Mar 22, 2008 12:32
About twelve months ago I gave up caffeine-along with all other fluids besides water. This followed a caffeine addiction I’d had since 2001, wherein I’d consume between one half and two bottles of Red Eye a day. Red Eye, for the record, has 106mg of caffeine per 330ml bottle.
The Red Eye was causing all kinds of problems. The sugar was not helping my weight, plus Red Eye is a diuretic and was giving me heart palpitations, which were painful and made it hard to sleep.
Coming off the Red Eye took months of pain. Fierce withdrawal, headaches, mood swings, lethargy, cravings and depression.
Yesterday my mother was sick, so I went to the corner store to get her some lemonade. There was Red Eye there.
I, tragically, stood there with tears in my eyes and was practically sobbing the whole way home.
Today, I have fallen off the bandwagon. There is a Red Eye beside me and I am drinking it.
I am not proud of this. I feel like I should start attending AA meetings, but right now, with this bottle in my hand, I don’t WANT to give it up again. I WANT it back in my life and GOD DAMN I am ashamed of myself.
Red Eye wrote ‘I, Aratika’. It wrote ‘Lunatic Calm’ too. It went to all my classes for me in college. It got me up, dressed, showered and fed most days between 2001 and 2006. It’s a crutch, but god damnnit, it makes things easier.
Writers are often obsessive people. Everyone who knows me well would put ‘obsessive’ somewhere near the top of a list of adjectives describing me. A lot of writers seem to have addictive personalities and God knows I’m genetically inclined toward addiction (Smoking and drinking killed my grandfather on my father’s side and if addiction doesn’t kill all his children it’ll be shock that kills me).
As far as vices go, caffeine isn’t that bad. I don’t want to hazard a guess how many people wouldn’t live without their coffee. It is an addiction though and it is Bad For You.
I really failed myself today.
Not because I slipped by because I have no intention of pulling myself out of this nose dive.
I will write my novel faster though.
writing: life: bad days