Well, it’s been nearly a year for me… A year from breaking one of the worst habits I had: caffeine addiction.
Most people turn their head slightly when you say something like “caffeine addiction” because everyone drinks it without much problem and thinks nothing of it. Well, for me, it was exactly that: a problem.
Sometime last year I was not only addicted to caffeine itself but also my chosen caffeine delivery method, Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper. Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper was nicknamed by me (and subsequently many of those in my extended social circles) as “Liquid Crack”. For the longest time prior to last year, I had been a Coke fan. I hadn’t drank more than a few sips of Pepsi since I was in grade school and my mother would purchase whatever was on sale for 99 cents or less. Well, I decided that I was consuming too many calories with several 20 oz bottles of Coke daily, so diet would be the way to go.
Diet soda for me was the closest thing to death I could think of. It tasted like ass and it did nearly nothing for me. It was hard to happily consume your poison when it tasted like it. Along comes Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper and while I’m not sure what attracted me to it in the first place, I found that it was just fine to drink in large quantities — extremely large quantities.
Now, for most people, extremely large quantities of this liquid would be limited to a few cans a day. For me, large quantities was at least four 20 oz bottles during the day and, if possible, a 12 pack of cans at home. During college I would routinely consume a 24 pack of Coke on caffeine fueled coding nights but that wouldn’t do nearly the damage, caffeine wise, that “Liquid Crack” did to me.
After several nights of waking up drenched in sweat with my heart nearly escaping from my rib cage as if it was running from my caffeine caked blood stream, I decided it was time to call it quits. Call it quits from the daily trip to the gas station stores for my fix, call it quits from the cable TV soaked nights with my trusty aluminum can pyramids, call it quits from the 2pm “down time”, and call it quits from the one thing that stopped the headaches.
Ahh yes, the headaches or should I call it “the headache”. “The headache” lasted for exactly seven days after I started my quest towards freedom. “The headache” was quite possibly one of the worst things I had ever experienced in my life. Not being someone that was addicted to anything else that had physical withdrawal symptoms, this was an entirely new concept to me and one I wasn’t truly prepared for.
The makers of Advil made a fortune on me that week, even though it did little to curb the pain. Normally I would have reached for some Excedrin but being that those wonder pills include caffeine, that seemed utterly pointless. Eating four 500mg pills in the morning, two more during the day, and four more before bed was doing nothing but making me hate my decision.
Well, seven days later to the day, I was free. Free from “the headache” but just beginning the other withdrawal symptoms. The aching feeling like I was missing doing something every morning by not going to the gas station to get my fixes and that feeling at 2pm that I should be napping but instead that I had energy left that would last through the evening!
No more heart palpitations in my sleep, no more headaches at 11am if I didn’t have a bottle of soda, no more feeding the vending machines $1.25 at 10:30 AM, 1:00 PM, and 3:30 PM and no more trips to Panera Bread on Sunday mornings for coffee and a bagel with cream cheese.
What do I miss most? Being able to drink some coffee (no, caffeine-free coffee isn’t caffeine free and makes me wired — crazy, I know) when I smell it in passing in a store or at work or being able to drink something at a restaurant w/o thinking if it contains caffeine or not. There are a ton of drinks out there (root beer included) that have caffeine. It’s a real hassle to drink fake lemonade, HI-C, or whatever lemon-lime soda they offer (especially when you really despise it all).
So, while I’m caffeine free, I’m still not happy about it and probably never will be. In the mean time, where’s my water?
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December 6th, 2006 at 11:52 am
Bill,
From one caffeine addict to a recovering caffeine addict, I feel your pain. I too have been dealing with some caffeine side-effects as of late. OOOOH! I don’t think I could kick it though. Do they have a gum or patch for that?
December 6th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Nice job kicking the habit dude. After a big deadline, I try to do a caffeine detox and go cold-turkey for a week or so; and the headaches suck. I’ve been able to stick to one espresso in the morning these days, which doesn’t seem to have too many negative effects (it doesn’t affect my sleep which is great).
