The Dairy Drug

Once, the thought of going bareblack and milkless with a cup of tea filled me with horror.  Now, apart from occasional lapses and semi-regular forays into cheese Twisties, I've been pretty much off dairy for close to a year.  I'd been thinking literally for years that I needed to kick dairy to see what happened, but it was always the milk in the cup of tea that killed my contemplation before it could turn into an intention.  (Because have you ever tried any other whitener in tea apart from milk?  Across the board, they are all plain disgusting.  In a fit of desperation I even resorted once to buying some of that coffee whitener to see if it would help milk up my tea but it tasted like it was made from a combination of floor sweepings and pig fat.  Sorta like a Hungry Jack's milkshake.  Nothing worked - not that, not almond milk, not rice milk, not oat milk, and definitely not soy milk.  Nothing replaces the taste of cow's milk in tea.  Nuthin'.)

These days, milk in my tea isn't something I even think about anymore.  It's just not an issue.  Though I still crave cheese, acclimatising to black tea has been achievable, and I am proof of something I could not do for years.  Yeah, I know, I know - in terms of accomplishment it's probably not up there, but in lieu of a brilliant career I gotta take the wins where I can get them.  And anyway, quitting dairy (by and large) is a big win.  According to some sources, up to 75% of the population are intolerant to dairy in some form.  And though dairy farmers are struggling to stay in existence, the problem there lies with parasitic supermarket chains holding them by the balls rather than a lack of resource for their product.  That's an awful lot of people who shouldn't be drinking dairy but who are.  I'm happy with myself that I've made the changes, albeit imperfectly, that I knew I needed to make.  Changing your diet is hard.

Like other stupid things I have consumed in my life like Christian conceptions of hell (though they didn't last long and I was skeptical from the start), unintelligent boyfriends and cigarettes, the wisdom you get when you come out the other side of consumption almost makes the stupidity of consumption worthwhile.  There is a kind of achievement involved in overcoming things you do not believe you can overcome, and if you are not careful you will fall into a vat of Hallmark sensibility when trying to describe it because it's true, you are bigger and stronger than you thought you were before, you can cope with more than you thought you could before, and you must stop italicising so many words in this blog post.

(Oh, and as an aside, I must say I didn't have any problem overcoming the thought of hell as preached by modern Christians.  I mean, what a bloody ridiculous concept.  So not only do you send your son to die for the sins of the earth even though everybody's still running around all sinny, but then you negate whatever it was he did by sending everyone who doesn't believe in him to hell?  What sort of an omnipotent loving thing are you?  You sound more like a psychotic sook to me.  But then different religions have different conceptions of hell - as in Buddhism and also even from within Christianity itself.  CS Lewis was a most eloquent speaker of the idea that hell is not anywhere that you are sent to, but a place that you choose yourself, echoing the idea amongst New Agers that there are two camps - those who define their lives with a service to others ethos, and those blood-suckers who live in service to self.  I could maybe even entertain the idea of hell as a place you choose if the rules of admittance were restricted to those parasitic elements who thrive in our current dying Western paradigms, who enjoy extorting other people for their own gain and calling it the market, or profit-making, or the way things are done.  That is service-to-self if ever I saw it).

But anyway, this is a post about dairy, not about my conceptions of hell.  Do keep to the point, Susan.

Which is part of the problem.  Because I am really struggling to concentrate on anything at all for very long today.  And that is probably at least partially due to the fact that last night I went sick eating spinach spaghetti that had dairy/cream in it, followed by a bit of parmesan on top, and then concluded with half a bar of white chocolate.  And now today, I'm all over the place concentration-wise, I've been sorta anxious and sorta depressed and sorta unable to get out of my bathrobe even though it's 3 pm.  I woke up feeling like I was coming down with bronchitis, and feeling sick in my stomach.

Pic of cheeses from Queen Vic Market by Alpha under a
CC attribution/noncommercial/sharealike licence

I've been really good for so long, apart from those Twisties forays (everyone has their limits, right?)  And I've been able to get away with those - I think.  I've gotten used to going without the occasional chocolate eclair, and in a way to the idea of not having cheese though I wanted it, and apart from the occasional mini chunk slobbered after whenever my partner was chopping some cheese off the block.  After a while the thought of eating cheese substitutes didn't fill me with despair, and I got used to putting nutritional yeast on my gluten-free pasta instead of a bunch of parmesan.

Then a couple of weeks ago I started taking digestive enzymes.  And even though I suspect that I have a dairy intolerance that is based on an inability to absorb protein rather than the sugars in dairy and that digestive enzymes as far as I can see don't help with protein absorption, I did begin to notice that lately I seem to be able to tolerate the occasional bit of gluten, the occasional bit of cheese.

Hence last night's ridiculous avalanche.  Like a teenager who had a stubby the weekend before and now thinks he can tackle that four-pack of UDLs this weekend, I have overestimated my body's abilities and fallen into today's mass lethergy and depression-that-didn't-need-to-happen.  And I only have myself to blame.

