Afternoon Tea Addiction

Today my friends Christy, Mary Lloyd and I went to celebrate Mary Lloyd’s birthday with our favorite meal, afternoon tea. The timing on this was very bad planning on my part because I started back at Weight Watchers last week. The bad planning was actually that I let myself eat anything I wanted on all my many vacations this year. Either I need to curtail my traveling or I need to not allow myself to eat bad food away from home.
So I am back to monk like living thanks to the points program. I could do Weight Watchers with my eyes closed, but I need the discipline of weighing in every week, that and the group support.  
I read a really interesting story yesterday about addiction. A scientist in the eighties did a study where a rat was put in a cage with two bottles of water, one was plain and the other was laced with cocaine. The rat, after tying both, chose to drink the cocaine water until it killed itself. The scientist concluded that the cocaine was so addictive that the rat had no choice.
Recently another scientist, thinking that there is more to the story than just once someone has tried cocaine there is no way to stop, thought the flaw in the first study was that the rat was alone. So he created a rat park, with fun and games, a bunch of rats and the two types of water, plain and cocaine. Turns out the rats with lots of fun and playmates liked the plain water better and shunned the cocaine water after they tried it. The theory is that being alone and bored can lead to addictions, but having fun with friends is the best addiction.
I agree! Despite the fact that afternoon tea is my favorite meal, but that it is sadly the most fattening meal with the sandwiches, scones no desserts, I must abstain from it at all costs. So today since this birthday celebration had been planned for weeks and weeks I had to work out how to go to tea and stay on my program.
I decided that I would eat my regular breakfast, but save all my other points for tea and make it my only other meal. Since it was at three in the afternoon the timing on it was perfect. But even collapsing two meals into one would not be enough. So, I decided I would only eat one bite of the desserts since sugar is the highest point value item in all of weight watchers. That plan worked, but only because I was with friends and we were having a blast. I was able to withhold myself from my sugar addiction because I was in the equivalent of rat park. If I had been at afternoon tea all by myself I am sure I would have eaten every morsel.
So I’m calling you all out to get out of your houses, away from your screens and drop those devices. Gather together and have fun and you can overcome any addiction if you are with friends and never alone, except when sleeping, because you can’t do what you are addicted to when you are asleep.
I’m thinking of turning my house into the equivalent of rat park so I can have friends playing games all the time. That should keep me away from sugar permanently.