i am back off the candy wagon.

i had been doing sooooo well. ever since I got back to london, i had been able to have just a few twizzlers here, a tootsie pop there, a spoonful of marshmallow fluff every so often. and now it has all been blown out of the water, and i blame it on kindereggs.

this week i started buying my kindereggs again, something i had sworn off since my return. i always start out buying just one, savoring the milk and white chocolate shell, delighting in the toy surprise contained within. they pick me up when i am having a hard day, give me something to smile about over my morning coffee. it always starts with just one.

but before you know it, i am buying 3 or 4 over the course of a day, just to “get me through a rough patch”. and i’m too ashamed to buy them all at once. so i vary my shops, nonchalantly adding one to my carton of milk and loaf of bread while standing at the till. casually buying one with my pack of cigarettes. picking one up with my newspaper on the way home. the toys start to disappoint, as i come across duplicates or triplicates of ones already in my collection. and the thin chocolate shell starts to leave me wanting something more substantial. something creamier, or gooier, or longer lasting. so i begin to supplement with rolls of butterscotches, or packets of jellybeans, or a bag of mints. maybe some nougat, or a few winegums, or a toffee bar. and i begin the downward spiral, where nothing ever satisfies the full range of my cravings, and i start to hide my piles of wrappers or dispose of them in public rubbish bins, and begin to manufacture excuses for “just popping round to the shop”.

one is too many, and one hundred is never enough.

and i keep going until i hit bottom, that point where i am ashamed to be seen yet again at the pic-n-mix counter of woolworths, and turn red under the astonished stares of my co-workers as i demolish a full half pound of sweets sitting at my desk, and i no longer even taste the difference between a caramel cream and a liquorice drop, and i am full to bursting, yet seem unable to stop until the last swedish fish and piece of honeycombe are gone, the sugar dusting my keyboard the only remaining evidence.

and i feel ill. i crash, the insulin flooding my bloodstream to try to regulate all that sugar, and my serotonin depleted. the initial high of having a such a delicious variety of tastes and textures to explore, suddenly gone, replaced by the disgust of gluttony and guilt and loss of control.

and i repeat the cycle again and again and again. until i start to realise that i can’t have *any* sugar. not one little jelly tot, not one starburst. and i methodically eliminate all sugar from my coffee, all cookies from my cupboard, all jams and marmalades from my toast. it gets easier and easier each day, and finally i feel as though i have conquered my demons, i have mastered my cravings. i am disciplined and sugar-free.

and it lulls me into a false sense of security, until, in a weak moment i may have a cherry flavoured cough lozenge, or a bit of honey in my tea, and before i know it my willpower evaporates and i fall prey to my addictions again.

so if you see me standing in front of the convenience store, shaking my paper cup, desperation in my eyes, pleading for a bit of change to just get my daily fix of cadburys, my one hit of tic tac…

…have pity on me

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