Modified post. Read the edit at the buttom.
Now, call me crazy, I don't think so! I have been an addict and I know how it is to be an addict, but I don't think sugar is as addictive as cocaine. And I really am frustrated with people who say such things.
This notion that it's as addictive drives me crazy! I mean, imagine someone gullible who says, well, "I can control my addiction to ice cream, heck I can go without ice cream for months, if it's as addictive as cocaine, why not give cocaine a chance? It's not like it's gonna destroy me or something?" Yeah, I have once been this gullible (when I was younger) and I hate this.
I do crave sugar and I do occasionally (once per week and sometimes twice a month) buy sugary treats/lays packet (5 Indian Rupees, smallest one) to quench that craving, but I refuse to believe that it is as addictive as cocaine or any other drugs. PS: My last lays packet was 45 ago and I am fine, and this is the most addictive substance I have consumed.
I am pretty some people here have been addicted to cocaine (truly no judgement, I hope you are sober now), so what say you?
PS: If you haven't been addicted to anything drastic as drugs, you are still welcome to chip in.
edit: thank you all for adding greater context.
I realize now that when they talk about sugar, they are not just talking abt lays and ice creams, but sugar in general. I get the studies now. But media is doing a terrible job of reporting on studies.
Also, the media depiction of scientific studies is really the worst. I mean, they make claims which garbage and/or incomplete data or publish articles on studies which make more alarming claims. Also, maybe wait for a consensus before you publish anything, i.e., don't publish anything which isn't peer reviewed and replicated multiple times. Yes, your readers might miss out on the latest and greatest, but it isn't really helpful if the latest and greatest studies in science aren't peer reviewed and backed up well by data.
I feel like a headline "SUGAR IS AS ADDICTIVE AS COCAINE" can and will be life destroying if you don't give enough information. I feel like there should be an ethical responsibility to not sensationalize studies, maybe instead of "SUGAR IS AS ADDICTIVE AS COCAINE" give a headline like "Sugar and Addiction, what science says."
also, https://i.imgur.com/VrBgrjA.png ss of bing chat gpt answering the question.
some articles: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/25/is-sugar-really-as-addictive-as-cocaine-scientists-row-over-effect-on-body-and-brain
https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/experts-is-sugar-addictive-drug
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/cravings/202209/is-sugar-addictive
https://brainmd.com/blog/what-do-sugar-and-cocaine-have-in-common/
The thing that really causes addiction isn't so much the physical dependence, but the psychological dependence.
Almost all drugs (including Cocaine) have only very short term withdrawal effects. If it was only physical dependence, all you'd have to do to break any substance addiction is to lock that person up for a few weeks, until the drugs are out of the system and that's that.
The long-term effects are purely psychological. Usually, your life is shit, you got some pretty heavy problems or you have other psychologial issues like depression. And you know that substance X will help you to feel good, even if only for a short time. So you take the substance again to forget and feel good.
Because of this, you can get severely addicted to stuff like gaming, smartphones, social media, shopping or gambling, even though there is no substance involved at all.
Remeber the high-profile study about a rat that was locked alone in an empty cage and the only things it had available to distract itself from it's misery where a bottle of regular water and one filled with cocaine water.
The rat used cocaine until it died of an overdose.
This experiment was repeated, but this time there was a whole rat family in a really nice cage with a lot of things to do. This time some of the rats did a bit of cocaine sometimes, but never in excess and no rat overdosed.
Sugar, together with the physical withdrawals (which do really exist), is really tough on the psychological side due to its extremely easy availability and omnipresence.
To get cocaine you need to find a dealer, spend a rather big amount of money and you are always aware that if you are caught, there are some very serious consequences.
To get sugar, you walk into the kitchen. Worst case, you go down to the next shop, spendless than an Euro on the substance and consume it completely legal without fear of any repercussions.
Or you wait until someone gifts you some sugar for birthday, Christmas, Easter, or any other holiday. Or just because they are nice.
This super easy availability means, there are hardly any barriers where you can say "Actually, I wanted to stop" and stop what you are doing.
nice comment, thank you!
Actually you can just decide "I want to stop" and then stop. Tell your friends you're cutting sugar and to stop buying you treats. Stop going to the shops for donuts. Stay away from McDonald's.
People literally do this all of the time.
It straight up is mostly personal choice and I am tired of people trying to claim it's not.
Found the miracle healer!
You want to get out of addiction, just decide "I want to stop".
Do you offer the same solution for other issues as well?
