I so wanted to be “normal”.
I wanted to be able to drink normally. I didn’t want to quit. I liked everything about it.
Until I didn’t.
One minute it was one big, fun party and the next I was blacking out and doing things I would regret and have to apologize for.
My work was suffering.
My relationships were definitely suffering.
And my paycheck just seemed to evaporate.
All I wanted when I searched for help was for you to tell me how to go back to the days when it was fun. To show me how to “drink like everyone else.”
Slowly – I learned it just doesn’t work that way.
I didn’t change without taking years more to try it “my way”.
More pain, more embarrassment, and a ton more money.
Fast forward a few years and I finally put down beer and picked up sugar instead. Six to eight – 16.oz Mountain Dews, no ice, a day plus candy all day and tons of ice cream every night.
Substituting one drug for another doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning, slept all the time and my brain was just one big fog every morning until I’d had two or three Mountain Dews.
It would take me another three or four plus years to quit the sugar.
Just like the drinking, I would make it about a week or so, sometimes even a month, only to return to it with what seemed like a vengeance and worst results.
I am so curious about the analogy of my experience and the concept of yo-yo dieting, or quitting anything really and then going back – even harder.
I’ll be honest it fascinates me.
What would cause a person to do something so successfully for a period of time only to abandon what seemed to be working to go back to the very thing that they were trying to change? And to then seemingly do it more aggressively – like binging?
The answer to that question may be above my pay grade.
The only thing I have to offer is the experiences of the folks who have had success NOT doing that.
The folks who finally put down the sugar and started a completely new life. A new body, new attitude and what seems like, according to them, and new brain.
So the question in the subject line was:
Can a person quit sugar alone?
According to the success stories, the people that have actually done it, and succeeded for years – not days – the answer is:
Drum roll, please!
Sometimes, but it’s pretty rare and pretty lonely.
If there is a secret sauce, if there is some “magic method” to quitting sugar it would be a community. It would be the connection to others who want the same thing.
Our society is to drenched in sugar as a part of the culture and the discussion is too early for the lone wolf type to prevail.
Some can quit with just information and willpower but they are in the minority.
I think the yo-yo diet stats of relapse and returning to the same weight or behavior, or more, pretty much tells the whole story.
Sugar and refined carbs can be tricky.
Here’s the thing I don’t want you to get bogged down with…
There are a million theories out there about refined carbs and weight loss and health – both mental and physical.
The ONLY thing you have to go on right now is the experience of the people who have traveled this path and succeeded in changing. Period. End of story.
All the rest is just a maybe. There almost zero “diets” that have long term success stories as part of their information.
Stick with the winners. The people who have actually done what you desire to do.
Build relationships, build a community of people who have some of the same beliefs that you have – or are beginning to have and see where that takes you…
See you in the winner’s circle.
Please don’t let shyness or introversion hold you back. I score in the 99% percentile when it comes to introverts. I was hard but not impossible. Join our little band of merry sugar-free warriors.
