About 4 years ago I realised I was an addict. In order to kick my drug addiction I needed to get honest about my relationship to my drug of choice – refined sugar.
First of all, I needed to realise that my sugar addiction was my baby, it was my comfort, my friend… and it was time to cut the cord.
But going cold turkey did not appeal to me. That seemed a bit harsh.
So I cut out ALL refined sugars first and supported myself with only natural sugars. This meant that I was only consuming sugar in the form of honey, maple syrup and fresh fruit..
And even though I was consuming these natural sugars, I still went through withdrawals from my dear friend, refined sugar. But I was determined to kick my drug habit and part of this detox was realising that sugar actually was no friend of mine, as true friends don’t intentionally harm you in the way sugar was harming me.
Exhaustion, Anxiety and the Quest to Eat Sugar
I had been medically advised that my body broke down refined sugars too rapidly, so thankfully, having decided to stop my sugar addiction then and there, I had halted the destructive behaviour that was possibly leading me down the path to insulin dependent diabetes. But… I still suffered with so many other ill symptoms from eating sugar that I cannot really say that I had indeed ‘gotten away’ with eating refined sugars all those years.
For instance, the exhaustion I felt when I stopped getting my ‘highs’ from sugar was debilitating for a while. I struggled to make it through the day and therefore I decided to support myself by having a rest in the afternoons just so I could physically make it through the afternoon/evening with my daughter and husband.
I realised this exhaustion had not necessarily been caused by having eaten sugar – it had in fact been around for some time – the sugar had just been numbing me to it.
Over many years I suffered from quite severe anxiety and this had indeed created a lot of the exhaustion that I was now feeling: eating sugar had stopped me from truly feeling this exhaustion and therefore inhibited my ability to actually address it.
But… could it be said that my sugar addiction had actually INCREASED the exhaustion I had already been experiencing?
The simple answer to this question is YES.
The Impact of Sugar on the Body and Mind
In fact, through researching sugar I have discovered how very harming sugar is to our bodies, and it explains a lot of the symptoms I was feeling during my sugar addiction that I was really unaware of until after I stopped eating sugar.
To explain this simply, once sugar is consumed it sends pleasure messages to the brain and this triggers an ‘excitement’ that reverberates through the body: this basically means that the body accelerates from its natural rhythm to a faster one. In order to maintain this faster rhythm the body works harder, which then depletes the body – as it is far from normal to be functioning at this excessive speed. This depletion exhausts the body and once the effect of the sugar wears off you will feel tired… so you reach for another ‘hit’.
This cycle also affects your mental health. When you are on the ‘high’ you ‘feel good’ and ‘alive’, but when the ‘low’ comes you can feel quite emotional and down.
But actually FEELING this cycle can be a challenge…
As I have also discovered, when I consumed sugar it disconnected me from feeling a lot of what was happening in my body: it NUMBED me. This then enabled me to use my body in ways that I would not normally use it, translating into my doing some or all of the following regularly:
- over-exercising
- staying up later at night
- over-eating
- working longer hours, and
- racing around like a mad idiot getting an outrageously long list of things done… to just name a few!
All very tiring to my body and, always doing more than my body could naturally handle – depleting my body: no wonder I was feeling exhausted.
For many years I also added caffeine to the mix and I was like the super-charged ‘Energiser bunny’ that just went and went and went… oh, the exhaustion of it all!
Medical Research – Confirming the Ill-effects of Sugar
So how else does sugar impact on us?
The research is many and varied but it all shows that consuming sugar impacts us in many negative ways and contributes to many health issues we are currently experiencing on a world-wide scale.
Here are but a few examples:
- Sugar impacts on our mental health; in particular, it has been linked to the development of anxiety, depression and behavioural problems (especially in early childhood). The average age for anxiety diagnosis is age 6 and for depression the average age is 13. Wow!
- Sugar impacts on the health of our heart in various ways. Which makes sense, if you think about it, because if the body is running at a faster speed than normal, this puts strain on the heart (and all other organs) as it is being asked to work faster to cope with the extra pressure placed on the body!
- It has been found that high blood glucose levels are linked to the development of such diseases as Alzheimer’s and dementia and this includes people who do not even have diabetes. This is a concern, is it not?