Depression: "Just don't be sad"
Broken leg: "Just decide that it's not broken any more"
If you can give something up just like that, you weren't addicted to it. Please read my post again. There is a huge difference between "using a substance that can cause dependence" and "being addicted to said substance".
For that very reason there are people who enjoy some wine, rarely, in specific settings, and at the same time there are alcoholics who actually are addicted.
Thanks for proving my point by showing us you know exactly what it is you're doing when you shovel donuts in your mouth and then get angry you aren't ripped. Or do you think we don't know what you're thinking when you instantly react to any kind of pushback against any attempt to hold you accountable for your behavior?
You make the choice to be obese by practicing bad lifestyle choices and refusing to take responsibility for those choices. And you do it because you want to eat sweet, delicious treats. And you are angry because you can't accept the fact that you can't have it both ways: you can't eat donuts and be ripped at the same time, and you don't want to put the effort in to be healthy, you want it done for you so you can eat what you want without consequences.
But that's not how life works.
I say that as someone who is fat and eats donuts and drinks Cokes all the goddamn time. We do it because we want to, because we understand a large part of happiness in life comes from the food we eat and that has always been true, not because of society or any other externalities, but because that's how life is. We do it because we like donuts and Cokes. We do it because we want to.
But there's a price to pay for that. I'm as fat as a pile of pigshit rotting in the Texas sun on high noon on the summer solstice because of it. But I don't worry or have feelings about it, because I understand and fully accept the consequences of my actions as an adult, and more importantly, don't care about being ripped.
I am adult enough to be honest and make that choice and it's time for you to grow the fuck up and do the same.
Or choose to stop eating sugary treats and actually become ripped.
It's up to you how you're gonna live this life.
You are projecting. I hate doughnuts. I do eat sugar but not excessively so. And I am not overweight. I also don't care about petty beauty ideals like "getting ripped". I am not 15 anymore.
Let me get this straight though: You say that you are "fat as a pile of pigshit", say that you eat donuts and drink cokes all the time and that you "could stop at any time, you just don't want to". That's 1:1 addiction speech.
You are addicted. Because being addicted means that you keep doing something even though you know it's really bad for you. Being addicted means, that you are not in control.
Saying "I could quit at any time, I just don't want to", while your body is rotting away, means not only can you not quit even if you wanted to, but that you have so totally given up on trying, that it has become part of your identity.
That's the exact same line you hear from old smokers with amputated legs and lung cancer.
Then you should not speak for those of us who actually are obese and for whom this discussion is relevant, should you?
Think before you open your mouth. I do it before I swallow down a Coke; you can do it before arrogantly presuming to speak for a situation that is not even yours.
Eh, obesity was labeled a disease by the WHO nearly a century ago (1948). And just to be clear, obesity does not mean being fat. Obesity is defined as "abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to heath." You can be overweight and live a perfectly healthy life, but saying that putting on so much weight that it takes decades off your life and greatly reduces your standard of living is a choice is pretty ignorant. This may be a bit extreme, but I would equate it with saying that self-harm is a choice, completely ignoring all the underlying conditons that cause such behaviours.
Honestly, I find the psychology and biology behind obesity fasinating. If you're interested in the science of weight gain and obesity, look up some of the recent studies done on it. I think they're realay neat.
Oh, but claiming that obesity is a choice and that it's a symptom of weak willpower is an old stigma that prevents lots of people from seeking help. I'd really appreciate it if you didn't push such old ideas.
Yeah people have power over which diseases they experience in life.
I can experience depression if I stop working out. Depression is a disease but it’s also within my control whether I have it.
You are the one who brought obesity up. I was talking about addictions from an empirical standpoint.
You then jumped in and called me obese and weak-minded.
I didn't even mention obesity or being overweight at all in my first post.
There are also a lot of other conditions you can get by consuming too much sugar, even if you aren't overweight. For example, you don't need to be overweight to get diabetes from consuming too much sugar.
And contrary to you I know that addiction is not a character weakness and it has nothing to do with being weak-minded. Addiction is a psychological problem same as depression. Shaming people for their addiction is incredibly counter-productive, because it often is the result of people being very unhappy with their current state. Shaming someone makes this problem worse and usually results in more severe addiction.
I've have experience with addiction and I worked a lot with people who are affected by addiction. I do know how it works, and shaming someone (even yourself) makes the addiction much harder to get rid off.
I didn’t see any shaming going on. Equating the description of people’s agency with “shaming” them isn’t helpful.
