Hello, i’m candice and i am a sugar junkie.

At least, that’s what the Man, my good friends and my scale all say.

Two out of three of those also say sugar is a drug. (i don’t know what the scale says. It’s not talking anymore. It may or may not have suffered some damage the last time i weighed myself. As it turns out, jumping up and down on digital scales yelling, “How ya like me now?! Huh? HUH? ” are not exactly good for their delicate digital parts.)

As for me, i say sugar is the fourth food group!! Actually, i’m not up on the current food groups. How many are there now? Is it a circle or a triangle? Whatever. i don’t know when geometry got involved with dividing up foods into groups but i DO know they left off one very important one, “SUGAR”, and although i paid very little attention to the original pie chart style of grouping foods (Mmmmm….PIE…..) turning it into an isoceles (equilateral? What? i hate math) triangle completely turned me off. i can’t be bothered with math-inflitrated-seemingly-arbitrary food groupings that don’t include sugar.

Because, it’s natural, right? i mean, it comes directly from the ground and one can get away from the overprocessing by eating raw cane sugar versus processed white sugar.

Hippy sugar.

Eco-friendly sugar.

You know, sugar-sugar. If sugar had dreads, braved Japanese fishing fleets to save whales and smelled like patchouli.

“i am SO supporting the planet,” i tell the Man as i add three scoops to my coffee.

The Man says that’s still sugar. And still a drug.

i say, “it is NOT!”, as i ransack the kitchen looking for that Hershey’s milk chocolate bar i know is in hidden in here somewhere. i hide these things so that i don’t eat them all at once in a mind-numbing, chocolate drooling binge. i also hide them so noone else will eat them. And, to be truthful, i don’t want him to know how many of these i actually eat.

Huh. Maybe it IS a drug.

i ponder this as i pull the frozen chocolate bar out of the freezer, (AHA! BRILLIANT! i forgot i did that!) Am i addicted to the sweet, sugary goodness that makes my tounge sing and my brain sparkle and my anxieties lessen and my troubles seem so far away? When i am in the middle of a Red Hots trance – unthinkingly popping them into my mouth one after another after another – i actually feel real disappointment and a sense of loss when i get to the end of the box. These small, sweet, cinnamon-y candies send me to my happy place and even though they burn my tongue and i am left immediately with a painful tummy and later – with a sugar high/sugar crash reminiscent of a scene from Valley of the Dolls –  if given another box i would immediately tear into it and start the cycle all over again.

 

Ok. Maybe sugar is a drug.

And i am a sugar junkie.

And that is SO rock star sounding. Maybe i’ll make that the title of my next song.

And maybe it’s time to do something about it.

So, three days ago, i quit sugar cold turkey.

Two days ago i stuffed an entire stale chocolate croissant in my mouth i found in the breakroom at work and ate it – drooling and with my eyes closed. i think i even moaned a little.

One day ago, i quit sugar again, cold turkey.

12 hours ago, i was offered a Hershey’s chocolate bar and with perhaps only a millisecond’s hesitation, i opened my mouth and shoved it in, feeling instantly the rush of the sugar on my tongue and the bliss of the chocolate melting in my mouth and running down my throat.

i’m now sitting at my computer and writing to keep myself from ransacking this house to find something, anything, sugary that i may have forgotten about.

i’m typing really, really hard.

The Man can hear me from the bathroom.

“You writing?” he calls out.

i may be just a wee bit tense.

The Man says a little bit of sugar won’t hurt me. i think he’s a bit nervous of the twitchy, distracted, mumbling mess walking around the house rearranging things and pulling her hair, trying NOT to drive to Walgreens and buy every box of Red Hots they have.

i tell him i can’t do just a “little bit of sugar”. i don’t even know what that means. One piece of candy? Two? Who DOES that? i mean, if i open up a box of Red Hots, how much is a “little”? Ten? A handful? Half the box? And what about a Hershey’s bar? One square? Three? Then you have an open and unfinished bar/box of candy lying there staring at you. What do you do with IT? Put it BACK in the cupboard to save for another time???

That’s crazy talk! i say. i can’t even imagine it. Leaving open, unfinished candy around the house. i shudder thinking about it and start chewing on a hangnail. A new thing i started doing since giving up my old thing. Hangnails for candy. Gross.

i’ve gotta get a handle on this.

i tell him it’s like going into withdrawal. He tells me to eat nuts.

“Salt will help.” he says simply.

Nuts. i don’t think he gets it.

i don’t WANT nuts. i want a bag full of Werther’s Original hard caramels, a king size Hershey’s bar with almonds (there’s your nuts!) and all the Red Hots Walgreens has. i want raspberry jam with my biscuits and gravy and milk duds with my movie popcorn. i want honey on my toast and sugar in my tea. Preferably one of those crazy sugary iced Vietnamese Boba teas that send me into a sugar high so high my speech becomes unintelligble and my coworkers have banned me from having them at work.

i want ALL the sugar there is to have and i want it right NOW.

(i think i just channelled Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, a movie i’ve watched over and over again just for that scene when they first go into the room with the river of chocolate where everything is edible? Even the flowers? OMGiWOULDDIE.)

i spent an entire lifetime looking for that room.

And now, finally, i think it’s time to let go of the edible-room dream and admit i have created a body completely reliant on sugar which is NOT a food group after all on any pie-triangle chart ever and is probably the main reason my scale screams at me everytime i step on it and that i’m not actually “big boned” or harboring an undetectable thyroid condition.

i’m having a come-to-jesus moment and it ain’t all skittles and rainbows.

So, two hours ago, i quit sugar again. Cold turkey.

And i opened up a bag of sunflower seeds.

Hopefully i can make it longer than one day. And i manage to do it without driving me or my loved ones crazy. Because there ain’t no candy in a psych ward.

i’ll let you know how it goes.