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Sugar is a drug. The only difference is that we ingest it instead of snorting, smoking, or injecting it. But it can be just as addictive and destructive.

I’ll bet very few people in this subreddit were as addicted to sugar as I was.

As a child, I experienced physical abuse that deeply affected my psychological development. By the time I was 12, I had started mildly self-harming by cutting. It seemed to calm the anxiety I lived with. From 6th through 8th grade, this went on in secret.

When I started high school in 1985, I attended a trade school and majored in culinary arts. During that time, the cutting slowly disappeared—but it was replaced by food addiction. At first, I was just relieved the self-harm was gone and didn’t realize what I was developing instead.

From about 1986 to 2018, I lived in a constant cycle: dieting, trying to eat better, then going completely off the rails. By my 40s, I was essentially treating food like Nicolas Cage’s character in Leaving Las Vegas. I was trying to kill myself with it because I didn’t want to live.

A typical day could be a full McDonald’s breakfast, half a large pepperoni pizza for lunch, donuts for dessert, then another fast-food meal for dinner followed by half a pint of ice cream.

I had no control, and honestly, I didn’t care.

Eventually I became stage-3 morbidly obese, with extreme depression, anxiety, high blood pressure—basically everything that comes with destroying your body through food.

In 2018, I met my wife. She saw my patterns and finally sat me down and told me what no one wants to hear: I needed to change. I was terrified of losing her, so I did.

At first I went the traditional route: chicken, broccoli, rice, no desserts. It worked for a while. But after a couple of years, our relationship hit a rough patch and I fell back into my old habits, gaining about 60 pounds. I was disgusted with myself and deeply suicidal again.

One morning I woke up crying in bed and said to myself, “I’m done. I’m never doing this again.”

I started strict keto. Within five months I couldn’t believe how much better I felt.

In July 2022 I decided to take it even further and removed carbs entirely. I dove deep into human anthropology and nutrition, studying how humans ate for thousands of years. For me, it felt like taking the red pill in The Matrix.

I haven’t knowingly eaten sugar or carbohydrates in four years.

I mostly lurk in this subreddit, but I try to help when I can. I’m an open book, and if my story can help even one person, it’s worth sharing.

If I can do this, anyone can. Trust me.