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Category: Cupcakes

Have you had your fix of porn and cake?

July 4th, 2012 · Posted by: One comment

This morning’s Metro newspaper has a double-page spread on The Fix:

How many times have you checked your phone for messages so far today? Do you constantly have one eye on your Twitter mentions feed to see who’s talking about you? Would you like another cupcake?

If your answers to these three questions are ’32’, ‘Both eyes’ and ‘No thank-you, a fourth would be too much for me’, then there is nothing special about you whatsoever.

You are just one of the millions who find themselves compelled to continuously refresh their emails and help themselves to just one more piece of cake.

In his latest book, The Fix, which has the slightly frightening subtitle, ‘How addiction is invading our lives and taking over your world,’ Damian Thompson, blogs editor at The Telegraph, says that it is becoming harder and harder for all of us to resist the world’s temptations.

For Mr Thompson, one example of this is how sweet bakery goods have become culinary cocaine – ‘Why cake is the new coke’ is the title of one of the book’s chapters.

‘If you see people bring cake or donuts into an office, people flock to it and then make return visits,’ he told Metro.

‘It does remind me of hedge fund managers or city businessmen in the 1980s frantically returning to the glass table on which the lines of coke are set out.

‘The little sugar buzz is so intense and so irresistible that a little drama of temptation is played out in the office.’

The Fix examines how cupcakes, prescription drugs, smartphones, internet gaming and online pornography are becoming our new addictions of choice.

Mr Thompson speaks from experience. A former alcoholic, he has been sober for 18 years, thanks in part to the help of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).

He has been criticised in some quarters for his insistence in the book that addiction isn’t a disease, something that flies in the face of what many alcoholics adhere to when going through AA.

‘My own experience of AA was very, very helpful,’ he recalled. ‘I was almost the caricature of a drunken, young journalist. I reached a point where if I kept on drinking it was clearly going to kill me…’

You can read the rest here.

 

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Posted in: Booze, Cupcakes, Porn, Tech

The Fix: How Addiction Is Invading Our Lives And Taking Over Your World is OUT NOW, published by Collins. Click here to buy your copy in hardcover or on Kindle.

Cupcakes: a special treat for women with eating disorders

April 19th, 2012 · Posted by: No comments

You’ll read a lot about cupcakes in The Fix. That’s because they’re the middle-class junk food of the 21st century. And, thanks to their astonishing concentration of sugar, very addictive. They became famous after the Magnolia Bakery featured in an episode of Sex in the City. And they seem to have a special appeal for women with food issues. More on this later. Meanwhile, here’s a quote from my book from the food writer Xanthe Clay:

Cupcakes are the ultimate eye-candy, primped and styled like a teen pop star, the food incarnation of many girls’ fantasies.

In the gossip magazine world, where shopping is the only serious rival to celebrity in terms of aspiration, cupcakes are consumer-desirable in a way a Victoria sponge isn’t. If having an eating disorder is about a desperate attempt to take control, then eating these artificial, too-perfect creations may be particularly satisfying. More likely, the huge sugar rush will feed the craving, and provide a quivering kick of hypoglycaemia. The texture – smooth, aerated, oily – may, like ice cream, be especially suitable for regurgitation.

And – just my prejudice this – but perhaps the ultimate emptiness of cupcakes, those empty calories, the way they never deliver on flavour what they promise in looks, is a metaphor for the hopelessness of the woman, or man, with bulimia.

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Posted in: Cupcakes, Eating

The Fix: How Addiction Is Invading Our Lives And Taking Over Your World is OUT NOW, published by Collins. Click here to buy your copy in hardcover or on Kindle.

If you think addiction is an incurable disease, answer this question

April 19th, 2012 · Posted by: 15 comments

Addicts love, just love, being told they have a disease. Or, better still, in the words of the American Society of Addiction Medicine:

…a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry.

And it’s incurable. So if that’s what you’re suffering from, no wonder you say ‘Okay, I’ll have another pint/line/cupcake’ when temptation rears its head. How can you be expected to say no when all that ‘related circuitry’ is kicking in?

Here’s my rough and ready translation of ‘primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry’: This is not your fault. Your ‘disease’ left you no choice, whether you’re addicted to bourbon, crystal meth or Krispy Kreme. That’s what you’ll be told if you attend Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous or any other 12-step group.

But there’s a problem here. Many of the people in ‘the rooms’ have stopped drinking, taking drugs, binge eating or whatever without any medical intervention whatsoever. And lots of them don’t relapse. (Me, for example: gave up booze 18 years ago, haven’t gone back to it.)

So here’s my question: is there any other ‘primary, chronic disease’ whose sufferers can cure themselves without medical intervention?

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Posted in: Booze, Cupcakes, Disease, Drugs, Eating, Gaming, Pills, Porn, Shopping, Tech

The Fix: How Addiction Is Invading Our Lives And Taking Over Your World is OUT NOW, published by Collins. Click here to buy your copy in hardcover or on Kindle.