Jason Isbell has a pretty great song about his recovery from alcohol addiction.

Amid dreams of drinking and wishing that cops would pull him over now that he's sober, the chorus admits that not drinking "gets easier, but it never gets easy."

A couple of my friends are getting off processed food now; they're finding that it's not so easy, either.

Processed and ultra-processed food, about 75% of what's for sale in a typical American grocery store, has a dirty little secret.

It's addictive.

Addictive like cocaine and heroin.

On purpose.

Because they add stuff to it that hijacks your satiety and causes you to crave it.

And they do this so that you'll buy more of it, your health and wellbeing be damned.

The primary culprit is sugar.

Added sugar; you'll see it on the label, and though the spelling might differ, it's all the same to your brain.

Dextrose, Fructose, Galactose, Glucose, Lactose, Maltose, Sucrose.

Call it what you will, but like cocaine, heroin, or meth, it triggers massive dopamine reactions, causing you to want more and over consume it.

So, if you've ever wondered why they put sugar in everything, that's it.

They are the pushers.

And we are the addicts.

Now, you might think, "No way, sugar's not like heroin or cocaine."

I wouldn't fault you.

It sounds unbelievable, but the studies are out there, and Google is your friend - you can look it up.

Try this search: http://tinyurl.com/rwp-processed-food-addiction, but watch out for the paid studies that say sugar isn't so bad, brought you courtesy of the same playbook from which doctors used to prescribe cigarettes.

It's a devious game they play.

We're all taught that junk food is bad for us.

But they left out the part where 75% of the "food" in our grocery stores is junk food.

It's sad.

Literally SAD.

The Standard American Diet, characterized by its excess of sugar, refined carbohydrates, saturated fat, and trans fats, is the primary cause of obesity and diabetes.

There's a good reason we eat this way.

It's cheap.

It's convenient.

It's often all that's available.

And thanks to the magic of food science, it tastes really good.

Or, at least, we *think* it tastes good.

Big Food has turned amalgamations of processed sugars and fats into delightful "foods" that save us time and money in the kitchen.

Once we start, we can't get enough.

Which brings me to my point.

When I met Julia, she was thin. Although she wasn't an athlete, she was reasonably muscular, went to yoga several times weekly, enjoyed walks, and had no problem going up the stairs.

Then life happened, things got super stressful, and Julia found her escape: sugar.

By the time we went to Big Bend in the spring of 2021, her weight had ballooned by 25%, her inflammatory markers were off the charts, and her body ached to the point that yoga, walks, and quickly navigating staircases were things of the past.

It was as if she had poisoned herself.

Because she had, we didn't know it yet.

Tomorrow: Part II