Chocolate and sweets have been faithful companions for most of my life… until a few years ago. My journey with giving up chocolate and sweets has been quite a rollercoaster, spanning more than half a decade. I tried to give up chocolate and sweets several times… over and over again… and I succeeded, but it was never permanent. After the self-restraint I always slipped back and indulged in chocolates and sweets even more, as if there was no tomorrow.
I have always had a sweet tooth – wait, I mean many sweet teeth!
Sugar was my way of sweetening up my life.
In summer, when we went to France for our yearly vacation, I would stock up on sweets and brought bags full of sweets back home. My brothers and I were only allowed to eat sweets on Saturdays. Sometimes, when I asked really nicely and with a sweet voice, my mother would allow me to have some sweets on other days as well.
Then I grew older and started to earn my own money – how delightful was that! I could go and buy chocolates and ice cream, whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Who cared about alcohol when I could have chocolates and cakes? Well, it’s not that I avoided alcohol completely… I did start drinking when I was 15 because that’s what everybody did, but boy-oh-boy did that not taste good at all. Good thing I had chocolate to indulge in to take away some of the bad taste of the alcohol!
At some point I realised that I was a chocoholic. Sweets, and especially chocolate, would have a soothing effect on me. Chocolate gave me great comfort when I felt alone, unloved and not met for just being me. What I really craved was to be truly met and deeply loved.
Even when I hadn’t seen my mum all day she would hardly greet me when I came home; she would be watching TV with her headphones on, secretly eating chocolate. I felt incredibly lonely because I felt less important to her than her TV and chocolate. I went into my room and cried for not being met or seen just for being me, a beautiful little girl. So, of course, I ate more chocolate.
I reconciled with my mum long ago and we have had many opportunities to talk openly about this, in addition to everything else in my childhood that I found difficult. We now have a deeper understanding, love and connection than ever before.
The actual journey of ‘giving up chocolate and sweets’ however took many years, going through a lot of trial and error, because it all came from a need to ‘fix’ the problem rather than from choosing a genuine and loving care for myself and my wellbeing. I went through many phases and I would manage to give up chocolate for a few weeks or maybe even a few months here and there, but never permanently.
I would always fall back to being soothed and numbed by chocolate instead of dealing with the hurt inside. I could NOT imagine living my life without chocolate. I remember thinking it would be next to impossible not to have that chocolate sweeten up my life. What would I do with myself?
It was easy to think I would manage to stop right after I’d had a feast! Right then and there I had had enough, I felt sick, emotional, sad and racy, and thought to myself, “that’s it, I’m done”. But I was just like people who have hangovers that tell themselves they will never drink again… until the next weekend, or even the next day. Sometimes I had so much willpower I didn’t have any sweets for several days, but when I went to the store it was as if I had to make up for the days I hadn’t had any sweets. How clever. Of course, then I bought enough supplies of sweets for several days, even weeks. And then I would try to quit again – it was a constant battle, a very vicious cycle.
Through all these years though, it was like I had a little part inside of me that truly never ever gave up and I knew for sure that one day in the future I would not need to use any willpower at all to get rid of my sweet tooth and quit eating chocolate. So I held on to that part in the midst of indulgence. I knew the day would arrive that chocolate wasn’t going to be a part of my life any longer.
I became aware that I was getting more and more sensitive to sweets and I started to feel the effect the sugar had on my physical and emotional health. I would become very emotional before my period, and I could feel the constant underlying raciness inside my body more and more. When I went to bed I could feel my racy pulse and uneasiness inside, which made it hard to fall asleep.
In the end it became very clear that this was a pattern that I no longer wanted in my life and so I started to make choices that helped me heal the hurts that had forever kept me imprisoned, a victim of my past.
I kept connecting more to my body with the help of an esoteric practitioner. With their ongoing and unwavering love and support I am dedicated to go deeper and truly let go of my hurts and my behaviours, layer by layer.
I’m not saying that I’m totally one hundred percent refined sugar free now, but I know I will get there. I am just thrilled to not have the addiction anymore and I feel so much more joy-full and harmonious inside and more mentally stable and less emotional. I’m noticing that there are so many positive side effects from not eating sugar! I have definitely become more aware – more aware of my feelings, more in tune with my mind, my thoughts and reflections. I am learning to truly connect to my body and to honour the signals it gives me.
Chocolate has not been a part of my life for some years now: giving up chocolate for good has allowed me to know that no amount of chocolate can ever fill up the void or drown out the sadness of childhood experiences. I am a grown woman, and what has brought life-changing outcomes has been to take deep care of myself and understand that I am entirely responsible for my own choices.
I am forever grateful for the inspiration by Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon.
Published with permission of my Mum.
By Nathalie Sterk, Oslo, Norway
Further Reading:
Are We Consuming Sugar Or Is Sugar Consuming Us?
How I Gave Up Eating Biscuits
Sugar: The Artificial Sweetener… and My Addiction
869 Comments
It’s great to hear how your relationship with your mum has changed and how you have been able to talk about many feelings from the past with each other.
It’s quiet amazing that being so addicted to chocolate for 37 years and not being able to go for a day without it, I can now wholeheartedly say that I don’t miss it one bit and have gone without it now for about 10 years.
“I would always fall back to being soothed and numbed by chocolate instead of dealing with the hurt inside. ” I clocked this big time yesterday after feeling a big hurt and – having recently returned to eating chocolate after years of absence – through discipline – I realised with such clarity as I was reaching for the chocolate that it was an attempt to stop me from feeling the hurt.
I too thought Id given up chocolate for good. But last year I found myself eating foods I had long ago given up. I realised I had done all that through discipline. I am now eating and assessing my body after eating certain foods and am finding this is a truer way to deal with food for me.
No amount of willpower will sustain us in abstaining from food, drink or behaviour. That addiction is there for a reason and until we heal the reason it will still be in demand or substituted. Substitution doesn’t heal the reason either, only a new route to the same outcome/demand.
So true Leigh. I abstained from eating chocolate for years but realised it was all from a discipline not a true renouncing. To deal with the underlying reason is where I am at now.
An inspiring sharing thank you Nathalie.
“I am just thrilled to not have the addiction anymore and I feel so much more joy-full and harmonious inside and more mentally stable and less emotional.” When we realise we are choosing to feel great and full of vitality then there is no longer a push to bully ourselves to not do something that we know is an addiction.
I had a craving for some chocolate after having not had any for a few years, so I had some and really enjoyed it. But what I was so acutely aware of was how much I then craved to have some again and again. I realised how addictive it was, and the lengths I was prepared to go to to get some more. It was a real eye opener, and something that I would never have been aware of had I not previously given it up.
I feel the same with anything with sugar or salt in it. Those mad cravings are a slippery slope and having a diet low in sugar and salt most of the time allows me to feel when things are off kilter.
The more I observed how I felt after eating chocolate the more I realised how racy it made me feel, with less clarity as well and that made me realise that I valued being settled in myself more than the taste or transitory rush from having chocolate. So for me too it was about appreciating more what I value in myself rather than just trying to use self-restraint alone…
Yes, observing how we feel and how our body responds to different foods feels a truer way to assess what’s going on rather than blindly eliminating certain food groups, which I did for many years, through discipline – rather like diets that don’t work in the long term. Appreciation is key.
With addictions there is often an underlying hurt that we haven’t dealt with and by healing, embracing self-love, self-care and saying yes to love, our addictions can easily drop away and leave us feeling our essence again and living our true selves.