My Sugar Addiction Was So Severe, I Asked a Celebrity Hypnotist to Cure Me

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When I tell my friends I have a sugar addiction, most of them scoff and say, “Well, we all like dessert!” I more than like dessert. I crave dessert—and not just the beautifully plated cakes and tarts that come out of restaurant kitchens. I’m talking about a sleeve of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups or a random piece of chocolate cake in the refrigerator aisle of Whole Foods. And when I say crave, I mean fixate: A sugary treat would get stuck in my head, and I wouldn’t be able to focus until I procured that treat. This is more than just liking dessert. It is, I’ve learned, a sugar addiction.

In fact, studies have shown that the pleasure induced from intense sweetness can surpass cocaine reward. And like with other addictions, quitting sugar isn’t as simple as just stopping. That certainly was the case for me. I consider myself to be an otherwise very healthy eater; I’ve never experienced any other forms of disordered eating and generally prioritize my physical and mental health. But I’m lactose intolerant, and overeating sugar continually triggers SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) flares. Kicking this sugar addiction wasn’t about weight for me—I needed to stop essentially poisoning myself on a daily basis.

After my last round of antibiotics to treat SIBO, I realized I had to try something new. I have some friends who had luck quitting smoking with hypnosis, but I was skeptical it would work for me. Both of my parents are neuropsychologists, so I have a hard time letting go of needing hard-and-fast science. So before I took the plunge, I consulted David Spiegel, MD, a Stanford professor, researcher, and past president of the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis.

I had some pressing questions: Is this basically inception? Am I going to wake up after being hypnotized and suddenly find sugar revolting? Not quite. “It involves teaching you to control your perception and behavior, not have it ‘happen’ to you,” Dr. Spiegel said. “Those repulsion techniques generally don’t work—you concentrate even more on what you don’t want with that approach. [With hypnosis,] you alter your perspective on eating, how to enjoy it, and how to respond to your body’s satiety cues.”

How does hypnosis for a sugar addiction work?

According to an article Dr. Spiegel wrote in the neuroscience journal Neuron, hypnosis is defined as “a naturally occurring state of highly focused attention that prioritizes experience over evaluation.”

This intense focus is achieved two ways. The first is dissociation, the act of putting potential distractions outside of conscious awareness. The second is cognitive flexibility, which is the capacity to see old, familiar situations from a new point of view. Putting the mind in this mental state makes it more open to therapeutic change.

Through Dr. Spiegel’s research, imaging has shown what happens to different areas of the brain while under hypnosis. In short, there are three main components: reduced activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (which tones down your awareness of bodily sensations and emotions), dissociation (which, Dr. Spiegel writes, “mobilizes an openness to trying out being different”), and greater functional connectivity between the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the insula.

The final component is key. Connecting the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the insula turns down anxiety, which inhibits the mind from real change. In this state, the mind feels freer to experiment with altered perception and behavior. It also shuts off outside conscious awareness, including painful feelings and thoughts that could be distracting.

It’s also worth noting that everyone has different levels of “hypnotizability,” meaning some of us are more susceptible to being put into this dissociative state. “Our hypnotizability is a very stable trait in adulthood—as consistent as IQ,” said Dr. Spiegel. “About 20% of adults are very hypnotizable, 60% moderately, and another 20% not hypnotizable. It is more a matter of how one uses the hypnotic task, and taking an approach that involves focusing on what you are for, rather than fighting what you are against.”

My experience getting hypnotized for a sugar addiction

For my hypnosis, I decided to go to Kerry Gaynor, a celebrity-loved hypnotherapist in Los Angeles, who has helped everyone from John Mulaney to Heather Locklear quit smoking. “I think there’s an infinite source of power that lies within us,” Gaynor told me. “I think most people have trouble connecting to that power, and hypnosis is one tool to help people make that connection.”

Before getting started, we talked about why I wanted to tackle sugar addiction—he explained that hypnosis won’t work if you’re there just because you should be. You actually have to want to change your behavior for the effects of hypnotherapy to take hold.

Gaynor’s method typically includes three one-hour sessions, done five to seven days apart. During the first session, Gaynor said it’s about confronting the person to start thinking about their addiction differently. We talked about seeing sugar as something that’s life or death—that eating sugar is literally killing me. It’s this framework that lets people take power over their addiction.

