Who better to consult on the relationship between alcohol use disorder (AUD) and eating addiction than Dr. Lamia Haque, director of the Yale Clinic for Alcohol and Addiction Treatment in Hepatology, part of the vast Yale School of Medicine (YSM) Program in Addiction Medicine.

Dr. Haque is board-certified in both addiction medicine and obesity medicine, as well as her speciality, hepatology, the study of liver-related diseases. Dr. Haque was recently interviewed about her work by Rachel Martin for YSM Insight, a publication of the Yale School of Medicine.

Right from the start, Dr. Haque talks about the relationship between stress and both eating addiction and AUD:

Substance use is initially driven by positive reinforcement but can later be motivated by the relief of negative emotional states.

Patients are lured by the pleasurable properties of these substances or by their usefulness in relieving stress. Interestingly, Dr. Haque places these in sequential order, but what if the stress precedes substance use? The difference is crucial.

If substance use is the result of stress in search of a remedy, it appears that the substances become more addictive than substance use for pleasure. I believe Dr. Haque says substance abuse is “later” motivated by the relief of negative emotional states in reference to the stress that results from withdrawal for those who have become dependent.

Dr. Haque is setting up a scenario where the use of addictive substances, when initiated as pain relief or stress relief, is then continued as a result of dependency, which adds the stress and pain of withdrawal to the underlying motivating negative emotional states. The sequence is important: Which came first, the substance or the stress?

Dr. Haque prefers the term “food addiction,” potentially a substance use disorder, rather than “eating addiction,” a behavioral disorder. In part, this is due to “an unhealthy consumption pattern, primarily of ultra-processed, high-sugar, and high-fat foods.” She is looking at the ingredients to find the source of addiction when the common ingredient between AUD and “food addiction” is stress.

Dr. Haque comments to YSM Insight about the commonality in treatments for AUD and obesity:

• Naltroxone, which is used in the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD) and AUD is also used in a combination medicine for weight loss.

• GLP-1 drugs used to treat obesity, diabetes, and liver disease are showing promise in treating AUD.

Dr. Haque believes there is an opportunity “to improve health outcomes and streamline care for patients by treating multiple contributors to disease simultaneously.” There is certainly much to be gained by examining unifying, underlying factors between all types of behavioral disorders and substance use disorders.

For example, on the other side of the equation, the connection between alcoholism and eating disorders is “well documented,” according to a review in the journal Alcohol Health and Research World:

Alcohol and other drug (AOD)-use disorders are particularly common in women with bulimia nervosa (BN).

The research finds no genetic connection between AUD and BN. The traits are “transmitted independently in families,” write the researchers. Once again, the sequence of events is extremely important. In this case, “bulimia nervosa generally develops before the onset of AOD dependence.”

First the stress, then the addiction. Interesting. Anorexia nervosa and BN might, in one sense, look like the opposite of eating addiction, but if the source for all these conditions is the displacement of stress, it would explain why responses to chronic stress in childhood predispose children to substance use disorders later in life.

The common roots of these addictive behaviors in chronic stress would also explain the response of behavioral addictions to drugs prescribed for substance use disorders. Further research into the origins of addiction might yield preventive actions that could be taken before having to treat these patients with drugs.

Written by Steve O’Keefe. First published July 8, 2026.

Sources:

“Understanding the Links Between Alcohol Use Disorder and Food Addiction,” YSM Insight, Yale School of Medicine, June 29, 2026.

“The Link Between Alcoholism and Eating Disorders,” Alcohol Health and Research World, 1996.

Image Copyright: sofeiganita.