After twenty-four years in the program, I began to see that self-hatred was my first addiction. ~ Overeaters Anonymous, Third Edition (Kindle Locations 869-870).

Some of us were chubby toddlers, never healthy body weights,
some ideal weight into our twenties then encountered incest,
abusive spouses, a terrible event that destroyed our confidence,
our sanity, our will to be. Whatever the original stimulation…
religious zealotry, sexual assault, destitution, deprivation…whatever,
the original addiction was self-hatred, guilt, narcissism, jealousy,
feeling less than, inadequate. Somehow we knew this
and took other addictions that in the beginning lessened the pain.