Reminder Via a Repost

Well hello there. Again. Sick of me yet? It's okay if you are. You don't have to read this. Honestly? I will not be offended. Actually I am a little sick of me but I have to get this off my chest and set the record straight.

Hello, my name is Shannon and I am a sugar-holic. And today is day one.  Yep full on Junkie for the sweet stuff. (Just ignore the smoothie post for yesterday it's off the menu for the moment) I've quit sugar so many times and every single time I have fallen off the wagon. But try and try again right? Otherwise our failure becomes a permanent condition.

So last night, some friends and I were talking about sugar and how to get off it and the more we talked, the more methods and strategies that were thrown on the table, the more it became painfully obvious that we had to go cold turkey - there is NO other way for us. 

For some people there is, they can moderate their intake, or choose only healthy stuff, or wean themselves off... But for Sugar Junkie's? Not so much.

So today is day one. Day one of three. I believe collectively none of us were ready to commit to more than three days off the top. (Read me! I wasn't ready)
So I posted a pic on Instagram and so many people commented warm words of support. 

But I want to draw attention to one person in particular. Wonderwomantam She reached out to me sometime around January I believe with the sweetest message ever, telling me about how an old post I wrote on Mastering The Method had not only helped her, but how it had also helped her friend. That made my day! Sincerely, thank you. And again last night, she reminded me of that post. Ha! She even quoted me back to me. 

So today, as I begrudgingly drank my tea WITHOUT sugar for the first damned time in my life (I may have to give that shit up altogether if I can't have sugar) I revisited that post and I think it deserves a repost right here, right now! Thank you for that gentle reminder my Wonderwoman friend!

I originally wrote this in July 2012 - Yep. It's a bit sad to find myself back at square one nearly four years later. Still I do not want this addiction to rule my life so... Once again, my name is Shannon and I am a Sugar-holic.

Your freedom awaits you...

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Hey there -- Queen of Denial, the jig is up. It's time to screw up your courage, draw your line in the sand and stop listening to the myriad of excuses that the voice in your head comes up with to continue to feed your addiction.  

"It's not an addiction." It's not an addiction?  

Pft, whatever. Listen to yourself...

I'll do better tomorrow. I'll start Monday. This month is just too busy. The fifteenth looks like a good day to kick off a new plan. As soon as I turn 41.

Awe, there it is. There's the rub. Tomorrow never comes. It's Tuesday, why haven't you started? The fifteenth has come and gone. Next month isn't going to be less busy... you've turned 41.

There isn't a nice way to say this. You are not the sort of person who can eat just one cookie. You're not. It's time you accepted that. You are a woman who at the very least is of average intelligence. You know what sugar is doing to you. You even wrote about your liver less than a month ago and you vowed to give it up. You lasted two days. So what? Don't use that as an excuse for why you can't today.

There is no easy way to do this. You've been pounding back boxes of cookies and bags of brownies since before your earliest memories. Who cares why you've done it. It doesn't matter if sweets were a reward, a treat, comfort on a bad day, a fun way to celebrate a victory. Today, they no longer serve you or your best interest. I'm here to tell you that you need to find another way to celebrate. Find another form of comfort. One that isn't so bloody self-destructive. If this sounds like tough love, it should, because it is. I love you and I don't want to see you doing this to yourself anymore.

Everything else really is going to be so much easier for you once you just give it up. Make it non-negotiable. There is no bargaining with the voice in your head. In the same way that you are not the girl who could be a social smoker, you're not a once a week or occasional eater of sugar. You are an addict. That's okay. It's not a bad thing. It's nothing to be ashamed of. You're not bad for seeking the pleasure that once came with the rush of sugar hitting your blood stream. You just must now realize that the high is no longer there. The pleasure you seek no longer comes from just one cookie, one bowl of ice cream, one slice of cake. It doesn't even come after two or three or the whole box. You aren't getting from it what you once were, and if you're actually brave enough to be honest with yourself, you'll see that.

So once again I am going to ask you to take a particular situation - this situation - and reframe it in your mind. You don't have to try and make this about doing something "good" for yourself. You do plenty of that already with your Glowing Green Smoothies and your vegetarian lifestyle. No this is about choosing to no longer hurt yourself. It's about choosing to stop the pain in your gut caused by eating way too much sugar. This is about empowerment and about taking control, about taking back your life by creating space in your head where the obsession over sugar once lived. Think of all of the creative power you'll have access to once the obsession is gone. It will be freedom for you.

You might not feel ready to do it now, but there is literally no other time that you have access to other than this exact moment. You cannot afford to wait. I am asking you to trust me, to take my word for it that once you conquer this addiction, once you rid yourself of this yoke around your neck and you're no longer held prisoner by it, you will feel so much better. You'll sleep better, you'll have more energy, less headaches, you'll be way less moody and dependent on an outside thing to make you happy. Please just have faith that this will be win win and that once you get rid of your addiction, you really will find pleasure in other things, in things that you simply cannot see now because of your blinding fixation on sugar. You're so much stronger than you think you are. Don't let anyone tell you that there is a middle ground or that moderation is key. You know better. There is no grey area for you, my love. You are now and always have been an all or nothing girl, it's what makes you you, but in this case, it's what's killing you. Release the mania, stop the crazy-making and open yourself up to a new way, a different way. It could even wind up being a better way if you allow it to be.

Your mind will come up with a million different excuses, it will play tricks on you and tell you stories about why you shouldn't be doing this, about how much you love sugar, about how fun it is, or why it might not be bad. Do not listen. Don't fall for any of it. You can hear the thoughts, watch them pass through your mind, but don't attach yourself to them. Don't relate to those thoughts, for that's all they are, nothing more and they have no more power than you choose to give them. You are not this addiction. You are a strong independent woman who can think for herself and you have long thought that the sugar has to go. Remember that when things get hard.

And finally, I want you to know this... You are loved and all is well.

Love,

Shan of 2012 

and Shan of today!

I think I just made myself cry. Oooo I am PMS'ing, what a shit time to quit sugar, but now is the only time! Thanks for reading.