Chocolate Sobriety

I made it forty-five days once. Forty five days of grasping, white-knuckle determination, of denial, of yearning, of walking past the siren call of an unfinished Kit Kat on the kitchen table, of reaching for a pretzel instead of another Hershey Kiss.

Chocolate sobriety ain’t for the faint of heart. The forty-five day stretch was a benchmark more than a dozen years ago that hasn’t been equaled since. Though I tried it again earlier this year, thought once more that even if I started not that long before the national chocolate holiday of Easter, I could hold my breath and tough it out. I should have known better. I made it nineteen days this time, each day of denial meticulously marked off on a three-by-five card stuck to the refrigerator door, each day a badge of pride and punishment and self-control. I got derailed, not by the Easter Bunny this time, but by my cousin Ann in Ireland, when she cheerfully welcomed me and my son to her lovely kitchen overlooking the Atlantic Ocean by opening a box of Irish chocolate-covered biscuits. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Dunmore East…well, the chocolate always DOES taste better in Europe.

Yes, we’re talking hard-core addiction here. Whatever chocolate cake happens to be in the refrigerator left-over from a birthday celebration is of course breakfast du jour with a cup of tea, whether it’s my sour-cream chocolate layer cake with buttercream frosting, chocolate covered mint squares, death-by-chocolate brownies, or chocolate amaretto cheesecake. I can eat chocolate for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and mid-day snacks. And frequently do. While I raid the candy bowl at work on a daily basis, I also keep a none-too-secret stash of Dove chocolates in a co-worker’s file cabinet in his office down the hall on the theory that if I keep them in my office they’ll be gone in a few hours, but if they’re in a cabinet at his, I’ll be too embarrassed to make more than one or two raids a day. I knew I was in serious addiction territory many years ago when I read a lengthy and serious article about alcoholism and went through the checklist that accompanied the article and realized that you could substitute “chocolate” for the word “alcohol” in each of the dozen red-flag questions designed to getting you to runyou’re your life toward a recovery group.

And yes, I’ve heard the joke. “Why are there no twelve-step programs for chocoholics?” “Because nobody wants to quit.”

Not that I don’t want to, for a lot of good reasons. The extra forty pounds I’m carrying in my caboose, for one. All the cravings and the mood swings and blood sugar spikes and crashes for another. You can tell me all you want about new medical findings that dark chocolate is actually good for your health in any number of ways. (And yes, in fact, my cholesterol level is admirably, remarkably healthy, as is my blood pressure.) The fact of the matter is, I’ve been good and hooked since I was a little girl and my mother started me off on Hershey Kisses as treats on the theory that all other candies containing artificial food colorings were bad for me. And addiction is never a good thing. Chocolate is my comfort food, my “brain food” when I’m on a heavy thinking deadline, my preferred dessert, my ultimate self-indulgence. Give up sex or chocolate? Hmmmmmm……. Gotta think about that one for a minute!

I still look back at that forty-five day stretch with longing, and pride, and ultimately disappointment. And I remember exactly what tipped me back off the wagon.

I’d taken four kids down to Chicago for a family visit around Easter time. Four kids aged eleven down through through one-and-a half. Suitcases, collapsible stroller, diaper bag, snacks, toys, books. It was like packing for the diaspora. And we crammed a lot into a day that didn’t go nearly as smoothly in real life as it had in the planning stages.

We shoe-horned my Aunt Mary into the minivan with us that morning and took off to visit the Museum of Science and Industry on the city’s far south side. Got there and found that the exhibit she meant to take us to actually wasn’t available. Drove back toward the city and decided to hit the Field Museum of Natural History at the south side of the Loop instead. Parked in what felt like another zip code because of parking lot renovations around the museum. Waited for what seemed a half hour in line to get our lunches at the crowded McDonald’s in the basement of the museum. Holiday cheer with your fries, anyone? Rescheduled meeting up with a college pal until later in the day because of all the hitches in meandering so far. Decided to beat the rush hour traffic on the Kennedy Expressway by taking the side roads out from the Loop. Got snarled up instead in the traffic jam surrounding Wrigley Field for NBA star Michael Jordan’s professional baseball debut in an exhibition game between the White Sox and the Chicago Cubs. April 7, 1994. A day that will live in infamy, both for professional baseball and me.

We draggled back into the house, lugged the kids and all their gear up to my aunt’s second story apartment where we planned to settle in. She reached behind her to the fireplace mantle, took out some Easter treats for the kids she’d hidden behind a couple of pictures. Fannie May chocolate, the holy grail of self-indulgence. I'd spent a college summer working in the Loop, never packing a lunch, making a three-day circuit between Fannie May, Baskin Robbins and Heinemann's bakery. She’d bought each kid a bag of Fannie May chocolate eggs and a Fannie May chocolate bunny, and started handing them out.

“Gee, Mary Therese, it’s such a shame that now’s the time you’ve decided to give up eating chocolate.” It wasn’t a taunt, just an observation, but I felt something inside me tip. I looked down at Robert who was not quite two, and realized he would have no memory of this moment. I turned to my aunt, and ordered, “Give me that bunny.” It was gone in seconds.

That was the high point on the chocolate sobriety meter, or the low point, however you look at it. Though addiction has just now shown its better side.

I had some surgery done on an outpatient basis yesterday, and my friend Judy came out to the hospital to babysit me there and then take me home later. Blessed with both a nursing degree, a wicked sense of humor, and friendship of more than three decades, she came fully equipped with an apple (“an apple a day keeps the doctor away!”), a box of Garfield decorated bandages, a gardening magazine, a box of chocolate-dipped devil's food donuts for my breakfast the next day, a bag of Dove dark chocolate miniatures, and a bag of Ghirardelli 60% cacao dark chocolate squares. Chocolate of thoroughly medicinal strength if you believe the scientific research these days. Not on the hospital menu, but still assuredly very, very good for you.

The operation went off without a hitch, though with the combination of a short stretch under general anesthetic and then a shot of morphine for pain later, I was pretty out of it for a while. Still, after a half hour of chewing on the ice chips Judy was spoon-feeding me, I was starting to feel restless and ready to leave.

The thing about hospitals and nurses though, is, there are certain benchmarks they want you to hit before they let you out the door with their blessing and a sheet of instructions in six point type. Chewing ice chips is one. Not falling over when you get up is another. And proving that you can eat something without throwing it back up a minute later is another key test. Okay, I played ball. “I want some sherbet.”

The order went out into the hospital universe somewhere. She wants sherbet, not soup, not sandwiches, not cheesecake. More ice chips followed, along with an unassisted trip to the bathroom (another benchmark, yea!), some sips of water, and the question, “where’s my sherbet?” Somewhere in transit. I settled in yet again, watched the clock, watched Dr. Phil, ate some more ice chips, got dressed in my street clothes. Still no sherbet.

It appeared the hospital had had to dispatch someone from the kitchen to go to the Himalayas to shoot the elusive Tibetan sherbet yak, and preparation was still going to take a while. Time to take matters into our own hands. “Judy, I think it’s time we broke into the chocolate you smuggled in.”

We hit the Ghirardelli first, then the Dove. I kept it all down, though it was a little hard getting it down my throat in the first place because of the “cotton mouth” effect of all the anesthesia. Still, it was enough to impress the powers that be, and after signing the paperwork they popped me into a wheelchair and pushed me out to Judy’s car waiting at the curb.

I finally dug into the sherbet as I was going through the sliding doors, finished it as we were driving down the street to my house. Score one for my demons.