for fifteen years all you knew was disappointment, shame and hatred.

But it wasn’t just about starting to recognise my body for what it could do, rather than how it looked. In sobriety, I became busy. I cultivated hobbies. I met new people. I started planning for my future. And so, when, recently, those intrusive eating disorder thoughts tried to weasel their way in, I simply dismissed them. I don’t have time, I thought impatiently, to be worrying about that stuff right now. There are more important things. 

And that’s what sobriety taught me. There are more important things. Like what I can do, like the people around me, like the things I’m aiming for in my career and life. 

I’m not saying that anyone struggling with an eating disorder needs to give up alcohol. Or even if they do, that it will magically cure them. I don’t even think I’m magically cured, because eating disorders are complex demons.

But I do feel like I’m finally healing for the first time, and I know in part I owe that to sobriety. Both alcohol abuse and eating disorders can be so wholly consuming that it becomes hard to imagine a life without them —sometimes we structure our entire days around their existence. At their height, they can also be incredibly isolating, often leaving us with nothing but the cycle of the same thoughts for company. 

By removing alcohol from my life, I showed myself that I could function without using booze as a crutch. And as my life filled and other things took up space, it was almost as if there was no more room for my eating disorder to thrive. The fog of shame and self-loathing began to lift, and my body was no longer a thing to be punished, but something I needed in order to do everything I wanted to accomplish. It became valuable to me, far beyond just its exterior. 

Is what I'm feeling body neutrality? Is it love? To be honest, I’m not quite sure what it is just yet. I just like to think of it as my body finally healing. 

If you or anyone you know is struggling with disordered eating, please contact the Butterfly Foundation at 1800 33 4673. Support and information are available 7 days a week. If you are worried about your drinking, please call the Alcohol Drug Information Service line on 1800 198 024 or (08) 9442 5000 for confidential advice. Lines are open 24 hours a day.