My Story of Sugar Addiction: The Gateway Drug

​Did you know that experts in the field of sugar/food addiction call sugar the true “gateway drug”?

A gateway drug is an all-inclusive catchphrase for the effect that the use of a psychoactive drug leads to the increased likelihood of the use of additional drugs.

The fact that sugar is a ‘psychoactive’ drug is probably news to many of you, however this does not make it any less true. Sugar, which includes flour, processed foods, grains and even high carb whole foods like fruits, act on the pleasure/reward center of our brain.
The pathway that sugar follows in order to act on this pleasure/reward center is the same pathway that addictive drugs like alcohol, cocaine, nicotine or cannabis follow.


The reason sugar/food addiction experts refer to Sugar as the gateway drug, is that sugar is the drug that the majority (if not ALL) of us are exposed to first. In fact, babies who are bottle fed can become addicted to sugar as early as infancy.

If you'd like to learn more about this please watch this video by the Internationally Renowned Sugar Addiction Specialist Bitten Jonsson.

Now we all likely have fond recollections of eating baked goods or a special meal that is tied to an emotional memory at Grandma’s house or even in our childhood home. However not everyone with these experiences goes on to develop addiction.

Personally, I can distinctly remember where the cookies were kept in my house growing up, as well as the exact shelf I could find them on in my Nana’s pantry cupboard. And I could hardly wait to get my hands on them by climbing up on top of the stove to reach the top cupboard when I got home from school, or to open that pantry door went to visit my Nana just to see all the choices of cookies and crackers, knowing that I would be offered whatever I wanted.

Can you remember the first time you ‘lit-up’ with the use sugar?
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Next time I will be talking about what distinguishes someone who is dealing with sugar/food addiction from someone who is considered a ‘harmful user’ and then the third category, the one all of sugar addicts are in awe of – the ‘normies’ – those who can eat just one potato chip or take one bite of a cookie or brownie and then get up and walk away and forget about it.