Thursday, January 28, 2010

The ugle face of addiction

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem

I am addicted to sugar. There, I said it. It is true. I can take or leave cookies, cakes, baked goods, etc. but when it comes to the hard stuff, plain old candy, I have no self control. I love chocolate and caramel and anything chewy and gooey and fruity. The more it gets stuck in your teeth, the better ( I have had a long standing love affair with Red Vines, for example).

Well, for the sake of my pre-diabetic self (because of CF, my chances of being diabetic are greatly increased) and for the sake of my daughter who is starting to follow in her mother's unhealthy footsteps (if I don't want her to eat it, I have to not let her see me sneak the stuff) I set a new year's resolution to kick the habit and say adios to the dulces.

It was going well. Really well. I made several shopping trips without even a passing thought at picking up a bag of Red Vines. I didn't have any candy at home, and wasn't really seeming to miss it. Until yesterday, that is. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I suddenly needed sugar. I had to have it. I had visions of peach rings and skittles dancing in my head, and I swear, I think I had the shakes.

And that's when I remembered the chocolate chips that had been left over after Christmas baking. I won't share all the detail of what happened, but I will tell you it was ugly. And continued to be ugly all afternoon. When Chris got home I confessed what I had done and resolved to get back on the wagon, but here it is, late afternoon again, and those chocolate chips were literally calling to me from within the cupboard. I would like to say that I did not succumb, but that would be a falsehood.

I finally decided that I have a few options: 1) give up my resolution, 2) eat all the chocolate chips today so they won't be there to tempt me tomorrow, or 3) get rid of the chocolate. With all the will power I possess, I decided on number 3. I knew I couldn't just throw them away. I would inevitably get them back out. Disgusting... I know. Flushing them down the toilet would have been effective, but visually disturbing. The outside trash was too far away and I was worried that I would loose my resolve while trekking through the snow get to it. So, I did the only thing I could think of and threw the bag out in the snow.

And so, there they sit. They are outside the window looking at me right now. But I am not worried or even tempted because I know that the one thing stronger than my love of candy is my dislike of the cold and snow. I know myself well enough to know that not even the idea of satisfying my sugar fix will entice me to get my boots on and go outside to retrieve those precious, precious chocolate chips. So they will sit there untouched until Chris gets home and I make him go throw them away.

So, there you have the whole of my ugly and embarrassing addiction with all the strange things it has compelled me to do. I have no explanation and I make no excuses. All I can say for myself is that I have been "sober" now 34 minutes and counting....

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