For the last month, I’ve been trying—trying being the operative word—to quit eating chocolate. It’s actually sugar I’d like to eliminate, but the main culprit being chocolate—I can resist almost anything else—that’s where I’ve focused.

This should be easy. It’s not, after all, like kicking a coke habit. Besides, I’ve done it before. (Obviously, I fell off the wagon; but still.) This should be easy, but it’s not. Lately, to fool myself—foods gobbled in secret don’t count—I’ve resorted to sneaking. What’s so tough about this?

Why can’t I just quit?

Because it’s hard—damn hard—especially at Easter, bags of irresistible mini-eggs, like M&M Peanut candy on steroids, stashed in my office closet. All this surreptitious eating makes me think about people struggling with serious addictions, to alcohol or drugs, coke, heroin, Oxycontin, meth, also to food.

It’s easy, and tempting, to label addicts as “other,” people with moral failings, weak constitutions. Addicts, like the homeless, look different from us. Many of them wear their addiction, in their sunken cheeks or hefty thighs, their erratic behavior. We avert our eyes, pretend not to notice, but the judgment is clear. I’ve done it myself.

Blaming the addict assumes a distinction, an “us” and a “them,” allows me to claim—despite its hollow ring—moral superiority. The addict’s otherness reassures me, however tenuous the security. Inside my mental circle, I’m insulated from messy reality. I’m different from “those people.” They’re lazy, unreliable, selfish. Unlike them, I hold myself accountable; therefore, I’ll never be a drunk, a coke-head, a junkie.

Yet, here I am, enslaved by my chocolate jones. Of course, a chocolate addiction hardly correlates to an addiction to coke. Nevertheless, I can’t seem to kick the habit. Maybe I’m not so different, after all.

Maybe it’s time to grow some compassion, time to let the prejudice go.

I’m just saying.

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