Most people, including me, self-medicate in some form or another (besides caffeine), albeit it’s more or less ‘under control’. And there are various forms of self-medicating, from the relatively mild to the dangerously extreme, that include non-intoxicant-consumption habits, like chronic shopping/buying, gambling, or over-eating.

If they’re anything like drug-intoxication self-medicating or addiction, it should follow that: the greater the induced euphoria or escape one attains from it, the more one wants to repeat the experience; and the more intolerable one finds their non-self-medicating reality, the more pleasurable that escape will likely be perceived. In other words: the greater one’s mental pain or trauma while not self-medicating, the greater the need for escape from one's reality, thus the more addictive the euphoric escape-form will likely be.

With food, the vast majority of obese people who considerably over-eat likely do so to mask mental pain or even PTSD symptoms. I utilized that method myself during much of my pre-teen years, and even later in life after ceasing my (ab)use of cannabis and alcohol.

Today, my emotionally tumultuous existence is a continuous discomforting anticipation of ‘the other shoe dropping’ and being afraid of how badly I will deal with the negative or horrible event — that almost never transpires — and especially if I feel I'm at fault for the event. ... Besides morning coffee, my current form of medicating is doctor-prescription or alcohol via wine. Though I don’t take it lightly, it’s possible that someday I could instead return to over-eating.