Caffiend 5/27/2008
My primary caffeine delivery system is soda. I only resort to coffee very occasionally, when I'm particularly exhausted and I have to resort to drastic measures.
Coffee is obviously more efficient, since it's richer in the hyperactive ingredient. Unfortunately, I'm unnaturally sensitive to hot liquids. Freshly brewed coffee has to sit for a long time before I can drink it. Iced coffee is fine, but it winds up being so diluted by water that it's mostly useless. Also, coffee breath is perhaps the foulest oral stank that one can achieve short of a gangrenous tongue.
The problem with soda is, of course, the metric buttload of empty calories in each serving. As I fall rapidly into my mid 30s, my metabolism has finally started to fail me. My midsection is turning into honky pudding, and there's a slab of flesh under my jaw that's threatening to envelop my chin.
For the sake of my health, my wife's visual environment, and my dwindling supply of pants that fit, it's time for me to cut out some of the gratuitous high fructose corn syrup. And don't talk to me about diet soda. If sugar cane could urinate, it would taste exactly like diet soda, and it probably wouldn't linger on the tongue for quite as long.
Difficulty: I'm still in law school. When I was only working full time, I'd almost completely cut out caffeine, but the pressure of law school reawakened my jitterbug in a big way. I'm working over the summer, but classes start again in late August. I can't predict what will happen once I'm back to that grind.
Because you're no doubt curious it's my blog and I'll write about whatever stupid, solipsistic topic I want, I'm going to start tracking my progress as I try to wean myself from the caffeine habit. I'm sure it will be riveting slightly less boring than trimming your own nose hair. Stay tuned.
4 comments:
I wonder. Are addicts of other substances so particular about the delivery mechanism?
"Oh, I desperately need a hit of heroin. But I just can't stand the taste. And there's no way I'm ever going to inject myself. Nope, it's a heroin enema or nothing for me..."
When I was a practicing nicotine addict, I didn't discriminate. I smoked, dipped, chewed, and even used snuff.
Just my opinion, but if you were really addicted to caffeine, you'd probably drink the hot coffee and the piss-flavored diet soda, ignoring the taste and discomfort and simply go for the effect.
Feel free to disagree.
I think the biggest contributor to coffee breath stank is the sugar. Maybe you could re-train yer taste buds to appreciate unsugared coffee, and, even better, to leave out the whitener.
Posolxstvo: I've read about heroin users who are comfortable snorting, but draw the line at cooking and shooting. That resolve usually wanes as their dependence worsens. They get a lot less picky once they're selling blood products for drug money. However, that's purely anecdotal.
And you're right, I don't think I'm actually addicted in the chemical sense. I'm not knocking over liquor stores to buy No-Doze, and I don't get debilitating shakes if I go a day without drinking soda.
It's more that the slight energy buzz makes life a little easier. If I'm dependent at all, it's probably all in my gigantic, malformed head.
Michele Grant I don't know about that. I drink soda all day long without developing debilitating ass-mouth, and there's enough high fructose corn syrup in that to sweeten Lake Erie.
Instead of trying to adapt to black coffee, I'm just going to try to function without regular doses of stimulants. If I start falling asleep at my desk, maybe I'll reconsider.
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