In the first session Gaynor presented me with a lot of different scenarios. This one resonated with me the most: Say you’ve been dating someone for a few years, everything has been going great, and you have a lot of fun together. Then one day, you happen to follow them and it turns out they’re a serial killer who has been murdering people the whole time you’ve been together. (Stay with me here.)

Gaynor asked, “Would you ever get back together with that person? Even though you once had so much fun, will you ever be able to see them the same?” The answer, obviously, is no. Yes, this is an extreme example, but this is how Gaynor wanted me to start to think about sugar—something I can never see the same way again and will never want to go back to.

The actual “hypnosis” portion of the sessions lasted maybe five minutes, and I definitely wasn’t out of it or in an altered state. Gaynor said this is normal. “When you’re in hypnosis, you can always hear the suggestions, otherwise it wouldn’t work,” he explained. He equated your state of mind to daydreaming, or the few moments of rest before you fall asleep, or when you sort of “zone out” during a movie or lecture.

During the hypnosis, Gaynor had me do a series of countdowns with my eyes closed. While I was “under,” he spoke about how I needed to start thinking about quitting sugar as a trade-off. We have lots of trades in life (single life for marriage or partnership, leaving a job you like for a higher paying job, etc.). In this instance, I needed to trade sugar in for better health.

In the week between my first session and my second, I didn’t really feel like anything had happened. Sure, I was more aware of the sugar I was eating just because it was already top of mind. During the second session, Gaynor essentially broke down the “how to” mechanics of quitting.

“The idea is transformation,” he said. “Most people are living in a place where they push the consequences of their addiction out of their mind. If I can get people to take responsibility for what they’re doing and face the consequences, that’s where empowerment comes from. I’m trying to get people to experience beating an addiction as transformative.”

Just like in the first session, we spent most of the time talking about metaphors and scenarios. We talked about seeing my addiction as a literal addict living in the back of my head. “What do addicts live on? Hope,” said Gaynor. Hope that you’re going to give in. “If you start saying things like, ‘I know I shouldn’t have this but,’ or ‘I could really use a cookie right now,’ there’s a sense of giving hope to the addict,” he said. “This sets it up as a debate, which you will always lose.” This session was all about recognizing how to shut down that debate, full stop. Gaynor also gave me a mantra to use during these moments: “It’s not an option. It’s not an option. I don’t do that anymore. I’m done.”

Again, during that week until my final session, I didn’t feel any significant shifts. I definitely was more conscious about what I was eating and tried to make use of the mantra and inner-addict visualization. So…I guess it was working? Truthfully, at this stage I found it hard to track my progress. The final session is all about acceptance. “It’s about letting go and moving on, like after a breakup,” said Gaynor. “So basically, you’re not suppressing it, you’re acknowledging.” We mostly focused on celebrating progress rather than beating yourself up for slipping occasionally into old patterns.

After this third session, I really made a point to stop eating sugar. I turned down dessert at dinners with friends, and instead of spending $20 on a Postmates delivery of a pint of vegan soft serve, I redirected my energy to going on a walk or yoga or FaceTiming with a friend. Slowly, something shifted. I really can’t tell you if it’s directly because of hypnosis or because cutting off sugar was top of mind since I had just gone through hypnosis (a very chicken-or-the-egg brain puzzle). Was it working because it’s working or because I want it to work?

According to Dr. Spiegel, it’s a little bit of both. “People often do have the dissociative sense that something is happening to them, but that has more to do with the ability in hypnosis to try out being a different person, disconnecting from your usual assumptions and preconceptions about yourself,” he said. “So it seems that a change has come upon you, but you are in control of it. You can change your perspective and therefore your behavior.”

Within the next few months, I started noticing that those intense cravings for sugar had dissipated, and I wasn’t getting fixated on specific treats. I’m not saying I’ve completely done a 180—I still live my life and enjoy a cupcake at a birthday party, and I still go through phases here and there where the craving for a box of brownies creeps up on me. But for the most part, I do feel like the addiction has been broken. I guess it doesn’t really matter if it was the hypnosis itself or just that I was thinking about the hypnosis: What matters is that I keep prioritizing my health and choosing to ignore the tiny addict in my head.

Aviel Kanter is the former editorial director of branded content for Vox Media, overseeing lifestyle content across the portfolio of brands. Follow her on Instagram @avielpk.

Originally Appeared on Glamour