Sugar Addiction Doesn't Exist

#41

I don’t think I am addicted to sugar but I still can eat a ton of carby sweets, it seems.
There are special items. I am very firm in my recent belief that the best Cadbury chocolates are very serious drugs to me. I had wonderful control and it blew it like no carbs before… Being completely full means nothing, I still could eat a ton of it.

But it’s extra special. Sugary items are very different from each other, to me, at least. One has a cute, satiating 10g portion. Some other has extremely strong “eat me all” compulsions and 150g feels like nothing (well a very tasty nothing), it just makes my appetite bigger. I noticed the same with fruits.

Sugar addiction is surely a thing, we see it often. I doubt I have it, I merely experience the anti-satiating effect of carbs. It doesn’t need to be simple sugar. And it’s not even simple hunger, I experience raised appetite too, impatient eating urges, “where my automatic control went?”… Carbs mess with me.

And I love sweets but carby sweets and extreme low-carb sweets act very differently. Even if we only consider net carbs as carbs and sweeteners are used. I may want to eat a bit more of the tasty sweet thing but it’s nothing like the carby insanity that sweets can do the best (though I had wild parties with bread too. I rarely have problems with sweets as I don’t buy sugary ones but I bake bread. But nothing happens until I stay away from carbs including vegetables, I am safe then).

As we know, even low-carb sweets mess with many people. And some people feel not much towards any sweets. And probably zillion interesting cases exist.

#42

Same here, I can put away a whole pizza (a real one) fries, onion rings, and be fine and go along as normal even if I’m stuffed. But if I ate a bunch of (real) Ice Cream??? LOOK OUT! I noticed a while ago that the starchy stuff didn’t really cause much pushback with me and that it was the sugary stuff, but even then once the flood gates are opened it’s not that I then crave just more sugary stuff, I just crave EVERYTHING. It’s runaway ghrelin at that point.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #43

Actually, it’s not. The fructose part of the sugar (a molecule of sucrose consists of a molecule of glucose bonded to a molecule of fructose) has an effect on the nucleus accumbens (the reward centre of the brain) similar to the effect of alcohol and other addictive drugs. Again, like ethanol, fructose is metabolised in the liver, with the same long-term effects (fatty liver, steatohepatitis, cirrhosis). It only lacks the short-term toxicity of ethanol.

About 20% of the population appears to be vulnerable to a given substance or form of behaviour. It is generally a different 20% in each case, though there is clearly some overlap, because a lot of people have multiple addictions. This explains is why a lot of people can drink or eat sugar or gamble or whatever without getting addicted, whereas addicts need extensive help to get free of the substance or type of behaviour that has addicted them. Fortunately or unfortunately, we don’t all get addicted to the same things.

Many addicts, interestingly, feel that they exhibited signs of being addicts, even before being exposed to the substance or behaviour that addicted them. But even someone with such an addictive personality doesn’t get addicted to everything out there. I personally know addicts who smoked and yet never got addicted to tobacco, but I also know addicts who claim that kicking nicotine was harder than kicking heroin (which is supposedly the most addictive of the street drugs).

(S G) #44

Absolutely!!! My husband can eat anything in moderation, my children and I, not at all. I tried “moderation” many many times, It doesn’t work for me, so I treat myself as a sugar addict, where abstinence is the only solution, and it works great!

(Bob M) #45

I tend to agree. As with everything, I think it’s complex. If I eat a potato with butter and sour cream, I don’t get the same effect as with ice cream, but maybe that’s the higher sat fat content with the “loaded” potato? Or is is the sugar?

(Bob M) #46

The way I moderate things is by not eating them. :wink:

And I often wonder if the people who believe things like sugar isn’t addictive do so because they don’t experience the same effect we do? There are some people out there who can eat a small bowl of tortilla chips or ice cream and be happy. I don’t happen to be one of those people. So, if I want something like ice cream, say for a birthday, we’ll buy a small cake and split it and eat it all at one sitting. Unfortunately, with covid, the place we get ice cream cakes has only one size, and it’s too big. Easily enough for 8 - 10 people. Leftovers beckon to me…

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #47

The difference between an addict and a normal person is that the addict may well understand that the addiction is destroying his or her life, but is powerless to stop. A normal person simply doesn’t get that bad.

I have known alcoholics whose idea of “moderate drinking” was limiting themselves to only one case of beer or only one 1.5-litre bottle of wine. I have also known non-alcoholics who said things like, “Oh, I don’t enjoy having that second drink, because it makes me dizzy.”

It’s not really a matter of willpower in either case.

#48

I never thought I was addicted to sugar until I tried to stop eating it. The more sugar I ate, the more sugar I ate. I finally figured it out and now I understand. Happy to be here!

(Jane Srygley) #49

I’m an addictions counselor and a sugar addict. My clients are recovering from opiate addiction. I used to say that I had personal experience with addiction but refused to say what my drug of choice was because I thought they’d laugh and think I was ridiculous. Now I tell them because most of them are sugar addicts too and know it’s a legitimate addiction.

I’m 58 years old. I’ve tried many times to eat sugar moderately. Doesn’t work for me. I’m addicted. I chose to abstain one day at a time.

#50

Pretty much the same with me, I’ve never been big on “a” piece and then putting it away. I put things away… into my face!