So this is what normal feels like

Magic pills are magic. Swallow twice daily along with pride.

At Christmas a year or two ago, an older member of my extended family noticed my belly had begun to gently stretch the buttons on my shirt. “You’re becoming corpulent!” he said. I nodded, mortified. “Smaller portions,” he intoned firmly, as if eating less was the easiest task in the world. He’s an unfailingly kind person, and so I don’t hold it against him. But the moment illustrates the way many people struggle to understand why we don’t all just pull ourselves together rather than giving into gluttony.

Most of us spend our lives chasing ideals. My bête noire is self discipline – the idea that if only I was less flaky and fearful, less scatterbrained, less weak-willed, I would be able to live up to my own expectations. I would feel comfortable, serene, like I belong in the room. We’ve all experienced being out of our depth. For me that feeling can fester for weeks and months at a time, even in domains where I am an acknowledged expert.

Over three decades of adulthood I’ve developed coping mechanisms that keep me from wallowing in self pity or freezing up in existential terror (well, most days at least). I’m exceptionally lucky in that I can afford both psychological and psychiatric care, as well as medications that help a great deal. Above all I have a supportive spouse and a close-knit, loving family.

There are few words more annoying than “neurodivergent”, but unfortunately this ugly neologism applies to me. My brain has trouble regulating neurotransmitters in general and dopamine in particular. When the molecule responsible for signalling rewards is faulty, “just stopping” can be an emotional struggle.

So now, when it comes to eating, I’m cheating. Instead of losing weight the morally correct way, I am taking the magic pills. The thing is, I am out of time. I have two daughters under six and I want to be present when they reach whatever traditional milestones remain by 2047 – at which point I will be 69 years old. There are no guarantees, but a BMI over 30 and a waist larger than 102 cm will make living past 70 a dicey prospect.

Said magic pills are working, but also have an unexpected positive side-effect: I understand what “normal” feels like for the first time in my life.

My little family eats takeaways on Friday nights. In the past, I’d have no trouble polishing off a pizza on my own and would be hard pressed to stop halfway, regardless of my best intentions. But since I started the pills, I can stop at half a pizza without a moment’s mental discomfort. My stomach’s warning that it is full is no longer swamped by the urge to soothe myself.

The thing is, no matter how valid my justifications, the niggling sense that I am taking a dishonourable short cut sticks with me. I put it down, at least in part, to the strong northern European ethos embedded in my culture and my genes. One hundred thousand years of breeding has selected for traits that eschew “cheating” in favour of doing things properly, and that hold up forbearance as one of the primary virtues.

I know I am responsible for my weight. The problem is the remedy I used to choose – to just be less flawed. I persisted for decades in imagining that I would eventually become someone else, someone stronger, someone better.

And I’m certain there are other approaches that would yield the same results over time. Meditation springs to mind, as does intensive therapy. If feelings make me overeat, probably a good idea to tackle the feelings, yes? By taking this sinful short cut, I am neglecting the straight and narrow path that truly cures me. Better Alistair is right around that next corner – this time for real.

Right now though, regardless of whether I’m cheating or not, being able to just stop doing something pleasurable halfway through feels like a revelation. As I understand it, this is how people without dopamine enthusiasm live every day of their lives. In all my years of taking psychiatric medication, I have never encountered this feeling before. It feels like a superpower.

I won’t name the medication I’m on, not because I’m ashamed, but because it feels ethically icky for me to be promoting a drug, even unintentionally. I will say that it’s not a GLP-1 agonist drug like Ozempic. Instead it acts on the brain’s dopaminergic systems to blunt the intensity of the reward signals triggered by eating. That gives the body a chance to signal satiety earlier and more urgently. It’s a neat trick – and it is working extremely well in my case.

I have decided I am secondary in this equation. I’ve had my shot at making a dent in the world and I am now living primarily for my daughters. I have enjoyed (and regretted) long stretches of selfishness in my life. Thankfully nature has won out over self regard. My own happiness still matters, of course; I’m not a martyr to parenthood. But if I have to do things I find uncomfortable or embarrassing to make my girls’ lives better, I’m going to do them, without hesitation. As we say in Narcotics Anonymous, I have not seen the light, I have felt the heat.