Deborah says:
The double whammy. First of all, you gave up something for Lent (and why is it almost always food?) and 40 days later you’re ready to chow down again PLUS some crazy person decided we should all receive chocolate for being such good people! Where to start?
Okay, Lent. Now, I’m not practicing any sort of religion now that requires me to observe Lent (or Easter for that matter) but I did give something up for Lent, as did most of my non-religious friends. And what’s interesting is that for most of us, it was some type of food. I find that in itself so interesting, that we all have eating behaviors that bother us so much we feel we have to give them up for 40 days. I gave up peanut butter, but I gave up the behavior of peanut butter, not the food? Is that crazy? I’ve allowed myself to still use peanut butter in cooking (i.e. a few tablespoons in curries, etc.). What I gave up was snacking on it. My snack of a single cracker with peanut butter had evolved into crackers with peanut butter and sprinkled with chocolate chips and then a spoon dipped into peanut butter and then the bag of chocolate chips, and then repeat several times. It was a problem for me.
But when I gave it up for Lent, I actually meant I gave it up. Period. Lent was my excuse. I read once where a common behavior in alcoholics is to give up drinking for days, weeks, months just to prove they CAN. I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, what does that say about us giving up food for Lent? And you know me, it’s about the Stop Lying stuff, so I feel that if I feel strongly enough about giving something up for any period of time, I need to investigate the behavior a little closer, and maybe it’s something I need to remediate altogether. As to the chocolate. Fuck me. A holiday where there is chocolate laying around everywhere. And crappy chocolate. I mean those Easter Bunnies are disgusting, I don’t actually know how they can call them chocolate because I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in them that even resembles chocolate anymore. They taste awful, I don’t really enjoy them, but I eat them. And then the Devil himself invented things like Cadbury’s Easter Cream Eggs or Caramilk Eggs. And then every other candy manufacturer invented some sort of egg-shaped variation of their treats. And then they spend gazillions of dollars advertising the damned things with every other commercial on TV so that I can’t even enjoy my favourite shows without some sort of temptation. I hate the Easter Bunny! It’s crazy – chocolate isn’t even a big deal for me normally (unless it’s attached to peanut butter coating a spoon). I don’t think about chocolate all the time, I appreciate a nice bite of good chocolate, but it doesn’t make me crazy, keep me up nights. But I do think the month-long battering we take before the actual event is what makes me become a month long choco-holic, avoiding checkout lines everywhere.
Do I have a plan? Well, my intentions are not to eat any of these chocolate treats. I could allow myself one or two or seven and just adjust my eating, but for me, chocolate is not important enough and if it were, I would make sure it was premium chocolate, not this chemical filled fake sugar laden fat heavy goop. So I intend not to eat any of this crazy chocolate to celebrate Easter. Instead, I’m going to use it as an excuse to make turkey – one of my favourite things in the world. And I’m not inviting anyone else to share it – I’m making this for me. This way, I get a nice dinner one night, and I get turkey in the freezer for meals and snacks, and I get a great big pot of turkey curry soup. Now, I’m not lying, none of this gives me the same immediate thrill that chocolate does, even the crappy stuff, but it makes me happy and in the long term, when my “treats” (my least favourite word in the world by the way) meet my intentions, I’m a way happier person than any tiny release of dopamine from a fat rush can give me. How do you handle Easter?
Arlene says:
The alcoholic giving up alcohol for a week, month or more to prove they can is very common. You know it’s a problem when the entire time they are counting down to the day they can start again. When thoughts of the drink they would have if they could keep coming up over and over, it’s a problem. Yes, it works for food too, you know you have a problem when… you think of (fill in favourite food here) all the time; you plan for your next opportunity to have ____; you organize your life so ______ seems a rational choice and Easter is brutal for providing “rational” choices. We buy goodies for family and friends, and perhaps don’t give it all away. We receive goodies from family and friends and then are “obligated” to eat it. We use the LIE, “I don’t want it to go to waste.”
Make other choices. It really is that simple. Stop Lying about the reasons and make other choices for what you are giving to your family and friends; do not buy chocolate. If Easter is about getting together with family, then just do that.
Remember when it was about real eggs? There’s nothing wrong with eggs, healthy, protein filled, excellent vitamin sources. Maybe we need to go back to tradition and give pretty eggs, have fun making pretty eggs. If chocolate seems “essential”, then limit it to one high quality chocolate gift.
There are many options, but the most important step is making a decision, before you are surrounded by chocolate, about what you are buying, why and for whom.
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