#QuitForKairos
My name is Lucia and I am a sugar addict.
I’ve always had a sweet tooth but the last 18 months of my life have seen my ‘preference’ for sweet foods reach an all time high and my personal resolve an all time low. And it’s time to do something about it.
Working at Kairos WWT, I have had the privilege of walking alongside some of the toughest women I know. Over the years I have felt humbled, touched and inspired by their stories. I have wondered how I would have coped if I had been dealt the cards that they had been in life. Over the years I have learnt about addictions, watched as lives have been dismantled, rebuilt and dismantled again. I have witnessed first hand the hold, the destruction and the pain that some of the most potent substances inflict. Having known, and loved, and lost women to drug addictions, I am not for one second trivialising their experiences by comparing my ‘addiction’ and backstory to theirs. What I am saying is Kairos’ very ethos of ‘Women Working Together’ should be about saying ‘we’ more and ‘them’ less. For me, I have had enough and I want to change.
My sweet tooth developed into a full-blown addiction sometime last year. I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and was totally unprepared for impact that developing post-natal depression was going to have on me and my world. It was the hardest, most painful and loneliest 12 months of my life. The right help was slow to find, wounds slow to heal. I am firmly on the road to recovery now, and yet there are old coping methods that are difficult to shake, even though I no longer require them.
I have made several failed attempts over the last few months to curb my habit. The white stuff has gotten a lot of bad press recently and I’ve long known that I consume more sugar than is healthy. Coupled with my weight gain, unstable mood and general lethargy post-baby, there has never been a more pressing time for me than now. And if the women I work to support can beat their addictions, so too can I.
So I have a plan…and a personal invitation.
The Plan
Starting today, the 1st June 2015, I am committing to an 8 week detox programme (the programme I am following just so happens to be Sarah Wilson’s ‘I Quit Sugar’, but it could be any programme that offers structure, guidance and motivation). The programme involves cutting out all sugar (yep, no more chocolate, cakes, biscuits, white bread, white pasta…and even fruit for part of the programme!) Each week, for 8 weeks, I will write a blog post to share my journey and update on my progress.
The Invitation
I am inviting you to support the #QuitForKairos campaign.
You can do this in several ways:
- Make a donation via our Big Give page. Money raised will be used by Kairos WWT in their work to support women at risk of or subject to sexual exploitation
- Quit something for Kairos – just for a day, or an evening and tell your friends (and us of course) that you’re #QuitingforKairos. You might quit riding the bus for one day and walk to work instead, or quit that Friday night bottle of wine, or that afternoon cake and donate the money you would have spent to the #QuitForKairos campaign
- Commit to your own #QuitForKairos personal journey. If you’ve been struggling to give up something in your life that you feel has a hold over you and you want to stop, join me! Drop me an email Lucia@kairoswwt.org.uk, tell me what you’re quitting and I’ll add you to our #QuitForKairos ambassador list, complete with your own cartoon (I’m just itching to draw someone dressed as a giant cigarette…who’s in???)
- You can join me at any time over the next 8 weeks and believe me, you’d be helping me out if you did. There’s nothing like solidarity to get through a challenge. And this, for me, really is going to be a challenge.
- Don’t offer me chocolate.