Getting My Sugar Fix

I have a confession to make...sugar is my drug of choice. That's why I gave it up a week ago. I've tried before but it was not as easy as it was this particular week, I don't know why. Maybe it's because the date is fast approaching for our family vacation to Panama City Beach or I'm fed up with how it makes my body feel with the puffiness and joint stiffness. Being a dancer I really can tell how it slows me down and affects my flexibility, but yet I want more. Isn't that the way it is? The more I want, the more I want.


When does an addict say, "Today is the day that I have gotten all of the ___________(fill in addiction) that I will ever need."? I have noticed that it is our human nature to crave or desire things. Now, let me remind you that it does not particularly care if it is a positive or negative craving, it just craves something. Like...you decide to eat more fruit and stop eating the fake snacks, before long you'll find yourself at the roadside stand picking fat, juicy oranges and fantasizing about what you are going to do with them when you get home. Who has ever had to hide the peelings from an orange so your family won't know you just pigged out on one? Who has ever had to hide the wrappings from the chocolate snack cake from the quicky mart?

My husband and I were challenged once to see if we could only drink water and give up everything else. I promise you, within a couple of weeks we absolutely craved water and could not get enough. To this day I have only added back green tea and skim milk. That was ten years ago and I have not had a soda since. I have no desire for one. I once was addicted to a certain diet soda that is very high in caffeine (I didn't think that I was until I layed off of it for a few days
and got a major huge headache that went away within ten minutes after I drank the soda!)

I was addicted to nose spray (the 12 hour kind) for sixteen years. I would use it five or six times a day. My husband used to tease me about taking a "hit", I literally could not breathe without it, especially at night. But, when I did get through the rough period of about a month without it I now am nose spray "free".

See, good habits....bad habits, I've had to choose. Who do they affect? What do they affect? That's what I've had to ask myself...."is it worth it?". I found a scripture in Psalms 119:103 this week that says, "How sweet are Your words to my taste, yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth". I had an epiphany about my sugar addiction, I was giving the "fix" to my body repeatedly and not my spirit.

So, now I've decided I want to get my sugar "fix" from where the sugar flows, the kind of sugar that doesn't show, the kind that doesn't make me feel like a slug or grumpy after I've come off the "high" and I certainly don't have to hide it when I have it. It's a craving that's good for me and it won't make my knees and fingers feel puffy. It's the real sugar, the real sweet, what I crave. The more I want, the more I want.

Just like noses, we all have them ....opinions. These are my O's.