May 29, 2009 ↓ 1 Comments

When Did You Discover You Had A Problem?

It was the nineties and I was conducting computer training at the United States Social Security Administration. There were a team of trainers showing the SSA employees how to use the latest and greatest thing—Microsoft Windows. During lunch break the training team would slip out of the building, down the the streets of Philadelphia’s old town, and grab a bite to eat.

One particular day I had ordered a sandwich and also purchased three giant cookies that came bundled together in plastic wrap. Toward the end of lunch I began to eat the first of the three cookies when it occurred to me that the polite thing to do would be to offer some to the rest of the team. I felt a sense of relief when everyone turned me down because that meant the 3 cookies were all mine. And I ate them, all of them.

As I was finishing up the last of the three cookies one of my coworkers, whose name I cannot recall but whose attitude I can, said something snide about how I scoffed down a whole lot of sugar. I felt badly about eating sweets in a way I had never felt before. That was the first time I had any inkling that my sugar consumption wasn’t normal.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized I had a problem. After a particularly heavy binge I tried to avoid chocolate and sweet snacks for one month. During that time I found myself automatically walking to the kitchen more times than I could count. I noticed how much money I was dropping at Rite Aid on chocolate covered pretzels. What’s more, since I wasn’t eating those foods, I began to transfer my addictive behavior to other sweet foods. That’s when I knew something was up. It took me another several years of trying before I stayed off sugar for any length of time.

(1) Comments: When Did You Discover You Had A Problem?

Traci
Jul 10, 2009

When I was a teenager. One time I was eating an icecream cone in what I though was a normal way, and a little kid pointed at me and said “mom, look at that girl eat that cone!”.
Also, feeling horrible when trying to stay away from sugar, not being able to function normally until I resumed. Total addiction. Also snide remarks from others.