Sugar is my heroin. My whole body aches from the over-consumption, but I just can’t stop eating and drinking it. The pain I’m about to face is too great. The pain I’m currently enduring in anticipation of what I know must be done is more than I can bear, so I must find a way to escape it, a distraction. The physical pain distracts my brain from the emotional torment rending my heart to shreds. I know what must be done. I know how much it hurts. I know I want to turn and run, run away and hide, curl into a small, undetectable ball of skin and bones until the danger passes. Only the danger never passes. It remains in every cell of uncertainty. How am I going to survive this time? Why does this keep happening to me? What am I supposed to do next? The story is written, but I’m too scared to turn the next page. The monster at the end of the book, however, is me – sweet, adorable, kind, lovable me. There is nothing to fear. The pain will pass if I provide an opening for it to leak through. If I can ever stop stuffing the pain down faster than it can dissipate, there will be freedom on the other side. That’s a given. That’s the certainty. That’s the promise.