This is a difficult post for me. I have gone back and forth with it trying to decide how much to reveal and how much to keep private. I'm going to talk about others besides myself and I'm still not sure if I'm doing the right thing by publishing something about people who are close to me without their permission. However, it's very pertinent to my story and this journey which is why I feel like its necessary. So, here it goes:
I have an addictive personality. I come by that genetically. My dad had a lot of addictions throughout his life. In fact, it's difficult to think of my dad without thinking of one of his addictions. My entire childhood, his main addictions were drinking and smoking. Thankfully, I never started to smoke. Even in college when everyone around me was smoking, I abstained. I'm very happy I made that decision. I can't say the same about drinking.
I would say that my dad and I had very different drinking habits. My dad was a beer drinker. Old Milwaukee was in the refrigerator every night. I never remember my dad drinking anything but beer. He never drank wine or spirits of any kind. I, on the other hand, enjoy a variety of wine, spirits, and beer. When I started drinking in college, I think I started like a lot of people do. I drank fruity drinks. Things that I wouldn't touch today; Ameretto Stone Sours, Wine Coolers, Schnapps. Then, I moved onto beer. After college I started working in the restaurant industry and that is when I started venturing into wine and spirits.
My dad was a nightly drinker and he typically drank alone at home. It was not unusual for my dad to go through a case in a night. I am a social drinker. I never drink at home, alone. I drink when I'm out with friends, but I can put down with the best of them. I tend to hang out with friends who can drink a lot as well, so it's not atypical that we may have 7 or 8 drinks when we go out.
I have debated on whether or not I should classify myself as an alcoholic. I don't have the intense cravings that I know some people have had. I could stop drinking and it wouldn't upset me. That is how I do my 'No Juice January's' so often and it's not really a struggle to get through the month. I never missed work or an important event due to drinking. I was never that person who went by the 'hair of the dog' philosophy. If I had too much to drink and was hungover the next day, the last thing I wanted was alcohol. In fact, I usually can't drink for days after I have a hangover. As I've gotten older, hangovers have gotten worse. They last longer. I have had times where it takes me a full 48 hours to start feeling better again. I don't get sick. I'm way past those days. Instead, I just feel crappy. I want to sleep, but I can't sleep, so I'm just exhausted. In a nutshell, I think I would say that I have had alcohol problems, but I don't feel like those problems have been sever enough to say I needed AA or rehab or something like that.
I always wondered if my dad would have considered himself an alcoholic. We've never really talked about it, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say he didn't. I can say that we felt like he was. I think in my dad's reasoning, the fact that he only drank beer meant that he didn't have a problem. That said, I was impressed when one day he decided he was quitting and he managed to quit cold turkey. He hasn't had a beer in probably over fifteen years. He did the same with smoking which is something that I never thought he would be able to do. One day, though, he just did it. He quit. After years and years of smoking pack after pack of cigarettes every day, he just stopped. On a dime. Just stopped. And, he never went back. I don't know many people who have been able to do that.
I do know what it feels like to have cravings and not being able to control them, though it hasn't been with booze. Its been with sugar. I crave chocolate, sweets, and carbs. I eat way too much processed food which is typically loaded with sugar. I have very little control over this. I have tried. Counting points through Weight Watchers has helped because it forces me to at least account for my bad food intake, but I have even felt myself trying to cheat at that. Either I just won't log it or I'll lie about it. I lie on my own Weight Watchers points. That's ridiculous. Who am I lying to? Just me.
Two years ago, a report was released by JAMA Internal Medicine which said that in the 1950s scientist were beginning to see the links between sugar and heart disease. So, in the 1960s the sugar lobby paid for studies that would instead focus on fat and cholesterol as causes of heart disease and it started pushing consumers to purchase low fat foods. Low fat foods are typically loaded with sugar to make them taste good. So, a win/win for the sugar industry. They no longer are linked to heart disease and there is a higher demand for sugar since consumers are buying up low fat foods which have high sugar contents.
In my opinion, sugar should be considered a drug. It acts like a drug. The brain craves sugar as it does drugs or alcohol or tobacco. Yet, sugar is in almost everything we eat. I remember when my Grandfather found out he had diabetes, he immediately cut out sugar from his diet. As soon as he did that he lost a ton of weight. From that day forward, he would always remind us how bad sugar was and encouraged us to eliminate it from our diets.
The other night, I got mad at my husband for bringing home two boxes of Girl Scout cookies for me. Now, I know there wasn't any malicious intention behind it. He was walking the dog and some Girl Scouts were outside the Starbucks selling them so he bought a couple of boxes to bring home. I said, 'Why are you bringing those into the house? You know I'm going to eat them!" He replied, "Well, you don't have to eat the entire box. Just eat two or three and be done." That is something perhaps a non-addicted person can do. That night, I ate an entire row of thin mints.
That brings me to the point of this post. How do I re-wire my brain? I have read self-help books that deal with this. "The Power of Habit" is a popular one. In that book, they discuss having to learn your patterns and what your rewards have been and then resetting them. For example, I get cravings a lot during two times of the day; late afternoons and evenings. Typically, I eat pretty sensibly up until then. Something happens though around 4:00 p.m. where I'm still about two hours away from dinner and I have to have something. So, I go to snack. What this book would suggest would be to figure out what it is about 4:00 p.m. that gives me that craving. Perhaps, it's the time of day I'm taking a break from my computer and I decide that since I'm on a break, I need to eat. They would say, find a different reward. Instead of every time I get up from my desk I go to get a snack, maybe I go for a ten minute walk. Something like that.
Perhaps that is a key to re-wiring the brain. I can say that its much harder than just switching the reward. I have noticed a difference lately when it comes to exercise. Since I've upped my exercise routine, my body is beginning to crave it more. If I go more than a day without doing some sort of exercise, I can feel an urge. So, perhaps I am already re-wiring my brain.
Here's the positive thing, I like most foods and I enjoy cooking. When I plan meals I do much better. I have also watched my mom struggle with her weight and what I would consider to be a sugar addiction. She hates to cook and is a lot more particular about the foods she will and won't eat. That makes it a lot more difficult. I would also say my dad now has a sugar addiction. When he stopped drinking he started an ice cream addiction. He had ice cream all the time. Now, according to my mom, he eats a lot of cereal and Ritz crackers.
My mom and I have been on and off Weight Watchers for years. The times we have been successful are the times we are checking in with one another. It helps to have company throughout this process. That's the thing about addiction; it makes you feel ashamed. I feel ashamed that I can't control myself and have one or two cookies. I feel ashamed that I went out and drank too much.
Yet, I do know this.... I am not alone. I see addiction all around me. It takes different forms with different people. Sometimes it's through food. For others its smoking or drinking or doing drugs. For others it may be gambling or pornography or not being able to put their phones down for five minutes. We don't like to talk about it. I don't like to talk about it. It makes us feel weak. By not talking about it, we remain isolated, trying to change things on our own. I believe that if we are open about our struggles and bring others along with us on our journey, and walk along side them with theirs, that we will find answers to our problems. That is where real change begins.
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