Hello, my name is Tasha and I'm a junk-a-holic.

Yes ladies and gents, when the going gets tough, the pathetic get munching. Nachos, wine, camberbert, pasta, nachos, beer, Reese's, chevrie, shepherds pie, nachos, jacket potatoes, cheddar, more wine, curry, nachos, burgers, fries, burritos, manchego, pulled pork, doritos, nachos, tart noix, nachos, and nachos. Oh and more wine. And nachos.

I have recently been going through some extraordinarily annoying and life shattering personal experiences and i have realized that cheese and wine and other various forms of food have been my ultimate crack. My escape. My drug of choice. When the shit hits the fan, I reach for my cheese pipe. I drown myself in nacho sauce. I inject a major dose of fat everytime things start to hurt or annoy or anger me. And this is not good. In the past week I have taken most of my aggression out on my kitchen, ignoring all the healthy things that i had planned to cook that week in favor of chinese takeaways, free pizza at parties or simply just a big batch of cheese dip, a bottle of wine and my duvet.

Now this wouldn't be so bad except that I am VERY allergic to all the things I have been binging on. After a 2 year long battle with horrible eczema I finally, this summer, had the cadillac of bloodtests. The results showed that I was, in fact, allergic to EVERYTHING I had been eating, devouring, for several years. Of course there were the normal things like wheat and dairy, things a lot of people are allergic to, but what was totally mind blowing was the "healthy" things that my body just could not handle...number one being EGG WHITES. Of course I was gorging myself on these as I thought they were meant to be good for you, help you lose weight. Papaya, pinnapple, barley, malt, oh god the list just went on and on.

Now eczema was not the only thing I was blessed with, in my ignorance of dietary requirements. Right before I moved to Flagstaff I was hospitalized with severe cellulitis. This is basically a skin infection which insidiously eats away at your body, eventually turning blackish and if let unattended could even result in amputation. This i got from scratching my eczema. Now I won't gross you out with any more scary shit, but suffice to say there was much more to it. And of course there was all the tummy trouble, the lethargy, the depression, and the massive weight gain. I was basically miserable and unknowingly slowly killing myself with my excesses. I mean it always seemed that there was something to be upset about, something to use as an excuse to blow my cash in some pub eating my favorite wheaty, cheese filled favorites and washing them down with several pints of Stella, Cider or Guinness. Practically every bleeding day for several YEARS!!!

The thing is, I should have been clever enough to know that this was not good regardless of the other things going on with my body. Simple equations were lost on me like: Eat cheese=feel sick+itch or drink beer=get fat. But being blessed with fairly decent genes, I was not really concerned about becoming obese. I really never had to deal with those types of consequences. It was like being born rich and always being able to buy your way out of trouble. But in the end...my charge account ran out and now I am being held responsible.

I have to watch everything I eat now. I really feel fantastic when I adhere to what I am "suppose" to eat and drink. Wine is actually perfectly fine, as is goats cheese and all manner of meats and veg. I really can eat quite a lot of things. But like a drug addict, I fall off the wagon. Particularly in times of stress, sadness, anger or boredum. That brings me to a rather sticky point. I have been extremely judgemental about people with drug problems and now I find that I am no different than they are, intrinsically that is. I use a substance to hideaway from the world. I spend lots of money on something that is truly not good for me and that, in the end hurts my health. And I do it because I am generally miserable because I have let myself go. It is a vicious cycle. What makes me all that more superior to someone who imbibes in drugs....except that perhaps mine is cheaper and not illegal? (although some cheese is illegal in the US, but we can get to that some other time.)

I don't know. It is a lot to think about. No one really addresses the moral implications of over-eating and junk food. You are just seen as a slob. While that generally is enough for me to put down the seventh taco, it is not always. Should I join some sort of support group? Will the epiphany of this be enough to spur me on into junk-food sobriety, or will I always have to deal with it, regardless of the feelings of those who love me and want the best for me?

We shall see I guess. Maybe if I could just stop living such an effing pessimistic life I would be perfectly happy with a celery stick and some iced tea.