The high-pitched scream coming from the kitchen pierced my early morning slumber. Within a nanosecond, I sat up wide-eyed and breathless, knowing I was in big trouble.

During my adolescence, my family lived for almost two years in a small town in Virginia, called Phoebus. My mother barely coped, singlehandedly managing all of her rambunctious children while my father served in Korea as secretary of the United Nations peacekeeping force.

In her chronic state of overwhelm, my mother forgot my birthday when I turned thirteen. I reminded her at the end of the day, after dinner. She wished me a happy birthday and apologized for forgetting. Then she set up a little placemat for me with some juice and a muffin with a single lit candle in the middle.

I sat alone at the table, forlorn, and ate my muffin, vowing that from now on I would let people know the date of my birthday way in advance so I’d be sure to get some cake and ice cream and a little extra attention.

A few weeks later, I noticed a birthday cake in the refrigerator when I went to get a snack. “Who’s the birthday cake for?” I asked, wishfully thinking it might be my belated birthday present. My mother said she made the cake for our next-door neighbor, a new friend with whom my mother shared her troubles.

That night in the darkness, long after everyone had gone to sleep, I lay in bed thinking about the beautiful cake downstairs in the refrigerator, decorated with a thick layer of chocolate frosting. My mouth filled with saliva as I imagined what the cake would taste like. Maybe if I just have a tiny taste, no one will notice. 

The floorboards creaked as I tiptoed down the stairs and made my way to the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and beheld the magnificent sight of the meticulously decorated chocolate cake.

I got a wide-blade knife out of the drawer and carefully pried the cake off the plate, lifting it up just enough to expose the frosting on the bottom around the edge. No one will notice if I scrape off all the frosting near the bottom.

A few moments of ecstasy washed over me as the frosting melted in my mouth.

My heart raced from both the rush of sugar and the recognition that I had committed a crime that I hoped no one would notice.

I crept back to bed and lay wide-awake, full of adrenaline and obsessive thoughts about the cake. The cravings for more sugar overcame reasoning and will power.

I crept back down the stairs to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and assessed the situation. The frosting had been applied copiously, about a half-inch thick. I readily convinced myself that if I carefully scraped off one-fourth of an inch, and then recreated the decorative swirls, no one would notice. As the one-fourth inch layer of frosting dissolved in my mouth, another few moments of ecstasy filled my mind.

Sleep was out of the question. My system was revved up beyond repair. The sugar obsession had a tight grip on me. There was no turning back. Is this what alcoholics feel like?

I crept downstairs to the refrigerator two more times that night until the birthday cake was completely stripped bare of frosting, knowing full well I was going to get the punishment that I deserved when morning came.

After my mother’s piercing scream from the shock of seeing the stripped cake, I don’t remember exactly what happened next, but I know that in this particular instance, I gladly accepted being hit and slapped, thinking it might somehow mitigate my shame and embarrassment.

My younger brother, John, discussed with the rest of the family the possibility of putting some kind of lock on the refrigerator to keep me from eating all the ice cream in the freezer that was reserved for special occasions.

For most of my early life, I was a closet sugar addict. I indulged my clandestine addiction when no one could see what I was doing. On the occasions when I confessed my problem to friends, the response was invariably laughter, like it was a very funny problem to have. No one took it seriously. I was slim and fit from being athletic, defying the stereotypical image of overweight people with food problems.

And, adding to the disbelief, I mostly ate healthy foods—when I wasn’t giving in to the addiction. Thanks to my Swiss mother, my siblings and I were raised in accord with her nutritional training in Europe which was far more advanced than what was taught by American nutritionists in the fifties and early sixties.

For years as a young adult, I tried unsuccessfully to rid myself of the sugar cravings. I tried every diet there was—all liquid diets, all protein diets, calorie restriction diets—none of them stopped the cravings. With each failure, I felt increasingly more discouraged. I hated being in the grip of a force out of my control.

During the times of sugar binging, my mood bounced around, from near mania to melancholia and irritability, from high energy to lethargy. I was well aware of how harmful the sugar was to my body and mind. But no amount of knowledge and reasoning can match the power of addiction.

The constant attempts to avoid eating sweet foods tied up much of my mental energy and certainly interfered with my self-esteem. Should I eat that cookie? No, I better not. Well, just one won’t hurt. Oh geez. I’m out of control. I ate the whole bag. Now I feel rotten. I’ve ruined my day. 

