Hello, my name is Heather

And I’m a sugar addict.

For dinner tonight, I had French toast drizzled with hot fudge topping and finished with a big dollop of whip cream. It was de-li-cious. I can’t recommend it enough. (Add sliced bananas or strawberries if you insist on non-empty calories in your dinner).

This is by no means the only time I’ve eaten dessert for a meal. Just last Friday I ate a big chocolate-chip cookie for lunch. (But I didn’t eat anything else…so my total calorie intake was okay, right?) It’s not like there was a plate of cookies in the office kitchen that some evil co-worker had brought to torment me with. No, I actually got in my car and drove a mile and a half to Great Harvest to purchase said cookie, all the while distracting myself with thoughts of all the work I had to get done that day so I wouldn’t think too clearly about the fact that I was going to eat a COOKIE for lunch.

And it’s not that I didn’t bring a lunch. I had a respectable peanut butter sandwich on whole wheat bread, an apple, and some string cheese stashed in my desk drawer. I ate none of it. I ate a cookie.

And even though I had chocolate-slathered French toast for dinner, I will eat more sugar before the night is over. I’ll resist it for a while, but eventually I’ll go on the prowl for my next fix. Nothing major—not a piece of cake or bowl of ice cream—but maybe just a Jolly Rancher, a finger in the hot fudge jar, or a small piece of the peanut brittle Scott has hidden in the freezer (shhh, don’t tell!)

Regardless, there will be sugar in my mouth very soon.

Sure, I could give up sugar for a day. With effort, for a week or two. But forever? For the rest of my entire life? Nope. Not a freaking chance.

I know this doesn’t compare AT ALL to Scott’s effort to quit smoking. But that’s the point—no matter how difficult it would be for me to give up sugar, or diet coke, or new shoes, it is ten times harder for him to quit smoking.

So as Scott embarks on this new struggle to quit smoking cigarettes, he has my love, my compassion, and yes—of course—my patience.

(Now wasn’t I saying something about peanut brittle…)