Kicking Caffeine

There were cases of it. Flimsy thin cardboard shells holding gleaming blue cans of the drink of the next generation. The first few times 14-year-old me hung out with my friend, I noticed he and his mother kept cases of the stuff on the floor. Never regularly a soda drinker, as my friend and I grew closer, I visited more often and started drinking more and more. Eventually, I got hooked on it.

Throughout my military career (about 22 years), I guzzled the stuff. Some days, between 6-8 cans of soda were not uncommon. I remember in one weekend guzzling four 2 liter bottles of soda. At some point I switched to diet soda, thinking the virtue of cutting out high fructose corn syrup would help. Virtuous or not, rivers of caffeine were still being poured through my system. Energy drinks came later.

Caffeine is America’s most popular drug, and one source says more than half of all American adults consume at least 300 milligrams of caffeine every day, probably through multiple cups of coffee, something I never drank. By my own estimate, I swallowed about 240 mg each day. At six cans a day, at 75 cents a piece (average over time), I’ve probably drank $44,000 worth of soda over 28 years (and that’s a lowball esitmate) and ingested 7 pounds of caffeine.

It probably helped my creative in some ways. Burning midnight oil, rallying to finish up a 3,000 word marathon or an illustration at Oh Dark Thirty. Rushing along to loud music and blazing a trail toward … something! On the other hand, at times when I wasn’t writing, I grew irritable, short-tempered and mean. There were, of course, crashes and insomnia, too, most of which I’d chalk up to drinking too much soda. Staying up all night because it was already 5 a.m. and feeling like crap for the remainder of the day.

So, a few weeks ago, I decided to weed caffeine out .  I stopped buying the 12-pack boxes and bringing them home. I stopped having soda with every meal. It’s taken some time, but I’ve managed to get down to one can per day. I’ve replaced almost all soda with orange juice and water (I still have one can per day until I can fully ween myself away). Further, that “romantic” sort of notion of caffeine helping the process – like the image of the writer hunched over a typewriter with cigarette smoke swirling — is gone. I’m a believer in moderation. So, quitting caffeine is a different path than I’m used to following.

I miss the taste of soda, but not much else about it. I wouldn’t decry coffee, tea, or soda one way or the other, however I do like National Geographic’s take on caffeine and the writer’s use of the phrase “caffeine’s ability to murder sleep.”

So, are you a heavy caffeine user? Something else?

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