January 8, 2020 marks four years sober for me; I haven’t had a single alcoholic drink in four years. Sobriety is one of the hardest things I’ve had to go through and I’m very grateful to have been able to get myself to where I am now. I’m still an addict though, and I think I will most likely always be one.

I just put up a video that went over the pros and cons of sobriety. I’ll put the video here in case you want to check it out.

While I was making that video, I came to the conclusion of, “Even though I’m four years sober, I’m still an addict.” I just replaced alcohol with various things. The main thing I’ve replaced alcohol with is food.

I definitely have struggled with food addiction my entire life, but I didn’t truly realize it until I was actually sober.

The definition of food addiction according to Medical News Today is, “When the need to eat becomes compulsive or uncontrollable. This compulsive behavior may be in response to an emotion, such as stress, sadness, or anger.”

This realization, that I am in fact a food addict, is the first stepping stone to recovering.

Part of me as always known that I had an unhealthy relationship to food. I was constantly binge eating, and eating out of boredom. I eat when I’m happy, or when I’m sad, or whatever I’m feeling. This is exactly how I was with drugs and alcohol.

Even though I originally lost weight when I quit drinking, and soon after that I went vegan and lost even more. Eventually though, I learned which junk foods were “vegan” and all of the healthy plant-based living that I was teaching myself went out the window after a year or so. My weight loss plateaued and I soon started gaining the weight back.

Let’s face reality, I’ve been overweight/obese my entire life – as far back as I can remember.

At a young age, I started over eating and doing a lot of things that are very common in someone with a food addiction. I started hiding food, sneaking food, waking up in the middle of the night to eat, and eating whenever I was feeling emotional.

I now realize that I was learning to cope with life in an unhealthy way. Using food as a coping mechanism was my first taste with addiction. Once I hit 12 years old, I start smoking cigarettes and drinking. By the time I was 14 I was using cocaine. My life ended up spiraling out of control. It wasn’t until I was 26 that I recognized I could do something about my addiction and that I didn’t need drugs and alcohol to cope with life.

Once I didn’t have those crutches that alcohol and drugs allowed me to fall on, food became my biggest vice.

While some might say, “Well, at least you’re not an alcoholic anymore.” Or, “At least it’s not meth.” I am still living a lifestyle that is unhealthy and will eventually kill me. 2020 is the year that I want to really focus on my health.

I am going to own my truth and really work on becoming the best version of myself.

I hope you’ll join me on my journey. You can sign up through my website – Just go to the top right column of this page where it says subscribe and enter an e-mail. No spam is sent, and only will let you know when I post a new blog. You can also support me by going to my YouTube and Subscribing there! I post a video every week about traveling, vanlife, veganism and personal development.

Thank you so much for being here. I hope that by being transparent with you guys about my struggles and challenges with help you know that you’re not alone. You don’t have to go through things alone. If you want to talk, feel free to comment below, or message me through my contact page. I always respond and I’m happy to be a listening ear.

xoxo