Yes, yes, and YES! It's how I became a sugar-holic. As a kid, I was beaten bloody every day before, during, and after school. By the time I was eight I was stealing candy because while the sugar was in my mouth, I felt a tiny bit better. By the time I got to college, I was a full-blown addict. No, it's not healthy. But it's FAR more effective at numbing some of the pain than everything else combined the professionals have offered--including pharmaceuticals, behavioral and cognitive therapies, commitments, and high-voltage bilateral ECT. If the professional therapies were accessible and worked, statistically, (1) people would choose those therapies over their own poisons, and (2) suicide rates wouldn't still be climbing.
Mental health: the non-science that fails even to reverse the so-called disease rates it purports to offer effective interventions for.