Holy Hunger

Holy Hunger, by Margaret Bulitt-Jonas

This memoir beautifully and shockingly guides the reader through the authors struggle with overeating, and finding some measure of health and peace in community and trust.

I particularly enjoyed chapters 3 and 4, “Body Language,” and, “Putting Down the Duck,” where she describes her struggle most intently.  Other chapters deal more with her family history and struggle with other relationships.  This is probably more helpful to some, but not as much to me.

A wonderful writer, let me give you a taste of some of my favorite parts:

It wasn’t that I wanted too much, but that I wanted disparate things.  What did I really want?  I didn’t know.  I wanted everything.  I wanted opposite things.  If you’d offered me a questionnaire designed to prove what I was longing for, I’d have marked a yes in every box. [page 67]

Addiction divides the self.  The mind becomes a tyrant and the body becomes its prisoner, the target of its assault.  it’s not the body that wants another handful of peanuts or an extra slice of bread.  The body watches in wonder and sorrow.  What can it do?  All the signals of bodily satisfaction have been sent to the brain.  The stomach is pleasantly full.  The belly already presses firmly against the belt.  All is well in the body.  There is food enough.  Hunger is gone.

But an anxious greedy craving still prowls restlessly in the mind.  Addiction has its own voice.  To the body it says, “I don’t care what you tell me.  I don’t care what you want.  I’m going to keep on eating.  I want those extra bites.  I can override you.  Your voice doesn’t count.  You can’t stop me.  I’m in charge.” [p.70]