In Part 1, I explained why I started this crazy adventure of no desserts, sweets, or chocolate…a matter of integrity…if I’m gonna work with clients as they bravely confront their numbing behaviours, I better step up and enter the same arena myself!

I was going to treat this sugar-comfort-numbing thing like an addiction.  Because I needed wanted to deal with it. Because I seek to understand, at least in some small way, what it is like to be in recovery from an addiction.

• I decided I didn’t have the right to help people through the agonizingly difficult challenge of changing destructive behaviours that were developed as a means of self-soothing/coping/surviving if I wasn’t going to even make the effort of changing my own self-soothing/coping/surviving dysfunctional behaviour that wasn’t even chemically addictive.
• I decided I would treat my desire for sweets like an addiction.  I decided I needed to understand the feeling of what it is like to want something…like the smoker who craves the cigarette… and know that I’ve made an absolute decision not to…I wanted to get the sense of feeling what the itching of a craving, and the agitated discomfort of wanting something and knowing that I was abstinent.
• I wanted to feel the discomfort that I’ve heard about, when in social situations, there is an expectation to participate.  An alcoholic considering the cessation of drinking is often worried about how s/he’ll handle the situation when everyone is having a beer and they are pressured into one too.  How will they say no?  What if others take offence? What if it ruins others’ fun when they decline, or others feel they can’t drink when they really want to? I wanted to know what it would be like for me to visit a friend and decline a dessert that they had made for the visit…it was gonna be uncomfortable, and I wanted to know what it was like.
• I wanted to know for myself, what would happen over time as the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months…I wanted to observe myself and see how the struggle evolved, how I would deal with it in social situations, how I would deal with my own stress/distress when turning to sugar wasn’t an option.
• I wanted to know what it felt like to not be hijacked by maladaptive coping…to be in charge of my body in ways that I hadn’t been in that area of my life for a long time.
• I wanted to work in my sweet spot…where I could be whole–able to bring all of me into the therapy room…the parts of me that struggle but that engage in the struggle, the empathy of understanding the powerful pull to numb, but with integrity knowing that I was fighting the good fight that was my own, even as I was with a client as they were daring bravely in their own arena.

So…my decision was “no sweets/desserts/chocolates”…it didn’t include potato chips or popcorn or crackers or other snacks. I can be equally guilty of overindulging on those on occasion.

But my behaviour and thoughts changed towards those, as well.  As I had to change my behaviour so significantly, it had me be mindful of all the food I was eating.  When I felt the familiar pull to eat in the evening, I had to consider what that was about, and it wasn’t easily solved with a sugar rush, as was typical. So…I had time to consider if I wanted some other food.  Often I did, and sometimes I didn’t.  And when I did, because of that mindfulness, I made choices to put a few chips in a small bowl, rather than sit with the bag on my lap.

It didn’t get easier, but it did

Huh?  Yeah. I don’t always make sense. Bear with me.

At the beginning of January, I was with friends who make goals for the year…and they asked me to create some goals. I decided that I was going to continue my “no sweets” experiment at least unit the snow melted.  I know that I find it easier to make thoughtful choices once the snow is gone and an evening walk is as pleasant as dessert and there are more fruit choices available.

I didn’t realize at that time that we are looking at snow on the ground into July, at this rate. For Pete’s sake.

What I had hoped that once I had been several more months without dessert, It would become automatic, and it would no longer interest me. Better yet, in the best case scenario, I dreamed that the thought of dessert would be repulsive to me.

Nope.

I still miss it, and still wish I could indulge.  Every day I have to remind myself that I chose this, that I wanted to do this, and that I feel good when I keep this commitment to myself. (all the while hoping that darn snow would even just start melting!!!) Every day I want to eat something sweet.  Every frickin‘ day

But…I am getting used to the “no dessert” thing, and I’m learning to trust my own ability to follow through.

When I first started this crazy choice, I avoided having desserts in the house.  I reasoned it would be easier to stick to my guns in my weaker moments if I didn’t have good stuff stashed here and there. t realized that I couldn’t force my decision upon my Junior Tribe Members, so there was at least one occasion when I asked them if I made a cake for them, would they promise to eat it quite quickly so I wouldn’t have long to deal with the temptation? When they agreed (what kid has ever been asked to eat lots of cake and declined to cooperate?), I used up the sour cream that needed using to make the coffee cake…and it was quickly hoovered up by the JTM, and I was no longer tempted..

Now…well…as of this writing, I made a square for a JTM over a week ago. This square “Homemade Skor Bar” is irresistibly yummy. Traditionally, having it and me in the same building means that I will eat it, and will be thinking of it constantly until it’s gone. But in the middle of the last week, I popped the last half of the square that hadn’t been eaten into the freezer…and there it sits, uneaten.  And truthfully, I haven’t been really tempted to eat it, because I’ve become used to it simply “off limits” for me.

