My Addiction to Caffeine

Are you addicted? I was. People keep asking me why I quit caffeine, so here's the story. See if any of it rings true to you.

Every day was a roller coaster of emotions. I'd wake up feeling pretty good, but that would slowly ebb away into a weird off balanced feeling by 9:30. By 10, if I didn't get my tea, I'd feel like the world was squeezing me in. My world came to me in tunnel vision with the edges somehow clipped off short. I'd feel cranky and gave short reply's to my loving family and coworkers. I noticed that I'd just be in such a bad mood.
At first, one cup of tea was enough to keep me going. Then I had to up it to two.
Then I'd have another one at lunch time. Then another one around 3 or 4. My final cup was about 6 or 7. I'd have to get some more before I went to any meetings or events in the evening.

If I didn't have it soon enough, which always came sooner, I'd feel the squeeze of the world again.

I'd crash at night because I couldn't drink any caffeine after 6pm.

Almost right away I hated being addicted. I had always looked down on those addicted to things before, thinking they were weak. But now I realized how hard it was. I realized that if this is how I feel about caffeine, what must those addicted to drugs or alcohol feel? I'd seen movies showing the tortures people who had withdraws from drugs. If I was afraid of having a headache, how much worse it would be to have entire body tremors.

I kept looking for a time on my schedule where I could just go thru the pain. I finally picked a week starting on 10-9-2010. I used "Head On" headache pain reliever and drank lots and lots of water all day everyday. I ended up not having extreme pain. Just the tunnel vision and the squeezing pressure. It took about 6 days to feel fully normal.

Now I wake up feeling great. The entire day I feel full of energy and focus. I sleep much better at night also. I still would love to drink all the fun coffees and teas, but the caffeine really effects me now that I haven't been drinking it.

I think that its worth skipping the yummy drinks for all day high quality energy.