I have one addiction, and it comes every Easter.

Aside from its obvious religious significance, Easter has another well-known side — the proliferation of concoctions for the sweet tooth, and the most delicious is chocolate.

Now people can argue Christmas is also a major holiday for those with the desire to indulge in the sweet, flavorful, sinful and downright yummy products of the chocolatier’s or the baker’s art. But when it comes to getting a sugar high, Easter wins hands down. There are the customary marshmallow Peeps, those soft, gooey and gushy chicks and rabbits, and there is chocolate in all shapes, forms and styles. And that’s where I get in trouble.

I, like my wife, mother and daughter (although she won’t admit it) am a chocoholic. I mean full-blown, over-the-hill, gotta have it chocoholic.

Comes the Easter season, my cravings increase intensely. Walk through any grocery store, pharmacy or any other emporium in our fine city that stocks food or food items, and you’ll find them — chocolate rabbits in different styles, chocolate covered marshmallow eggs, chocolate covered cream eggs, Cadbury Eggs with cream and chocolate centers, chocolate truffle eggs. Various forms of milk chocolate and dark chocolate (my favorite). You walk in the store and the scent of chocolate hits you when you walk in the door.

And then there is the top of the line. The venerable Gold Brick Egg — that oval form of chocolate and pecan goodness that leaves an everlasting mark on your taste buds and your brain. The Gold Brick is the one piece of chocolate I’m addicted to, and every year around Easter I get the urge to gather all I can find.

Looking back, I believe it was my high school girlfriend who exposed me to the Gold Brick. It was Easter and she wanted a Gold Brick Egg, which at the time was a large chocolate egg with small wrapped Gold Bricks inside. I gave it to her and she gave me my first taste of sin, unwrapping a small luscious brick and putting it in my mouth. I was hooked.

Over the years, I’ve learned there are others who have the same addiction, because our local stores can’t keep enough in stock to fill the desire. If you want Gold Brick Eggs, you have to start looking for them on Ash Wednesday, and when you find them, gather as many as you can. Every time I see them I gather a few and add them to my stash at work.

My wife is an enabler in this addiction. Not a Gold Brick fan herself, she looks for them and buys me a few packs for Easter.

Come Easter Sunday, I’ll have my eggs and strive to make them last as long as I can, which won’t be very long. Eventually they will be gone, and I’ll dream about those delicious ovals for the rest of the year.

And wait in anticipation for next Easter.

John Surratt is a reporter for The Vicksburg Post. You can reach him at john.surratt@vicksburgpost.com.