A parent speaks

Your mother and I are seriously concerned about your crisp problem for which we feel largely responsible.

Where did we go wrong? You were never dropped on your head when you were a baby; you were weaned onto solid food at an early age; you were given fluoride tablets; you watched "Knight Rider" and "The Dukes of Hazard"; we thought we gave you a balanced diet. Yes, we fed you crisps (not only ready salted but salt and vinegar and cheese and onion too), but never realised we were giving you a push down the slippery slope of addiction!

Perhaps if you had had at least one other sibling you might have learned to share and therefore avoided the excessive consumption of which we (uncaring parents) were never aware.

You have taken a very courageous step in attempting to rid yourself of this addiction.

Now having read your accounts of horrific experiences created by your overwrought brain in its attempts to protect itself from the even more horrific reality of a life without crisps by creating these imagined traumas, we are able to begin to understand what you are experiencing. The explosive crisp packets, the attacks you have imagined - attempts by crisps to attach themselves to your flesh - are the crisp-addict's equivalent of nicotine patches: an attempt to ease the pangs of withdrawal.

Things will get easier and you are not the first to have to face up to the problem which has existed for hundreds of years and affected some of the highest in the land. Shortly after mentioning a king and several dukes, Shakespeare speaks of crisps having had their day (Henry V, act 4, sc. 3): in other words, an addiction has been overcome.

At this time of year we are reminded of another famous king who was very seriously affected:

"Good King Wenceslas passed out

Eating crisps with Stephen".

In the end, he overcame his problem so well that he was made a saint, an example for others for all time! So the reward for perseverance can be tremendous. Stephen seems to have been forgotten by history but I would like to think that he made it as well.

Love and best wishes from you worried but hopeful parents!!