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Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Aug 30 • 14 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X

The most deadly addiction?
Not alcohol. Not opioids.

It's food.

325,000 die in the US each year from obesity related illnesses—4x more than opioids.

Here’s how it takes hold and what to do about it: 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)

Dr. Vera Tarman (Food Junkies) said:
“The brain chemistry that drives the addict to seek pleasure beyond the point of satiety is similar, whether the user favors Jack Daniels or Jack-in-the-Box.”

And yet, only one gets treated like addiction.

We are conditioned early:

“Finish everything on your plate or else.”
"There are starving kids in China."
“You’re such a good eater.”
"Here, have some more."
“You’ve gained weight.”
“You’re too skinny.”

These comments create shame and shape how we relate to food—and our bodies.

For many, food was the center of everything.

We celebrated with it. We numbed with it.

We learned early that food is a way to manage or suppress feelings.

Alcohol and drugs are obvious addictive problems. Some of us were able to get help.

But food is harder to face. It's survival. And it's everywhere.

For many of us, it was our first drug.

An acceptable escape.

Sugar activates the mesolimbic dopamine system just like cocaine.

And BIG FOOD knows it—processed foods are designed to keep us hooked.

Sugar, flour, fat, salt—combined in just the right ratios to light up the brain and keep us craving.

Here's an MD who gets this:

Kay Sheppard (author of Food Addiction: The Body Knows) writes:

“You cannot heal your relationship with food until you stop using it as a drug.”

But the world keeps telling us it’s just a matter of discipline.

We medicalize obesity.

We call it a health issue and are often prescribed meds and surgery to address the results—not the actual problem.

No one suggests a healing or recovery program.

We spend $90 billion a year on unsustainable diets.

Most get on a roller coaster of one diet after another.

Because addiction can’t be cured with portion control or willpower.

You don’t negotiate with a drug and an addicted brain.

Recovery begins not with restriction, but with support and honesty.

It begins in rooms full of people telling the truth:
- That food ran their lives.
- That they tried everything—except surrender.

With daily support and a healthy food plan, recovery begins.

We used food to cope.

And when we stop pretending it's about weight or weakness, we can finally get free.

Not through control.

But through connection.

Here are some folks who found a sustainable solution:

Here are two programs that focus on the solution:
oa.org
foodaddicts.org

If you're ready to look at your addictive relationship with food or anything else.

I've created The Inner Work Community.

A place to get honest with other people on the path of healing.

Check it out:(20% discount ends on Aug. 31):

offers.drbobbeare.com/inner-work-com…

https://x.com/drbobbeare/status/1961791135572984172

👉Thanks for reading.
👉If you enjoyed this, please follow me and repost the first post (below).
👉Reply with your thoughts on body-focused healing.

https://x.com/drbobbeare/status/1961791135572984172

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More from @DrBobBeare

Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Aug 29

Don’t set boundaries to control other people.

Set them so you don’t abandon yourself.

Dr Gabor Maté says, "If your nervous system is in survival mode, boundaries feel like danger—not self-care."

Here’s how body-based healing changes everything: 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)

76% of people in recovery say they never learned how to set healthy boundaries.

Most of us were taught to walk on eggshells—or to bulldoze others.

Both are trauma responses.

Before I started recovery, I had no boundaries.

I said yes when I meant no. I blamed others for my burnout. I hurt myself—and others.

Then I got sober.

And I still had a lot to learn.

My boundaries became brick walls.

Read 16 tweets

Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Aug 26

Infidelity hurts like nothing else.

It can even happen in the most conscious of relationships.

Carl Jung—genius of the psyche—wasn’t immune.

His affairs nearly destroyed his marriage.

Here’s what it teaches us about relationships and healing. 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)

Emma, Jung’s wife, knew about his relationships with patients and collaborators.

She didn’t leave.

She also didn’t stay silent.

Their marriage was a crucible—filled with devotion, betrayal, rage, and repair.

70% of couples who face infidelity never fully recover.

Some relationships end.

Others rebuild—but only when both partners face their shadows and learn new ways of connecting.

Read 19 tweets

Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Aug 25

Resentment feels like protection—but it’s actually self-destruction.

It hurts your body, hijacks your mind, and keeps you stuck.

Here’s how to transform resentment:🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)

Over 60% of adults report carrying long-term resentment.

Dr. Gabor Maté, MD, calls it “a toxic emotional state that embeds trauma deeper into the nervous system."

This isn’t just emotional. It’s physiological.

Every time you replay a grudge, your body releases cortisol and adrenaline.

Your brain thinks you’re in danger.

Your heart rate rises, your muscles tense, and your immune system takes a hit.

Read 12 tweets

Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Aug 23

Before Freud and Jung.
Before Bill W. and AA.
Before the APA...

One woman walked into jails—and found people with addiction and mental illness chained, beaten...

Left to rot.

Her name? Dorothea Dix. And she changed everything.

Here’s the story: 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)

In the 1840s, people with addiction and mental health problems weren’t treated as patients.

They were treated as criminals.

Locked in cells. Starved. Mocked. Beaten until they couldn’t move.

This wasn’t rare. It was the standard.

By 1850, Dorothea Dix had traveled over 30,000 miles, inspecting jails and almshouses across the U.S. and Canada.

What she found was always the same: cruelty, neglect, and silence.

Her reports shook lawmakers to their core.

Read 14 tweets

Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Aug 22

Positivity is a trap.

In a culture obsessed with happiness, we’ve forgotten how to be real.

You don’t heal by pretending.

You heal by facing what’s been buried.

Here’s how: 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)

78% of Americans report using social media, food, or alcohol to escape uncomfortable emotions.

We have an endless variety of ways to find temporary pleasure.

We don’t call it avoidance.

We call it “staying positive.”

But it's counterfeit happiness.

And it creates anxiety.

“Cheer up” is just another drug.

We self-medicate with smiles and slogans.

But grief, rage, fear—these are signals.

They are the doorway to healing.

Not symptoms to be silenced.

Dr Alex Howard

Read 16 tweets

Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Aug 21

I was obsessed with getting people to love me.

Romance. Validation. Attention.
None of it ever filled the hole.

So I studied it—deeply.
Trauma, addiction, attachment.

And I found a way out.
Here’s how. 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)

Someone once asked me,
“Do you plan to suction love for the rest of your life?”

It hit like a slap.
And then it cracked me open.
I cried for two hours straight.

It was the first time I met the wound underneath it all:
Abandonment.

Over 40% of people report feeling chronically lonely—even in relationships.

I was one of them.
I chased relief in romance, alcohol, achievement.

But the deepest pain—the one that nearly killed me—
was emotional dependence.

Not love.
Need.

Dr Alex Howard