Archive for April 20th, 2010

• Day 52: Should I Plan to Fall Off the Wagon?

  Date: 2010.04.20 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 3

  Some experts in the field of addiction don’t recommend quitting cold turkey, which is what I did when I gave up candy and desserts on Feb. 28, 2010. They recommend tapering off slowly instead.

  Still others say it’s OK to relapse now and then – meaning don’t feel all is lost, you can start again.

  I even know someone who calls relapsing “field research,” meaning you find out how bad you feel when you go back to your favorite substance – thereby ensuring theoretically that you go back on the wagon.

  Since I am reporting about going off sweets, I began thinking today – what if I planned to fall off the wagon on a set date, at the exact halfway point of my Year Without Candy?

  What if I ate some of my favorite treats on that day, which would be Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010.  Then the next day I would go right back to my candy and dessert-free regime and write about how my mind and body felt after being filled up with sugar again.

  There’s an upside and downside to this.

  Upside:  I can eat stuff I love for one day! Legally, without lying on this blog. And of course, all in the name of research.

  Downside:  It won’t truly be A Year Without Candy.  It’ll be a Year Minus a Day Without Candy.  Plus the way I work is often all or nothing, black and white. I often get momentum and motivation from extreme situations.  Also, what if I couldn’t get back on the wagon?

  Mitigating factor: Who the hell cares?  Most of us will be dead within 50 or 60 years.  Could all our little goals, plans, petty complaints, laughable aspirations, earnest analysis, faithful blogging – be any more inconsequential?  I think not.

  I have a few months to consider whether to deliberately fall off the wagon – and what candies and desserts I will eat that day.   I am not a binger – and sweets get sweet fast – so I must be judicious in my planning.

  The Relapse Menu so far:

  Breakfast:  One or two freshly-baked Nestle’s Toll House cookies.  NO NUTS!  Why do people wreck the purity of this perfect food with walnuts and their ilk?

  

  Lunch:  Two fudge selections – to be mailed to me in time for Aug. 28 from Swiss Maid Fudge in Wisconsin.  I hereby choose the peanut butter and chocolate fudge and the creme de menthe and chocolate fudge (also known as Irish fudge.)

  

  High tea:  Half the quantity of a box of Haviland thin chocolate peppermints from Rite-Aid in New York City.  Cost of the box?  $.99.  Will also need to have them shipped to me if I am not in New York.

  

  Dinner:   A bowl of Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream with a dollop of Nutella (there’s even a page for this killer combo on Facebook!)

  

  Midnight snack: Gail’s buttered popcorn with embedded chocolate and butterscotch chips.  (Photo currently unavailable.)

  There you have it.  I feel plumper and sated already.

  Ready for a sugar-crash nap – if I could only see the shore.

  Ta,