- Researchers have also found that when people have been given a mouthful of sugary soft drink, their brain activity is the same as that which occurs when people take a ‘hit’ of heroin or cocaine. There was absolutely no difference in the pathways that were ignited in the brain. Scary stuff!!
The bottom line is that refined sugars are a shocker for our bodies and our state of mind!
Life Without Refined Sugars – It is Very Possible
I have now been refined sugar-free for over 4 years and it feels AMAZING!
For me, the most amazing part is that I am no longer controlled by the addiction – I am now completely aware that I have a choice as to whether I eat refined sugars or not. When I was being led by the addiction it felt like it owned me, that I was a slave to the cravings and the underlying exhaustion.
It has been as simple as being honest about what was driving the addiction and being willing to address the cause. It has taken a strong commitment on my part to heal the driving force of this addiction.
This awareness and willingness to commit to my health and wellbeing leaves me feeling energised and revitalised, which leaves no room for artificial stimulants such as refined sugars. For me this is truly AMAZING!
Kicking my drug addiction to sugar has not been easy and at times I have over-eaten natural sweeteners to compensate, but I have found many ways to support myself throughout this process… from resting to recover from the exhaustion, to creating and eating yummy sweets that are refined sugar-free.
Finding ways to support myself has been an important part of my success in stopping my sugar addiction.
By attending presentations by Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, I was able to make the changes that allowed me to break through the fog that I was in (partly from the sugar, partly from my self-imposed ignorance) so I could see more clearly the harming effects of sugar in my life. This has enabled me to share today what I have come to know so clearly.
By Robyn Jones, 38, B.Sc. (Psych), Counsellor, Goonellabah, Australia
Read Part One: Addicted To Sugar… My Drug Addiction
Read Part Three: From Sugar Addiction to Gluten, Dairy & Sugar Free Yummy Delights
Related Reading:
Sugar: The Artificial Sweetener… and My Addiction
Begin Breaking The Battle With The Sweet Poison
653 Comments
It’s clear from the way companies are marketing their products that ‘sugar’ is becoming a dirty word and so they are coming up with more inventive ways to call sugar not sugar, and to generally confuse the public.
I would love to see how the world functions without sugar, yes sure it would be absolutely crazy as people went cold turkey – but after that we would be a far more in tune, more aware, more loving with one and other and most relevantly more honest with ourselves and others about how we are truly feeling. We would no longer be able to cover up exhaustion.
It is very interesting to read about the physiological affects that sugar has on the body, especially the ‘pleasure messages’ that get sent to the brain. And I can understand why sugar is so popular, because life can be super challenging at times and overwhelming.
I feel it won’t be too long coming whereby addiction centres will be offering sugar addiction detox programmes, along side their more usual addiction detox support, as the deeply harming effects of sugar on our body and wellbeing is now becoming more widely known.
You only have to observe a child a few hours after a birthday party to know how addictive and harmful sugar is.
After a long time of not eating any refined sugar and fruit sugar I have recently found myself wanting water melon, being honest with myself – its because I have been super busy and feeling more tired I have not honoured myself by resting or getting to bed extra early – the direct result of this is that I start to want sugar – its super simple if I honour my body there is no need for any type of sugar.
Thank you for sharing Robyn and it is great to feel the levels of exhaustion that I have exposed over the years and recognise how often I used sugar to override my exhaustion and keep my body going when it was clearly asking to stop. Although I have been cutting down on sugar for years I have been under the illusion that I don’t really have a ‘sweet tooth’ but this is a lie as I still have certain things that I go to in an attempt to pick myself up when really it would be better if I tuned into my body and chose to support it in a more loving way.
I use sugar to race my body and in the raciness I lose the stillness in my body which dulls my awareness and the drop that the sugar then gives me puts me to sleep. All because of feeling the tension in my body that I can be so aware of everything around me.
Robyn, this stastitc is shocking; ‘The average age for anxiety diagnosis is age 6 and for depression the average age is 13. Wow!’ There is so much sugar consumotion with children – at parties, at home, at school, – sugar has become a part of almost every child’s diet as far as I can see and there’s lots of it too. It has become so ‘normal’ that it is hardly talked about. And yet as this article demonstrates sugar is an addictive and harmful substance to put into the body and so these statistics of anxiety and depression thus make sense if children are having sugar and then getting a low and needing more of it.
