Last night, I sat with my parents in one of my favorite restaurants, eating my favorite cheeseburger, watching the World Series in the bar when I had a full-blown panic attack. The cause was unknown, as always, which differed from an anxiety attack.

An anxiety attack would’ve been, for example, if I opened an email from my bank or got a phone call that told me that my account had been compromised. There would come a flood of heart palpitations and shortness of breath.

But in the restaurant, it occurred with no rhyme or reason. I felt like I was going to pass out. My heart started beating rapidly. It was like an adrenaline shot of panic. My fear was that I would die, but my worst fear in that moment while I was eating the cheeseburger with my parents at the table and people around me was that I would freak out in front of everyone, that I would have to be carted away to a hospital. I couldn’t swallow each bite of that half-pound meat and bun and tomato and lettuce and onion without drinking more water, or else I would’ve choked. All the while, I kept my cool around them and pretended nothing was wrong. They had no idea. It was a fight or flight response as they called it. I chose to fight instead of flee by telling myself, “Bro, it’s only a panic attack. You’re not dying. It’s totally harmless. It’ll pass. You’ll get through this.”

And I did, once we left the restaurant and went to get ice cream at our favorite parlor. I swore ice cream was the cure for most maladies. Whenever I ate ice cream or burgers or pizza, all my worries melted away. All my troubles passed in those moments.

I knew they were bad for me, but at the same time, there was nothing greater than bliss ever since I went to rehab and came out the other side sober.

I’d been a sugar addict. I remember my first day without a drink. I began hunting down sugary snacks like an ant in the rehab center, eating candy bars, ice cream sandwiches, anything I could find in the kitchen.

And it has continued that way for the six years that I’ve been sober. Sugar is a tricky devil, unlike a burger or a pizza that filled me up. I gained weight from sugar and never felt satiated.

After ice cream last night, I still hadn’t had enough, so I drove to a Circle K after Game Two of the World Series and bought a bag of sour Starburst gummies and a pack of four Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups before going to bed, and it still wasn’t enough. I wanted more, although I went to sleep satisfied.

I praised anyone who went on a low-carb diet. I lasted for a year with it after going three days without a single carb, eating meat and vegetables and nothing else for seventy-two hours, and my body went through ketosis. That was where it told me that it didn’t crave sugar, and it craved meat. By that time, my body felt lighter, more energetic. Almost every day, I would go to In-N-Out Burger and order the double-double protein style, which was a two-patty burger with lettuce as the bun without fries.

But my body was a delicate instrument because all it took was for me to see a guy walking past me eating a slice of pizza, and the other half of my brain missed that. I wanted a slice so badly that I became weak and bought a slice for myself. My delicate instrument broke. Now I craved pizza all the time. I hadn’t been on a true low-carb diet since my twenties.

My cousin’s wife whom I’d never met before but seen pictures of to where she looked skinny didn’t eat anything white. That obviously included milk and certain cheeses. But there must’ve been other foods that were bad for her that weren’t white. But her point was most things that were white were loaded with carbs. It was a good starting point for anyone who wanted to go on that diet.

It was like quitting smoking. Sugar was just as hard to defeat as nicotine. I couldn’t imagine life without sugar. But once upon a time, I couldn’t imagine it without alcohol, and there I was, six years sober thus far.

What would be left without sugar?

I had a friend who ate constantly. He couldn’t go a day without junk food. When my other friend mentioned to him that he’d been fasting, my friend said, “Fuck that. Food is my wife.”

My sentiments.