If you can find it where you live, all of Hansen’s diet sodas have no caffeine:
http://www.hansens.com/products/products.php?subcat=2&color=soda
I get them from Trader Joe’s cheap.
December 6th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
I try not to bother drinking much soda. It’s usually just when we go out to eat or I happen to be somewhere that’s serving it. I mostly drink Gatorade and water when I’m at work or at home.
December 12th, 2006 at 10:51 am
Bill,
I stopped soda cold turkey a little over two years ago. I’d have one or two 20oz bottles a day. Not quite your calibur, but still a lot considering the calories and tooth rotting acid. I didn’t get the headache, but to this day I’ll occasionally dream that I’m drinking a coke. Then I’ll suddenly realize I shouldn’t be and freak out a little. I actually dreamed that a single sip made my heart start racing and my skin break out in boils. Fun stuff.
MattB
(found your blog through slashdot some time ago)
December 12th, 2006 at 10:54 am
Well, my dreams about Coke have never gone that far but I certainly do miss it :( Congrats on your kicking the habit! I don’t know many Slashdotters that aren’t caffeine guzzling crazies ;)
December 18th, 2006 at 11:43 am
I’m in the same boat with one little exception.
I have been getting migraine headaches once every month or so since I was in college. Knock-down, drag-out, shut off the lights, close the blinds, lay in bed in pain kind of headaches. I found Excedrin Migraine a few years ago and they were miracle pills. Obviously, because they “cure” with caffeine.
Last summer, at a wedding I was attending, I discussed my headaches with a member of my wife’s family who suffered from migraines worse than I had ever suffered. She sought help with her doctor, and he told her that the cure was easy… stop drinking caffeine. She did, cold-turkey, and hasn’t had a migraine headache in 10 years.
Exactly 2 months ago, I got tired of dealing with the pain if I would miss my 1:00pm Dr Pepper “fix” and decided to detox. If it worked, I’d never have to deal with another migraine again. It took me 13 days of quitting cold-turkey to get it out of my system. It was a headache for 9 straight days that never went away, and then off and on for another 4 days. My support drug was sodium naproxin (Aleve) and it worked well to dull the pain.
I, too, am a Dr Pepper addict. But the difference for me is that I can’t stand the taste of Aspertame and think it’s more dangerous to our bodies than caffeine is. I hate diet sodas.
Caffeine Free DP has been around for a LONG time, but isn’t carried by many stores. I found out the hard way that Caffeine Free DP isn’t sold in Illinois, and I am 8 weeks into some serious 23-flavor cravings. In this state, you can buy EVERY DP flavor, EXCEPT regular Caffeine Free DP, for whatever reason. So I ordered it from Old Doc’s Soda Shop in Dublin, Texas. It wasn’t cheap, but I’m tired of being without my favorite drinks.
As for life without caffeine, I am taking the stance of lunatic advocate now. Once detox’d, I fell MUCH better on a daily basis, get to sleep better, sleep deeper, wake up easier, don’t have such high and low energy levels during the day, and the best part—I haven’t had a single headache in 41 days.
Stick with it, no matter how tough it is. It’s totally worth it. Get your CF fix if you have to order it and pay through the nose to have it delivered to your door. You won’t regret it in the least.
If you want some interesting reading about caffeine, check this site out: http://www.batnet.com/spencer/
Happy Holidays,
-doug
April 5th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
If you are looking for something to aid in kicking caffeine, try Jolt gum. You could use this gum like Nicorette, starting out with 3 pieces a day and working down to 1 piece every other day. I have been chewing it for three months and now I’m down to a peice every three days. (note: each piece is equal to 1/2 a cup of coffee.)
- Anonymous
http://www.joltgum.com/info_gum.html
April 5th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
I quit caffeine nearly a year and a half ago (cold turkey) but thanks for sharing the advice with others that might be interested.