(The one blog post I ever wrote that got thousands of hits was one that alluded to sex (but didn’t really have anything to do with it), so if you have been taken in by the title I apologize. The rest of you, read on:)

To say I have a bit of a sweet tooth is akin to saying African elephants are slightly buck-toothed. Not for me any other white substance; no Peruvian powder, no Bolivian blow, but good ole-fashioned simple sugar. Sucrose. I have a sugar habit that would make a hummingbird seem abstemious, and it is the one vice to which I unfailingly return.

I long since quit tobacco, I gave up coffee for over a year, I’ve been vegetarian for two years, and this year I resolved not to have any alcohol (luckily, as various Lockdowns and Quarantines certainly made booze look more attractive!), so I’m no stranger to overcoming vices, and yet Sugar Ray has me on the ropes, pummeling me relentlessly throughout every round. I’ve tried quitting before, but the longest I managed was a month or two.

In fairness, it is by far the easiest addiction to cater to – no restrictions apply, no eyebrows are raised in the supermarket when you load up with knock-off Snickers the way they would be if you were buying cheap plonk – and yet it is an addiction. Substance abuse. What else would you call it if you down a quarter of a kilo of chocolate in one sitting, or a quart of ice cream?

The effects of refined sugar on your body are devastating. It affects your heart, your sleeping patterns, your brain synapses… and that’s before we get to the horrible effect it has on your clothes – they all stop fitting! Suffice to say sweets are unequivocally bad news for you. If you know me a little you know I’m quite interested in living healthily, so this is anathema to me, and yet I haven’t managed to shake off the yoke of Candyland.

Of course, there are no Betty Ford-clinics for recovering sugar addicts. No posh hangouts with a safe, fructose-free environment for you to adjust to a life without sugar highs. Incidentally, the latter are the reason why refined sugar is so addictive; such grade-A product is incredibly rare in the natural world, so our bodies are pre-programmed to cram as much of it down our gullies as we can on those (originally) precious few occasions when an opportunity presents itself. The reward is a rush of endorphins akin to what you get when falling in love. And this makes sense when you have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to steal honey combs and have to be double-quick gobbling it down before being stung to death by a black cloud of wild bees; it isn’t the least bit helpful when there’s an endless supply of it in your local supermarket (and no killer bees to prevent you from overindulging!).

In fact, resisting said temptation is an age old problem. All indigenous people go out of their way to get that sugar rush. Even the Original Sin was caused by sugar – Eve didn’t go for a starchy root vegetable or a protein-rich Egg of Knowledge in the garden of Eden, no, she and Hubby binged on fruit, which of course employ fructose to make themselves attractive to passers-by for propagation purposes (and information sharing, incidentally). My point is, the struggle is real.

So. I will sugar-coat things no more. Literally. My name is Chris. I’m a recovering sugar addict. It’s been ten hours since my last binge. From here on out I vow to live a life without refined sugar.