019: Addiction Transfer with Wendy Rawlings, LMHC

Many of us have noticed that when we can no longer turn to food in moments of discomfort and pain, we turn to something else to help us regain that old, familiar feeling of relief. It could be drinking, it could be shopping, it might be gambling, or it might still involve food, but purging after binging. This behavior is a tactic that we will use to find comfort after our bariatric procedure. It is called addiction transfer and it is real. Sometimes called "cross-addiction", addiction transfer is what we do when we "swap" one addiction or dependence for another. And because many of us will look to transfer our addiction instead of learning how to cope with our emotions and feelings in healthy ways, we have a 50% chance of regaining our weight after our weight loss surgery procedures.

In this episode, we sit down with Wendy Rawlings, a licensed mental health counselor who specializes in bariatric recovery. We define addiction transfer and talk about the differences between addiction, dependence, and tolerance. We highlight the "look for" and outline steps that we can all take to avoid addiction transfer and move our selves down a healthy path of recovery after bariatric surgery!

Episode Topics:

• Defining addiction transfer
• Defining and discussing the differences between addiction, dependence, and tolerance
• Learning how we can identify if we are addict, dependant, or tolerant of things to help us cope
• Discussing tools we can use to avoid addiction transfer

Episode Mentions:

• Yale Food Addiction Scale
• Yale Food Addiction Test and Scoring Rubric
• Mindfulness Coach App
• Eat Right Now App
• Wendy Rawlings

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