Absolutely Rebecca these statistics are truly shocking. Anxiety and depression are so debilitating and that they are blighting so many children’s lives so young and such a freely available and legal substance is contributing to this needs to be recognised by parents and wider society as often parents are seen as depriving their children of ‘treats’ if they try and limit their sugar intake.
“I had halted the destructive behaviour that was possibly leading me down the path to insulin dependent diabetes” with diabetes rates as they are your blog needs to be shown to the whole world. We have the power to turn things around if we so choose.
I am really noticing which foods make me tired and sugar is definitely one, I only eat fruit sugar these days and find even sparking water gives me a short burst of energy before leaving me more tired.
Very needed story Robyn, thank you. This week I discovered the effects of even the smallest amount of sugar, in this case the sugary taste of pecan nuts. I have skipped eating refined sugars for years, and every now and then eat an apple when I am tired or miss energy. The other day I ate a small bag of pecan nuts and then went shopping: for the first time I saw that by eating these nuts I actually was too racy to thoroughly check my shopping list: I forgot a product on the list. That is what sugar also does: it makes you less clear in what is there to do and makes you skip things. I could not clearly say: this I don’t want.
Reading your frank and honest story here Robyn I really get the sense of how much of an addiction sugar can be. Your story reads the same as a recovering alcoholic or heroin addict and the sooner we start seeing sugar in the same way as these drugs the closer we will be to addressing this worldwide health problem.
I agree Andrew and when you put it like that why would you ever give it to a child and yet we do, all the time as a treat or a reward when in fact it is just an unnecessary poison to the body.
I find sugar forms such an intense addiction, of all the substances I have used in my life, for me, this has been the one that I have struggled with the most and found the most addictive. I know the impact it has on my body- inability to focus, erratic thoughts, exhaustion, depression, lack of clarity to name a few and even though I know all of this- I find it is one I will often still go back for.
How insidious is it to have something right under our noses, put into more foods in higher quantities and make it readily available. Anything that alters the body to this extent will never be good for us, regardless of the relabelling.
Thank you Robyn for sharing on the harmful and addictive effects of sugar consumption on our body and wellbeing. The more these facts are uncovered, written and spoken about, the greater the chance of more people coming to the understanding that the superficial sweetness of sugar in our mouth has very sinister undertones in the body.
These days the more sensitive and feeling I am when I eat sugar it tastes like vinegar in that it’s very sharp! It gives me a fuzzy head and a feeling of spinning within me, also incessant thoughts about eating more! But if I am tired or in pain or anxious already sucking on a sugar cube is no big deal. I have to already be disturbed to want a substance that will further disturb me.
By eating sugar our body reacts as any other drug. We close down the Connection with our body And from there we run our day from our head which makes our anxiety level go up as it has all to do with the lack of Connection.
This also counts for other mental diseases. The answer is very simple. IT is to re-connect with our body again and make that our best friend.
That is a very clear exposé what sugar does to you and to people, Robyn. Thanks. The fact you mention that sugar puts the body in a different speed so that you don’t feel what is going on in the body hit me. I do that as well! Not with sugar, I don’t eat refined sugar anymore, but a more refined scale with pecan nuts, which I primarily eat when I feel a yukkiness in my body.
Sugar really does have to be exposed for the drug it actually is, growing up little was made known about how bad it was for us, I mean we used to shovel it on our porridge in the morning added it to already sweet things and thought it was great. I can really tell when my daughter has had anything sugary as it changes her whole personality.
Just because we can push on through, we do. But we don’t fully realise it comes at a great cost to our heart, our connection and our health. Instead of numbing ourselves it is so much better to take long, honest look at how we currently live and be real. Thanks Robyn.
It’s so amazing what actually comes up from the body to feel when we stop using something or eating something out of distraction, comfort or numbness. Just this week I’ve given up eating some foods that I’ve noticed I go to when I’m tired or upset about something. I am feeling how tired I am, aches and pains in my body, anxious because there is nothing numbing and I’m feeling so much more around me and within. It does feel a bit awful but I’m also glad because it’s me being real.