Sunday, October 24, 2010

If you're addicted to it, then it's an addiction

Addictions come in all shapes and sizes. I believe that everyone has a tendency or weakness to addiction but that addictions are uniquely personal to each of us. This means that not everyone has the same addiction to the same substance or activity and that each addiction comes from a variety of personal factors. Such factors as culture, biological family history, individual personality type, childhood abuse, life experience, inability to cope with strong emotions and many other factors contribute to what we can become addicted to. But even though there are many substances and activities a person can become addicted to, one thing remains the same: addiction is addiction - no matter what it is to. This means that the steps to overcome and recover from an addiction are fundamentally the same all across the board!

In this blog I will only be dealing with addiction to refined sugar with an occasional mention of salty snacks as well. I decided to create this blog because it's so hard to find free help and advice on the Internet about sugar addiction. I'm just an average Joe, so to speak, and this blog is a catalog of how I am beating sugar addiction. As always, seek medical help before making changes in your lifestyle.

3 comments:

  1. I totally agree with your point about addiction. It must be a super great feeling to feel healthy physically and mentally. Looking forward to more you would like to share here in this blog.

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  2. I had an epiphany one Sunday at church. We had a nutritionist talk to us. You wonder what this has to do about church, well it has everything to do with our belief. Do we believe our bodies are a gift from God? If we do, should we take care of them? If we believe in an adversary, would he want us to be healthy and live a long time if we desire to serve human kind?
    I have known since I was a teenager sugar wasn’t good for me. Call it a blessing, or a curse, my biggest motivation for me in the beginning was how crappy I felt after I ate something with refined/artificial sugar, especially the morning after. I’ve never experienced a “hang-over” but it’s the only way I can really describe how I feel the morning after I eat something with sugar in it. Sugar/chocolate gives me headaches, zaps my energy it also would lengthen the duration of a sickness so when I was ill I would avoid sugar the most.
    But the adverse reactions weren’t enough for me to quit. It took me seeing my problem as an addiction, and that I needed help. I needed to make a choice, and once I made the choice it got easier each day I abstained. But just like any addiction, you will never succeed if you merely stop the harmful activity. You have to replace it with something. Knowledge does help, it can give strength to your motivation, it can help with the cravings. (if you want some more info on what has helped my cravings I can share that too) (for a visual and more religious explanation can be found http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1556&id=551790480#!/photo.php?fbid=20040390480&set=a.18756280480.1556.551790480)

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