The person you're responding to is right. You are demonstrating classical signs of coping. But let's just use your same argument, please do not assume for other people and take options away from people battling with insulin resistance. Telling a diabetic to just stop eating donuts will not cure their diabetes, they have to take a holistic approach to their entire diet not just one element of it.
The body is very empirical, if people are not getting the results they want, they need to change what they're doing until they get those results whatever they may be. For a diabetic, or a pre-diabetic, removing carbohydrates can increase insulin sensitivity, and at least for type 2 diabetes remove the need for exogenous insulin. That's fairly empirical. You might not like it, you might feel guilty that you're doing something you know is bad, you might be looking for excuses, but it's not about what you feel it's about the results you get. And you can measure it everybody can get a glucose and ketone meter and see how their diet is impacting their health day by day or even hour by hour
Oh Jesus Christ 🤦
No, Karen, someone telling you no, we actually are making the choice to live this way is not evidence that we are addicts and have no agency. It's evidence that we do.
But it is not surprising at all you would flat-out disrespect the very same people you're trying to justify stripping of their autonomy because the truth is, you're just a fatphobic authoritarian and for people like you, one of your core principles is a lack of respect for other people's rights, boundaries and choices.
Because if I wasn't an addict, I would not still be eating donuts and drinking Cokes, right?
It couldn't possibly be a personal choice or anything.
The world is black and white and only sane people do the correct things and anyone who deviates from that is defective -- a drug addict, mentally ill -- and therefore needs their choices made for them by others to live the correct lifestyle.
And fuck our rights. Fuck our autonomy. Fuck our happiness.
Those numbers on the surgeon general's charts need to come down and you don't give a fuck who you have to trample over to make that happen.
That is you and how you think, and it is why obese people like myself just dismiss you, and go back to drinking Cokes and eating donuts. Those of us who are foolish enough to listen to you are the ones who suffer self-esteem problems. Those who aren't just laugh you off, or shake their heads at witnessing the further degradation of lack of respect for human rights you are putting wildly on display right now.
So, until you're willing to accept what I tell you at face value because I am the authority on my own choices and not you, there's no point in furthering this discussion.
You need to dominate and assert control over other people and you'll prove it by taking the last word like you desperately need to, so go ahead. I'm not gonna waste any more time with you.
I'm literally obese and you don't want to listen? That's 100% a you problem. Go look for a real addict to save.
I never said addicts have no agency. Smokers are addicted, but have all the agency in the world to stop smoking. We use our knowledge of addiction to give smokers options to fix the issue... If they want.
Just because mice display addictive behavior in studies doesn't mean you're addicted. You're clearly choosing your lifestyle deliberately. And that's fine. But deny the addictive mechanisms displayed in mice, and how that might be helpful if people who want to change their lifestyle is reductive and perhaps a bit selfish.
I have no interest in teaching people about nutrition if they are already happy with their choices.
Stop eating bread, stop eating rice, stop using sauces infused with sugar. Sugar's everywhere. Carbohydrates are converted into sugar in the liver so no stop sugar is complete without removing carbohydrates as well
I am sorry buddy, I am not sure if that's true. Not true for most people at least.
It literally happens all the time. You can find videos of people losing hundreds of pounds through their own choices with a simple Youtube search.
You just don't want to admit you don't really care about losing weight, you just want to be fat without the consequences, and life doesn't work like that.
Just say you choose to be fat, you're happy being fat and you don't want to change. Just say that, and no one could really touch that. But don't sit there and try to lie to me.
Yes, you can find videos of people who have not been addicted.
Please go and read up just a little bit about what addiction is. Apparently, being completely unaware about the concept does not stop you from commenting.
I don't understand either how you came up with the idea that I am addicted or overweight. I was just talking about the concept addiction and the difference between sugar addiction and other addictions.
You are making a fool of yourself.
No, I am kinda pissed because you called me weak-minded and because you kept attacking obese people.
I got a few obese people in my life that I care a lot about and I know how messed up they get because of the constant scrutiny and hatered they get from random people.
Again, I kept saying all throught this conversation that I think that addiction and obesity are not a weakness of character or something like that. Everyone has things that don't work out and issues that they work on for decades that just don't get better. And if we are honest, everyone is addicted to something. Some addictions are more visible than others, but that doesn't make them worse.
You on the other hand have done nothing but bashing addicts and obese people.
Go and eat your ribs the way you like it. Why do you think I care?
They’re probably also messed up by the constant inflammation all their fat is causing. In my experience systemic inflammation immobilizes me far more than other people’s opinion of me.