Finally, in the last stages of my medical training in my thirties, it dawned on me that sugar addiction has a lot in common with alcoholism—although sugar addiction can easily go under the radar without being noticed.

I had heard about Alcoholics Anonymous and decided to sit in on some of their meetings to see what they were about, even though I had very little interest in alcohol consumption. The words in the first step of the AA 12-step program certainly applied to me—if I substituted the word sugar for alcohol. “I admit that I am powerless over sugar.”

A recovering alcoholic must avoid all alcohol, even a tiny glass of wine, in order to stay sober. Ah. That’s the key to kicking my sugar addiction. No wonder all the diets I tried failed—they all included sugars and simple carbohydrates. 

At every AA meeting I went to, most of the participants had a cigarette in one hand and a soda in the other hand. Sugary foods like donuts, pastries, and cookies covered the tables at the back of the room. One addiction was replaced by another addiction.

Once I had the epiphany about how to recover from addiction, I radically changed the way I ate. The new diet I designed for myself was very similar to the anti-cancer diet I wrote about. I ate only whole foods that had not been processed. There were no sugars and no simple carbohydrates. Each meal had some protein and plenty of beneficial fats to maintain my blood sugar at a steady level and avoid the blood sugar swings that triggered the cravings.

I made sure to eat before I went grocery shopping and steered away from foods that might create temptation. At all times I carried a bag of nuts and several packets of nut butters in my purse or my pocket so that I could prevent a drop in blood sugar if I went too long without eating a meal.

The first few weeks of the new way of eating was miserable from withdrawal symptoms—out-of-control cravings, fatigue, irritability and achiness. But I was determined to hang in there. Eventually I began feeling better than I can ever remember. My mood stabilized, my mind became sharp, energy soared, and I lost all cravings.

The grip of addiction evaporated. Liberation at last!

I understood that, like an alcoholic, the commitment needed to be one hundred percent. If I gave in and had something sweet, all the cravings could return in full force and knock me off the path of “sobriety.”

After a few years of walking a very straight path, I noticed that I could slip off the diet once in a while without dire consequences. But, if I slipped too frequently, then I would slide all the way back to the addiction and have to doggedly climb my way back onto the wagon of sugar sobriety.

Seeing how others eat does not tempt me anymore. The five minutes of bliss from eating sugary foods is not worth the price I would pay. I love feeling good and don’t want to jeopardize that feeling.

Addiction is an irresistibly powerful force. Researchers that study substance abuse have performed brain scans on people while they ate something sweet. It was no surprise to learn that the exact same regions of the brain light up when eating sugar as when drinking alcohol and using heroin. Those regions of the brain produce dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure. When the dopamine levels spike, it reinforces the desire to have more.

Years ago I helped one of my patients withdraw from heroin, an agonizing process. During his recovery, we discussed letting go of all addicting substances, including sugar. He tried very hard to withdraw from sugar-laden foods but was not able to stop the addiction to sugar. He claimed that his sugar addiction was harder to kick than heroin since most of the foods he bought were processed and had sugar in them.

According to a 2012 article in the journal Nature, sugar is a “toxic substance that should be regulated like alcohol and tobacco.” http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v482/n7383/full/482027a.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120202

The food industry has created ample opportunities for Americans to become sugar addicts. Up to 80% of what Americans buy is processed and contains sugar in one form or another.

As the food industry certainly knows, sugar creates a false appetite and makes us eat more food than our bodies need.

Sugar and simple carbohydrates can make us fat and can cause diabetes. And sugars cause yeast and other fungi in our bodies to thrive. These same foods also contribute to inflammation in our bodies. Inflammation plays an important role in most diseases, like heart disease, cancer, arthritis, pre-mature aging, and early onset dementia.

As I wrote in the blog post about sugar and the immune cells, a diet high in simple carbs makes the white bloods sluggish and inefficient which increases the risk of infections and cancer. https://www.musingsmemoirandmedicine.com/2015/07/sugar-and-the-immune-system/

Are you wondering why I would make public this somewhat embarrassing information about my struggles with sugar addiction during my younger years?

I try to compost all the various challenges I’ve had in my life in order to better serve the people who come to me for help. I have experienced first hand some of the daunting difficulties many of you face every day.

In regards to addiction, I know countless numbers of you struggle valiantly to wean down off the sugar and processed foods. You can count on me not to judge you. I’m behind you all the way.

Here’s to your good health!