It seems one or two people were tickled pink by yesterday’s sinister-sounding “Addiction” title for a blog-post that was basically about me being unable to stay away from chocolate.

It got me thinking and I decided to do some research, because after all, isn’t sugar a highly addictive substance?  Isn’t it as bad as cocaine because it triggers the dopamine response (the pleasure center of your brain) and it’s basically an evil drug?

Well, here’s a snippet of what I discovered with the help of Mr.Google:

Sugar is not an addictive substance.  Not in technical terms, because you do not crave sugar on a purely physiological level as you would with heroin or cocaine, i.e. I don’t break out in a cold sweat when I can’t get my sugar fix; no muscle aches, nerve pain, chills, fatigue, inability to concentrate or suicidal thoughts.

However people can also become addicted to behaviour patterns; patterns such as food, sex, gambling…

And here’s the thing with satisfying any craving, be it for a slab of chocolate or a Marlboro cigarette: we don’t like what we’re feeling inside, we hate pain, we love pleasure, we’re constantly running away from one and craving the other.  Granted, if your body is going through severe heroin withdrawals, one can understand how impossibly difficult it must be not to give in to cravings.

But when we’re in the throes of a craving to something like sugar, the worst things we can experience are irritability, restlessness or depression.

So why are they so hard to endure?

I really wanted to stay away from sugar yesterday, to clean up my diet, to be stronger in myself and say no to my cravings for sweets.  But I simply could not tolerate the uncomfortable feelings that were niggling away at me inside and a sugary treat was the one thing guaranteed to make them go away.  So despite all my better intentions and despite all my knowledge and understanding of the situation, I just couldn’t do it.

So I fixed it with the cheap thrill of a quick dopamine release from my sweet chocolatey crispy square.

It might not be so destructive as binge drinking alcohol or gambling oneself into crushing debt.

But I’m intrigued by the very concept of an addiction, that we should be so unable to sit with what we are feeling and deal with it, instead chasing it away with a vodka, a smoke or a cake.

It is something to ponder, methinks.

Ciao darlings!

Lizzie xxxx