Posted on

Binging a Path from Hilltop Steakhouse to Augustine’s

Many of my friends and family are sad to hear about the planned closing of Hilltop Steakhouse on Route 1 in Saugus, Mass.

I’m not gonna lie: I never understood the affection people had for the dining experience there. I always found the food mediocre at best, particularly in later years. But I did do my share of binging there because it was close by and affordable. And I can’t argue the place’s significance as a landmark on that stretch of highway.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/cFKeEBFsZek

The massive cactus sign. The cattle statuary all across the front lawn. If you’re from around there, you can’t help but feel nostalgic.

On hearing the news about Hilltop’s plan to close, one friend lamented that all the classic eateries of the area were gone, bulldozed for unremarkable restaurant chains. He ran off some names of places long gone: Hometown Buffet on Route 114 in Peabody. Augustine’s further up Route 1 in Saugus.

Something occurred to me upon hearing the names: All my old binging holes are gone.

As a kid I loved going to Augustine’s. It’s the first buffet experience I can remember. I loved that I could eat at the trough until I was ready to throw up — which I did more than once. As I got older I realized the food was actually pretty mediocre. But that didn’t matter. Binge eaters don’t care if their drug of choice is high-quality dining. What matters is availability. It’s why college freshmen tend to gain wait their first semester. The crappy food in the dining hall is free flowing and you sort of feel cheated if you don’t pile it high.

When I worked at Rockit Records in the early 1990s, Augustine’s was still open, and I binged there daily at one point. I was almost relieved when they finally tore it down.

Some days I’d binge at Hilltop, then do the same right after at Augustine’s. I was like the shark in Jaws, chewing my way from the barrel ropes to the boat.

I don’t miss doing that shit. But I don’t blame places like Hilltop and Augustine’s for what I did. Even without them, there’s plenty of binging ground on that stretch of highway to be done if I were so inclined. I’m not, thank God.

We like to heap all the blame on our enablers. But the problem always begins with the addicted mind.

3035820507_2d62860ebb

Posted on

Truth in Advertising at the Heart Attack Grill?

I admit to some laughter when I read the news that John Alleman, unofficial spokesman and mascot for Las Vegas’ infamous Heart Attack Grill, dropped dead of a heart attack outside the restaurant. “Talk about truth in advertising,” I thought to myself. Then I felt like an asshole.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:4dIv6OPKSfGNfWuhv1hEDV]

Finding humor in someone’s death is bad enough, but I could have easily been this guy. Frankly, I still could be.

The Heart Attack Grill is typical of the excess that is Las Vegas. Its high-calorie menu includes the 9,982-calorie, 3-pound Quadruple Bypass Burger. The restaurant’s waitresses dress as sexy nurses and “prescribe great-tasting high-calorie meals including the Double Bypass Burger, Flatliner Fries, Full Sugar Coke, Butterfat Shake, and no-filter cigarettes!” according to the website. Its slogan is “Taste worth dying for.”

Alleman, a 52-year-old security guard, was featured on the Heart Attack Grill clothing line and ate at the restaurant daily. He was known for devouring so many burgers chased down with cream-laden milkshakes with a dollop of butter on top that the restaurant nicknamed him “Patient John.”

The poor guy collapsed outside the eatery while waiting for the bus. It’s really not the way a person wants to be remembered, is it?

I’ve walked past the restaurant during trips to Vegas for security conferences, but I’ve never gone in. As someone with a history of binge eating and overall food addiction, that would be unwise. But then excess is everywhere you go in that town, which is why I hate the place.

Need help with your relationship with food? Visit our Eating Disorders Resources page.

It would be easy to get on my soapbox and decry restaurants like this as an evil that preys on people like me, but I know that’s just not true. As I’ve said about McDonald’s, once my favorite binging hole, the problem isn’t the establishment. Healthy-minded people can eat there once in a while and balance it with a healthy lifestyle the rest of the time. The Heart Attack Grill is no different.

If someone can enjoy infrequent moments of total excess without letting those moments control and consume them, good for them. I envy them, because a disconnected wire in my brain prevents me from living that way.

It appears Alleman had the same problem. I’m glad it wasn’t me this time.

Heart attack grill

Posted on

The Shame a Binge Eater Feels

As a recovering binge eater, I don’t necessarily see my own habits reflected in a recently released University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) study about the weird concoctions food addicts ingest. But I relate to the emotions study participants describes all too well.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:3mYHah7DK3DeWn8guf8CQp]

The study says food concocting — making strange food mixtures like mashed potatoes and Oreo cookies; frozen vegetables mixed with mayonnaise; and chips with lemon, pork rinds, Italian dressing and salt — is common among binge eaters. The full study was published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, but here’s an excerpt from the UAB site:

According to the study, people who concoct are more likely to binge eat than those who overeat without bingeing. Those who concoct reported the same emotions as drug users during the act; they also reported later feelings of shame and disgust, which could fuel an existing disorder.

Mary Boggiano, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Psychology and primary investigator of the study, said study participants self-reported their emotions while concocting. The answers revealed a vast majority felt “excited” and “anxious” during the process.

“While they are food concocting and binge eating they report being excited, in a frenzy, and high, but afterwards they feel awful about themselves,” said Boggiano.

I never thought of the junk I craved as weird concoctions, but I also never made the kind of mixtures described in the study. I went for the traditional junk, the sweet stuff. I’d go in a gas station and buy a mix of Hostess cake products and a variety of candy, particularly Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Twix. In the same binge, I’d go for the salty stuff, including chips and fast food.

I always considered those choices normal. In hindsight, I guess eating all those things in one sitting fit the concocting mold. In fact, some of the mixtures described in the UAB report sound healthier than what I would consume.

One thing is for certain: The excitement and shame study participants described fit me perfectly. There was always a certain thrill in hunting down and obtaining my fix. I’d feel a short period of intoxication during the act of eating. Then it would all be followed by intense, even debilitating feelings of shame.

Not because I ate a massive quantity of weird shit, but because I had thoroughly lost control of my mind and actions. I let an invisible demon possess my mind and body, too weak to do anything to stop it.

Read more about what the process is like in “Anatomy of a Binge.”

I eventually did gather up the strength to stop binging. Doing Overeater’s Anonymous and treating the behavior like the addictive impulse it is helped a lot. Giving up flour and sugar and measuring all my food has also helped.

But a recovering binge eater is always one bite away from being reclaimed by the demon, and I’ve had my share of close calls in the last four years.

All you can do is fight it one day at a time.
food-concocting_s