I have a confession to make: I don’t just eat sugar; I make love to sugar. Like an adored mistress, I meet sugar throughout the day – much more often than is socially or healthfully acceptable – at various hideaways and make slow oral love to her.

It’s a passionate love affair that I have actively maintained my whole life and have never been able to give up. Whenever my poor, abused body comes forward to beg for fruits or vegetables, I patiently listen to the plea, and then try to imagine my world without sugar. But, for me, a world without sugar would be like a world without the sun.

But perhaps that analogy is wrong. Perhaps, a world without sugar would not be a world without the sun but rather, a world without heroine. Perhaps sugar is not life-giving but life-draining. Perhaps, for all its delicious high, sugar may actually be making my life worse… much worse. And it’s time to put the needle away and go through the withdrawal symptoms to get to the other – much more healthy – side.

But, as any addict will tell you, that is much easier said than done. Giving up an addiction is probably one of the hardest things to accomplish in life. It takes industrial-strength willpower applied over a lengthy period of time. The cravings eat at your mind, preying on your weakest moments and habitual inclinations. Your internal dialogue becomes reduced down to the single thought of your dependence, a repetitive monologue centered around your intense, all-consuming hunger.

But I have decided to enter the belly of the beast. My heroic journey does not involve conquering monsters or armies. I won’t face demons or Herculean myths. No, my heroic journey – the journey which angels will write books about – is simply (if such a word can be applied) to overcome my addiction. My heroic journey is entirely inward, to face the demon inside.