Revisiting my own holidays

A look at another variation of addiction

** this newsletter is a personal piece and references experiences that might be triggering to some readers **

my yiayia, 95

Dec. 16, 2024

The holidays for me serve as a marker of passing time– change and stagnation. Repetition and development. Every year they prompt me to look back on myself and my family in our different states, different eras, over the years.

Over the course of the past year, since my uncle relapsed and I picked up drugs again, I have been thinking about addiction in all of its depths, but much more specifically around substances.

This semester I have focused on addiction as it relates to the holidays, so I decided to wrap up the year by revisiting my own writings to see what effects the festivities have had on me. And more than anything, I came away with the feeling that it would be important to discuss eating disorders and their close ties to addiction.

I want to make clear that drugs are not the entirety of the addiction landscape. I would like to spend some time unpacking addiction for what it is at its core– a tactic of control. Whether you’d like to let go or regain your hold, addiction is tied to a person’s relationship with control and autonomy. Broader than substance abuse, it is also present in work, sex, exercise, food… anything that can be manipulated to bring endorphins, numbness, power…

Certainly, drugs have been a large part of my struggle with addiction, but for years I have fallen back on my ultimate vice (if you will), anorexia nervosa. The addiction to the control of the body. What goes in, what comes out. The need to control when everything around me has been chaos. When that chaos is all I can take in and I cannot consume any more. When that chaos gets so intense that I have to close myself off completely: opening my mouth to let food in would breach my borders, my force field, and my body would become flooded with the insanity.

While eating disorders span all cultures, it is an interesting observation that different cultures lean into different addictions. A hypothesis of mine is that anorexia is not taken seriously because of its attachment to whiteness and privilege, to the fragility of the female, to the sin of vanity, and to the unhealthy beauty standards of our society. This is a critical mistake.

Anorexia should most definitely be taken seriously. While only about three percent of women will experience anorexia, it has the highest case mortality rate and the second highest crude mortality rate of all mental health disorders, according to the National Association of Anorexia and Associated Disorders. Studies by Giovinazzo, S. et al. (2019) and Patchell, R.A. et al. (1994) have affirmed that long term malnourishment can lead to osteoporosis, infertility, heart failure, and neurological diseases that may cause seizures and memory loss.

Many people do not understand anorexia as an addiction, but it is. Its romanticization has diminished it to an extreme form of vanity, but true anorexia has little to do with others’ perceptions. Yes, there is concern about how others see your body, but in the sense that your body represents your person– how they see your body is how they perceive you: Are you strong? Are you weak? Are you independent of your surrounding environment?

These same judgements are also those brought against the self. The body is purely a vessel to manipulate. To prove to others, but first and foremost yourself, that you are in control of your being, your life. It is a desperate reach for autonomy.

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2024 has been an incredibly intense year.

The place I was last New Years, even 4 months ago, seems like a version of myself very far away. (eg. this post references my drug use. I have been clean now for 91 days).

I have a lot of people and choices to be thankful for. On a personal level I am filled with love and motivation. On the other hand, as the new year looms around the corner I have found my sub-level soul in a state of mourning for the country we have. The richness that we may be choosing to let go. The bike ride through Brooklyn to my boyfriend’s restaurant funnels me through enclave upon enclave of peoples, customs, mannerisms, dress. That richness is, to me, the beauty of America. That the people have chosen to support a government that scoffs at such unity in cohabitation is worthy of grief.

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On that bright note (sorry) I wish anyone reading this a happy new year :)

and here are some song recs that have been channeling my emotions quite well over the past few weeks

— Fearless, Pink Floyd

— Holding On, Tirzah

— Boots of Spanish Leather, Nanci Griffith

— Good Guys (Don’t Wear White), Minor Threat

— Man Don’t Care, Jme, Giggs

— Candela, Buena Vista Social Club