And dairy.  Bloody stupid practice we humans have developed.  Can you imagine if emus went around stealing the milk from sheep that was mean for their babies?  Stupid dairy.  Stupid.

I must say though that after spending all day feeling like this but still eating last night's leftovers for lunch, even though I felt like shite and nauseous, that this stuff is powerfully addictive and I have been eating it forever, and I am a stupid dolt who takes forever to learn and so I must cut myself some slack.

The thing that disturbs me though in my addiction is that even though it made me feel like that, within a body which is struggling for homeostasis as it is, the fact that I earlier took a few things that seemed to help quell the symptoms only made me think in that druggy way that sees an escape hatch that ooh, maybe it means I can just feast on dairy until it clogs all my arteries and gives me a heart attack.  Irritating thinking.  But still, it's good to know that an extra bunch of digestive enzymes, a dose of betaine (which reduces homocysteine, which is the inflammation response that rises when your body perceives an invader), and some Lactase for good measure, I feel a little better.

And because I'm a dickhead, I probably feel better enough that I won't be able to resist tackling half of the white chocolate bar that's still sitting in the pantry.  I'm a stupid bloody dolt because though it wrenches my guts and depresses my soul and makes me write in italics a lot, I still want to eat it even now. 

We are often allergic to the things we crave the most.  I don't need cocaine.  Dairy is my drug.

Hi, I'm Sue, and I'm Dairy Intolerant ... I think?

When my doctor told me three months ago he thought I might be dairy-intolerant, I reacted the way drug addicts react when you try to take away their drug of dependence.  It was that reaction that made me think ~  in the beautiful part of my brain that is reasonable and wants always to see what's really there rather than what I want to be there ~ that perhaps he had a point.

I really struggled for a few days with his suggestion that I quit, but because I have been battling health issues for many years, I *finally* decided to take him up on the challenge.  While having no idea how on earth I was going to do it.

I've had people suggesting I need to cut out dairy to see if I feel better for years.  But I haven't been able to do it until now.

Quitting milk was easy.  I always felt creepily weird about drinking milk anyway.  But cream and cheese were another story. 

It's been about three months since I've cut out dairy.  But I decided from the start that if I wanted to have some, that I would.  And I have, from time to time.  I think it's part of the learning curve.  And I think now that my body has finally got a break from this substance that it is now beginning to be able to show me just how much it doesn't like it.

Still, even after how bad I felt today, and the mounting evidence, I'm still not entirely convinced.  I sit here observing myself being not entirely convinced and it reminds me of the addictive feeling I had with smoking cigarettes, or weed, or eating sugar, or eating wheat, or all of the other million and one things that are required of a person living nowadays who must face up to the fact that this thing here, seems like it's good for them, but it's not.

It takes people a long time to really understand the force of their addictions, does it not?

I've been rather partial to chocolate eclairs over the years.  And over the past three months I've indulged twice.  And twice I noticed about four hours afterwards my head would begin clogging up, both in my brain and in my sinuses.

Last night I had a hankering for potatoes dauphinoise.  Yum.  And so I had them.  Pigged out on cheese and milk.  Had some Twisties to top it off, while watching the Tour de France.

Is it a coincidence that all day today I have felt fatigued, brainfogged, confused, and achey?  And anxious, feeling unable to cope?  And depressed, like I wished I was dead?  That last bit sounds melodramatic, only it's not.  Only melodramatic if you have not experienced it yourself.  I have struggled all day to stay focussed.  I have weeped over inconsequential tasks that were monumental. 

No cheese is worth this.  Not even the deliciously cheesy and wonderful Mersey Valley that went on last night's potatoes.


Is it a coincidence that now, about 27 hours after I ate those potatoes I am beginning to feel all of these symptoms start slowly lifting, like a shroud? Symptoms that when they are there feel permanently stuck on, as if they are my skin?

I wonder how many people have suicided from dairy intolerance.  That would be funny if there weren't so many fucking people in the world whose immune systems are folding their hands across their chests and saying, "Nup.  I've had enough of these toxins and from now on, I'm ramping up the symptoms because you. Are. Dumb. And. Aren't. Listening.  You dumbass."


I think finally I am really starting to see with my own eyes, and feel with my own body, what it has been most likely trying to tell me for years.  It really does not want to eat dairy.

Chocolate eclairs look pretty difficult to make.  But maybe I might give these ones a whirl - gluten-free and I think I will fill the centre with whipped coconut cream. That way I could have my eclair and my sinuses too.

I would like for the synapses in my brain to form a little more quickly - the synapse that starts with a picture of some dairy products on one end, that bypasses my taste buds and goes straight to a picture at the other end of the synapse that is a visual reminder of how hellish I felt today.  It's taking a while.  Sometimes these things do.  Especially when you're a slow learner like me ;)