So what the heck does being “On the Wagon” even mean and where on earth did the phrase come from?
Nowadays that the term can mean anything you decide to quit: cigarettes, meat, booze and yes even sugar.
So as a recovering alcoholic as well as a recovering sugar addict I wanted to know..
So I did a little digging.
The best answer I could find comes from The Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, by Robert Hendrickson:
“The original version of this expression, ‘on the water wagon’ or ‘water cart,’ which isn’t heard anymore, best explains the phrase.
During the late 19th century, water carts drawn by horses wet down dusty roads in the summer. At the height of the Prohibition crusade in the 1890s men who vowed to stop drinking would say that they were thirsty indeed but would rather climb aboard the water cart to get a drink than break their pledges.
From this sentiment came the expression ‘I’m on the water cart,’ I’m trying to stop drinking, which is first recorded in, of all places, Alice Caldwell Rice’s Mrs. Wiggs of the Caggage Patch [1901], where the consumptive Mr. Dick says it to old Mrs. Wiggs. The more alliterative ‘wagon’ soon replaced cart in the expression and it was eventually shortened to ‘on the wagon.’ ‘Fall off the (water) wagon made its entry into the language almost immediately after its abstinent sister.”
I love that kind of stuff.
I probably bore you with my revelations of how sugar came to be a staple in our diet.
I’ve told many people my work would be easier if I had a PhD or an MD after my name. But if I were to go through that many more years of school I would become a food anthropologist – the study of food history. Seriously.
I’m so fascinated exactly HOW we got ourselves into this situation of such high sugar consumption in the first place.
When I first read about the slave trade and the sugar trade growth running parallel my fascination and constant research destiny was sealed.
Gold and trinkets to trade for slaves in Africa from England. Then slaves to the Caribbean and Americas from Africa and of course sugar (and rum and other things) back to England and to the Americas.
It was that period in history that sugar went from a luxury for kings and noblemen to a staple for the everyday man.
The acceleration of daily consumption has never stopped since. Except during the second world war when there was rationing, it’s been straight up on both sides of the pond.
So what does all this have to do with you falling off the wagon and getting back on?
I think it helps to know your sugar story.
Both ours as a society and yours personally.
That means examining your sugar habit as far back as you can remember. How were you raised around sugar? What were your parent’s views on rewarding you or “treating” you (hate that idea) with sugar?
By examining these habit patterns you’ll be able to unwind you own sugar story and know that the habit that you’ve developed can be broken in a short 30 days.
In 30 days you can rewire your brain to stop unconsciously reaching for sugar or even craving it when you’ve made a promise to yourself to try “being on the wagon” for a time.
One of the other main tenants to success in changing your habits around sugar is a little counter intuitive.
It’s self-love.
Or if you’re not there yet then at least a little self-kindness.
Relapse or “falling off the wagon” is just part of the process. I’ve never met one person, or coached one, who gave up sugar the day they “just decided” that’s what they wanted to do and then actually never touch sugar again – never!
The stuff is strong. This is a real thing.
You will never walk out of this by beating yourself up about you slips.
Being kind to others is easy. We all seem to have infinite patience with our children and our family and our friends. But cutting ourselves a little slack seems like climbing Mt Everest.
Here’s a little life hack that works if you do it.
When you’ve got a few days sugar free, or a few weeks, months or years even, and you feel that pull to ingest a little sugar do this:
Think it all the way through.
All the way to days, weeks or months of using sugar again. Gaining a bunch of weight, having your skin break out and then on top of all that then you’ve got to go through 4 days to a week or more of serious withdrawals again!
Visualize it all intently. Actually feel the feelings you would feel. Try and think back on your first set of withdrawals and feel them again.
Do you want to do all of that again?
We all know the answer.
Pick up the phone and call a fellow traveler.
Jump on the Facebook group and tell folks about it.
But above all tell yourself – I deserve every benefit being “on the wagon” has brought me.
Together we can walk through this.
I CARE if YOU QUIT.
Our group of sugar-free folks have been where you are and are here to help. Check us out here: Quit Sugar Now.
