Can Treating an Eating Disorder Help With Addiction Too? What Rehab Centers Are Finding
The connection between disordered eating and addiction has been hiding in plain sight for decades. On the surface, these conditions may look like separate struggles—one tied to body image or food, the other to substances like alcohol or drugs. But if you start listening closely to people who’ve faced both, or to the professionals who guide them through recovery, a different picture emerges. These aren’t isolated issues. They often feed off the same pain, the same wiring, and the same patterns. And treating one without the other? That’s where many rehab centers have learned the hard way—it doesn’t usually stick.
So, what happens when both are treated at the same time, under the same roof, with the same level of care? That’s the question many treatment programs are now taking seriously. And the early results are making people pay attention.
The Link Between Food and Substances Runs Deeper Than Most Think
It’s not unusual for someone struggling with substance use to also battle with food. Sometimes it starts with one and leads into the other. A person might begin using stimulants as a way to suppress appetite. Or maybe alcohol becomes a numbing tool after years of fighting body dysmorphia. In other cases, disordered eating habits like bingeing and purging offer a false sense of control when everything else feels like it’s unraveling.
The reasons vary, but the overlap is undeniable. Both addiction and eating disorders tend to emerge from a mix of trauma, perfectionism, low self-worth, and a desire to escape uncomfortable emotions. In a very real sense, they often function as different versions of the same coping mechanism.
That’s why recovery gets complicated. If a person enters treatment for substance use but no one addresses the underlying disordered eating, it’s like fixing the roof while ignoring the cracked foundation. The real damage is still there, quietly waiting to show back up.
Why Single-Issue Treatment Plans Fall Short
Many traditional rehab centers have historically taken a one-track approach. You come in for a drug problem? You get treated for the drug problem. The same goes for those seeking help with bulimia, anorexia, or binge eating—treatment focuses on nutrition plans, food journaling, and therapy sessions aimed at body image and control.
But what happens when the symptoms are tangled up together? What if alcohol is numbing the anxiety that drives restrictive eating? Or if purging becomes a go-to behavior during early sobriety as a way to manage the discomfort of withdrawal or emotional dysregulation?
That’s where things tend to fall apart. Rehab centers have started to realize that treating one diagnosis while ignoring the other doesn’t just miss the point—it can actively sabotage recovery. It’s why more programs are adapting their models to treat both issues together, with clinicians cross-trained in addiction and eating disorder care. These programs are built around understanding how co-occurring disorders interact, rather than trying to isolate them. The results are showing real promise.
Why Integrated Treatment Changes the Game
Integrated treatment doesn’t just mean stacking a few therapy types together and hoping for the best. It’s a full shift in how recovery is approached. The idea is simple: treat the whole person. That means bringing in trauma-informed therapy, nutritional rehab, and relapse prevention strategies that actually account for both addiction triggers and disordered eating patterns.
What many people find in these programs is a sense of being understood—sometimes for the first time. They’re not being forced to compartmentalize their struggles, or pretend one problem matters more than the other. Everything is allowed to be on the table. It’s not always pretty, and it’s definitely not easy, but it’s far more realistic than trying to recover in pieces.
A stand out in this arena is Neurish near Newport Beach, which has built its reputation on meeting people exactly where they are. Their team includes dietitians who specialize in addiction recovery, as well as addiction counselors who are trained to spot the subtle signs of disordered eating. They don’t force patients to choose which part of their struggle gets taken seriously. That might sound small, but in practice, it can mean the difference between lasting healing and another relapse down the road.
The Emotional Work That Ties It All Together
It’s tempting to think of eating disorders and addiction as habits—things that just need to be broken, retrained, or avoided. But anyone who’s lived through either knows the truth runs deeper. These patterns are often responses to something that hasn’t healed yet. For many, that something is old trauma, deep shame, or emotions that never had a safe outlet.
That’s why emotional work is so central to integrated recovery. It’s not just about learning to eat again or staying sober. It’s about learning to feel without going numb. It’s about noticing your own self-talk, recognizing shame when it shows up, and learning how to sit with discomfort without self-destructing. It’s about building real coping skills and learning how to ask for help when the old patterns start knocking again.
Group therapy plays a big role in that process. So does individual therapy with clinicians who don’t try to rush or oversimplify things. Recovery can’t be microwave-fast. It’s layered, slow, and sometimes ugly. But it works when the person feels like they aren’t being asked to cut themselves into pieces just to get help.
What Rehab Centers Are Learning From This Approach
Rehab centers that take the time to treat both eating disorders and addiction together aren’t just following a trend. They’re responding to years of missed opportunities. People who came in for help but slipped through the cracks because their full story wasn’t being heard. Now, programs are starting to catch up, and what they’re finding is simple but powerful: when someone feels fully seen, they start to heal in ways that last.
There’s still work to do. Insurance models haven’t fully caught up to integrated care, and many centers are still learning how to build these dual-diagnosis programs from the ground up. But the tide is turning. More clinicians are recognizing the patterns. More people are speaking up about the link between disordered eating and substance use. And more families are beginning to understand that if recovery isn’t complete, it probably won’t be sustainable.
Looking Ahead With Clearer Eyes
When someone is dealing with both addiction and an eating disorder, it’s not a sign that they’re broken beyond repair. It’s a sign that their pain runs deep and has taken different shapes to get their attention. The good news is that rehab centers are finally listening. Not to just one part of the story—but to the whole thing. And that shift is opening the door for recovery that actually sticks.
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