Hi, my name is Johanna, and I'm an addict

I was recently reading up on alcoholism, you know, as you do, and I discovered something pretty disturbing.   The National Institute on Alcohol Use and Alcoholism lists the following symptoms of alcohol addiction:

• Craving—A strong need, or urge, to drink.
• Loss of control—Not being able to stop drinking once drinking has begun.
• Dependence—Withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, sweating, shakiness, and negative emotional states such as anxiety, after stopping drinking.
• Tolerance—The need to drink greater amounts of alcohol to feel the same effect.

I realized that if I substituted the words "eat sugar" for drinking in each of these symptoms, it describes my relationship with sweets pretty well.  Now, I don't mean to minimize alcoholism.  On the contrary.  Alcohol addiction is a very serious disease that has affected my family deeply.  It may seem silly to compare something like sugar to alcohol.  After all, I can drive just fine after eating cake, right?  And no sane jury these days would let someone off a murder charge on the Twinkie defense.  But more and more evidence is coming to light on the dangerous (yes dangerous!) nature of sugar.  Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, metabolic disorders, and cancer have all been linked to sugar consumption.  And there is research that now shows that sugar addiction  is real.

"But, Johanna," you may be thinking, "surely you don't eat that much sugar. You're nowhere near obese.  These are not things you need to worry about."

The scary thing is that I do eat a huge amount of sugar, and sometimes I don't even realize it.  There's the sugar I put in my tea, in my oatmeal, and in my cookies and cakes (I like to bake.) But then there's the sugar in my bread, on my burger, and on my pasta.  We try to stay away from processed foods, but we do buy ketchup, bread, sauces, and cereals at the store. It's all chock full of sugar, and it's this hidden sugar that's particularly insidious because it changes how our bodies and brains react to sugar.  The more sugar I eat, the more sugar I want.  "Tolerance," anyone?

About a year ago I announced on Facebook that I was officially done with soda.  How's that going?  Well, it could be better.  I crave soda, especially with certain meals.  (Can someone please explain to me why caesar salad tastes so much better when accompanied by Coke?) I have about a soda a week, which when you compare that to how much most Americans (and Irish, too, I think) drink, is pretty darn good.  But it's the craving part that scares me.  And it isn't just soda.  When I wake up in the morning I think about my nice cup of coffee, you know, the one with at least 2 teaspoons of sugar in it.  At about 11 o'clock I want, no, I crave a nice cup of tea, you know, the one with 2 teaspoons of sugar in it, and sometimes a pastry, too.  I'll often have juice or tea with lunch, and from then on I'm thinking about my relaxing time on the couch after the girls have gone to bed with, you guessed it, a nice cup of tea and cookies.  It frightened me when I realized how much of my day is driven by when and how I'll get my next sugar fix.  And when I don't get my time on the couch with tea and cookies, or even if I don't have that to look forward to, I feel depressed and anxious.  I have trouble taking pleasure in the rest of my day.  In short, I go through withdrawal. 

You hear that addicts have to "hit bottom" before they seek help.  I may not have hit bottom in the sense that my life is now falling apart, but when I realized how my sugar addiction is affecting my family, I decided it was past time for a change.

You may have seen on Facebook that I baked a cake yesterday.  I captioned the picture I posted, rather defensively, "Happy 'what, so I decided to bake a cake, you got a problem with dat?' Day."  The real reason I baked a cake, though, was because I felt I had to.  There were no cookies in the house.  I couldn't face the rest of my day without the promise of sweets.  So instead of  doing my usual afternoon activities with my kids, I baked a cake.  And, of course, this did not escape my kids' notice.  So when the steaming, gooey monstrosity came out of the oven they decided dinner was over.  Goodbye lovely Mexican soup.  Hello bananas foster upside down cake.  And because I was going to indulge, I couldn't very well deny my children a slice as well.  And, to be perfectly honest, I didn't have the energy to say no.  So on a Wednesday night, for no reason other than that I needed a sugar fix, we all sat down and ate cake.  That's when I realized that this is not OK.  This is not what I want for my kids.

Hi, my name is Johanna, and I am a sugar addict.  I need help.  So I'm going cold turkey.  No refined white sugar.  No store-bought bread.  No corn flakes.  And no cookies or cake.  It'll be hard.  Extremely hard.  But I have to do it.  If you're with me, let me know. I need a sponsor.