A Whiff of Sulphur

I had one of those flashbacks tonight that gave me the willies. It was 10 p.m. and I was at a drugstore buying chocolate. Yes, this sounds like a bad thing for a compulsive eater, shades of binges past, but it wasn't really. At least that wasn't what I had planned. Honest, Ma!

I've never completely given up chocolate. I did stop eating it much for a year or so. But I found that instead of eating large quantities of the cheap stuff that is mainly sugar, if I had an ounce (weighed --- it keeps me honest) of really good stuff, at least 70% cocoa but preferably over 80%, I had a nice evening treat with a warm beverage like chai or decaf without leading to bingeing. However, we had run out and so I stopped into the drugstore after my choir practice to get some more. I picked up a carton of milk and found my dark chocolate. I was browsing around the Christmas decorations (Fuzz and I have become LED Christmas light obsessed) when I stumbled on boxes of my favorite binge food: chocolate pecan caramel clusters.

I had a wave of craving not so much break over me, but lap at my feet, and I realized I could be in a dangerous spot. The weather today was cold and wet, a comfort food type of day. I slept too much this morning and frustratingly didn't get much work done in the afternoon. At that moment I felt tired and had issues from the choir where I'm a board member (ie slightly vexed. Did I mention that we have almost 120 people in the choir? So there's always some issue or other...), and I was in a convenience store, which is for all intents and purposes what drugstores are now. This is where, five years previous, I would be availing myself of a salty, crunchy, sweet, and gooey smorgasboard of junkfood. Memories of Hagen-Das and Asian Party Mix from the 24 hr deli in Brooklyn Heights as I ate my way through grad school... I got out of that aisle and fairly quickly paid for the milk and chocolate, headed out into the foul night to my car and contemplated how far I had come, and yet how close the nuttiness can be at times.

I feel really lucky that a binge just did not feel like an option tonight. I would like to say I don't do that any more, but in reality, I am only a hair's breadth from one. That whiff of sulphur was enough to make me feel a little scared and a lot lucky.