Dear Younger Me,

What I’m going to tell you may sound strange but bear with me.

Over the next few decades, you are going to find many of the things you most desire: a partner, a family, a happy home, a career you enjoy and good friends. You are also going to stay in the Christian faith, and you are going to have some great adventures.

But there is a problem, hiding in plain sight, that you are completely unaware of. The way you use food and drink is compulsive and addictive and it is stealing joy and connection from your life.

You think, and I don’t blame you, that addicts look out of control and at rock bottom. You just love food and drink, and it makes everything more fun, exciting, calm and manageable. How can you be an addict? Right?

It’s going to take you decades to realise that when you could be connecting to others, connecting to God and connecting properly with yourself, you are turning instead to connect to food and drink. You are using food and drink to manage the tricky art of living.

When you feel nervous socially, you eat and drink. When you can’t cope with the stress of work you eat. When you feel sad or lonely or bored or nervous, you eat. When you babysit for others, you raid their cupboards. And this coping behaviour will get more and more out of hand until you are stealing food, hiding food, lying about food and obsessing about food when you aren’t eating and even when you are eating.

But don’t despair. God hears our prayers. He really does. And after calling out to Him, you will find an addiction programme and it will be a lifeline.

That addiction programme will teach you what you thought you already knew. But it was head knowledge, not applied knowledge.

You will learn to bring your deepest feelings to God: resentment, anxiety, selfishness, and you will be able to let God actually transform resentment and calm anxiety.

You will find the courage to lean on others and ask for help when you are struggling. You are such an island. You hate needing other people, but you will learn to lean on others

You will develop a daily structure of prayer and meditation that you can stick to, not out of will power but because you are part of a loving community.

Lastly, you will learn the deep truth that your will-power doesn’t cut it. It’s not enough. Only when you truly lean on God, rather than leaning on your own efforts will you have the spiritual remedy for your emotional and physical problems.

Hang on in there. I said it sounded strange, but when you find the lifeline, grab hold of it with two hands. It’s the answer to really living, not just managing.

Jane