Frankly, that’s empowering for me to see that I can resist it, and that I can trust myself to be in the same building.

Don’t get me wrong…I still work to make life easier for myself…I put beaters dripping with cake batter under the tap right away so I won’t be tempted to lick them…but I don’t avoid baking any more.

I could be consistent without being rigid

When I began this project, I decided I wanted to go “all the way” with it.  I wanted to see what it felt like to decline dessert when someone had made it special for my visit.

This is not unlike when an alcoholic plaintively asks, “How will I have any fun at the party this weekend if I don’t drink?  And how will anybody else have any fun if I look like a party pooper? And how do I turn down a drink from the host without looking rude?” These are real questions asked with real worry by people who don’t have it in their repertoire of behaviours to turn down a drink.

And one night I went to a friends’ house for the evening, and they had a cobbler just finishing up cooking in the oven for us when I arrived. And I took a deep breath and attacked it head on, encouraging them to enjoy a piece even while I would not be having any.  I told them that I was most interested in their conversation, and while I appreciated their caring in making a dessert, I asked for their caring in understanding that I wouldn’t be having any fresh cobbler.  They were perfectly understanding…they are good people, and I’m not sure what I was expecting…but that was certainly great to experience!

At the family gathering at Christmas, I politely declined dessert, and a few eyebrows were raised, and a few questions were asked, but I sipped my tea during this time, and continued in the conversation without missing a beat.  In February, at another family gathering, a fruit platter appeared at dessert time without a word being spoken. How incredibly thoughtful!

At a fundraising banquet, I again declined dessert, and the server offered to bring me a fruit plate…again to my surprise.

I decided I was going to take this whole “no dessert thing” really seriously, partly because I wanted to see what it looked like to say no to folks who were kindly extended hospitality to me, and partly because I wanted to make it easier…I was a l’il worried that if there was a little crack in the pattern, the whole experiment would come to a mighty crash landing.

But I have made an exception since November 26th.  It was in mid-March.  We had lunch with an 85 year old dear friend, on the 15th anniversary of her husband’s death, and the day she was selling her car never to drive again.  She had a slice of cake that she had saved from a birthday party the day before, and cut it into four pieces and she offered us one each.  I ate it.

Just seemed right.  The day was sooo about her, and declining it would have made it about me. (If I had been an alcoholic and she was offering me a glass, I would have said no…but this was not life threatening and so compassion trumped here).

I won’t lie.  It was really, really good.

But I ate it, and while I was worried that this might be the beginning of the end of the experiment, and I needed a little extra self talk and encouragement the next 48 hours, it remained an isolated incident. And I when I told someone of this incident, expecting to be scolded for ruining the experiment, and told the whole thing was null and void at that moment…the response was, “I’m glad you’re keeping it real, and not being religious about it.” Something to chew on.

I have mixed feelings about ending this experiment

1. I am aware that the value of this experience has limited value compared to a true addiction, if I don’t make this a permanent state of abstinence.

I sat with a new friend in Texas in December who said that as an alcoholic in recovery for 15 years, it enraged her when people compared the pull of food to the pull of alcohol.  She was passionately clear that she was quite certain that if she succumbed to one drink, it could very likely lead to the death of her marriage, her career, and her life.  

She. was. dead. serious.

Knowing that this is for a number of months, and am planning to return to once again eating chocolate makes this whole thing an invalid experiment.  My life is not on the line.

For me to truly understand the addict’s perspective, I would need to make my decision to abstain from sweets a permanent state.

2. I’ve lost a few pounds this winter.  Not a lot, but a few.  That’s during a season when I generally put on a few. I’ve had more energy. I’ve made better food choices in general.  Why wouldn’t I want to stay dessert-free with those benefits?

3. I’m not sure what will happen when/if I resume eating desserts.  I’d hope that it would be only a very occasional thing when I’m out with friends, and that I would largely be dessert free…but I’m skeptical that would happen.

4. I really miss dessert and chocolate and the fun of eating sweet things with friends/family, and the decadence of having a treat after a full week of exhausting work. A Junior Tribe Member was raving a few weeks ago about this bacon topped maple cupcake he’d eaten a few weeks ago…and asked if that could be my re-introduction to desserts once the snow melted…that we would enjoy a cupcake together to celebrate.

5. Yep, I really miss dessert.  A lot.

Yep, that makes the whole thing complicated and messy and not sure what this will look like months from now. This is a blog that doesn’t get neatly wrapped up with a beautiful bow as complete.  It is raw and unfinished and in the middle of what I suspect is a lifelong complicated relationship with sugar.

A lot like a something in your life, I suspect…

(Part 1…in case you missed it.)