Give Caffeine The Ax – A Public Declaration

November 7, 2007 · Filed Under , · 12 Comments 

I was tagged by Brip Blap on his noble cause of doing a public declaration on a goal that you always wanted to accomplish. I really like this idea and have been giving it some thought lately. Finally, it hit me like a ton of coffee beans, I want to get off my caffeine addiction by the end of the year. Coffee is my drug of choice, and boy am I an addict. I wake every morning and make a fresh pot that I enjoy throughout the morning. I rationalize my addiction by saying to myself I only drink 2 cups a day, problem is, my actual coffee mug is HUGE, it is equivalent to 2 regular sized coffee cups. That means I am drinking 4 cups of coffee a morning, sometimes more. Yikes! The glass mug on the left is what I use and the mug on the right is a normal sized coffee cup.

My Coffee Cups

Here are the main 2 reasons I want to get off my dependency to caffeine:

  • Caffeine Affects My Personality. If I don’t get my coffee in the morning, I have been known to be grouchy and mean spirited. My wife will drive me through a Starbucks if we are away from home because she can’t deal with me “caffeine-free”. I also often get a headache if I don’t get my morning coffee fix.
  • Health Reasons. Caffeine dehydrates me, affects my nervous system, keeps me up if I drink coffee after 5 pm, makes me jittery, increases my blood pressure, and makes me restless. Enough said.

How am I going to get off my dependency to caffeine by the end of 2007:

  1. Going cold turkey won’t work for me or my wife! I know it would fail. So, I am going to start by mixing regular coffee with decaffienated coffee at a rate of 3 to 1. Meaning my coffee will be 75% regular, 25% decaf.
  2. No more super-sizing! I am going to start using our regular sized coffee cups to try and trick my brain into thinking I am getting enough coffee. I am going to limit myself to 3 cups per day to start.

I will let you know next week how this is going. Wish me luck. If my posts become full of anger you will know it ain’t going so well!

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Comments

12 Responses to “Give Caffeine The Ax – A Public Declaration”

  1. Mrs. Micah on November 7th, 2007 4:24 am

    Good luck, Kyle! :) I did this a few years back and it worked out pretty well.

  2. Jenny on November 7th, 2007 6:11 am

    Good for you! I won’t give up my one cup of sugar free hot chocolate/instant coffee mix each morning. But, I think one cup of caffeine is alright for me.
    Are you planning on cutting it out forever or just getting over the addiction hump? I know what you mean about the morning grouchies. If we’re out of town I make Hubby drive thru a McDonalds for a coffee or I order it when we eat out.

  3. Kyle on November 7th, 2007 7:03 am

    Thanks guys – my plan is to have cut back to 75% decaf and 25% regular mix and only 2 normal sized cups per day. I need that small pick me up in the mornings, just not the jolt I am getting now. I will be starting tomorrow morning, I have to pick up some decaf today :-)

  4. Swamproot on November 7th, 2007 2:34 pm

    Good Luck with your goal. But personally I have resisted any and all attempts for me to reduce my coffee intake. I don’t think I am an addict though. I regularly do without it so it doesn’t lose it’s effect when I most need it. I would hate to develop a tolerance.

    Cause if there is one thing a computer programmer on a deadline needs, it is achieving the intensely productive, nirvana-like state of consciousness that I like to call hyper-caffeination. Of course, I am an SOB to be around, but that’s why I work with computers anyway.

    Plus, it keeps the pipes unclogged if you know what I mean. :-)

  5. FourPillars on November 7th, 2007 5:56 pm

    Funny post, I switched to tea a couple of years ago. Apparently it has less caffeine.

    Mike

  6. Peggy on November 7th, 2007 8:53 pm

    I absolutely love your goal here. Makes me laugh… I guess because I went cold turkey every time I was pregnant… you’ll get over the grouchiness and headache after about 3 days. The other funny thing to me is that it reminded me of one of my best memories… When my grandpa was in his late 90’s or early 100’s (lived to 104 1/2) I remember him saying about my grandma who never drank coffee… that she “saved him a lot of money all those years.” He always drank it, and she brewed it for him!! lol.. They were married a total of 61 years… Add that up… Starbucks lovers. lol.

  7. Kyle on November 8th, 2007 9:17 am

    Peggy, wow, 104! That is amazing!

    My wife did the same as you all 3 times she got pregnant, with wine too. If she can do it, so can I! My morning mix this morning w/ 25% decaf has not had any noticable effects, yet….

  8. Brip Blap on November 8th, 2007 1:08 pm

    Kyle, that’s a great declaration – and achievable, for sure. I gave up soda a few years ago, which was my caffeine of choice. Like Peggy said, for a few days there’s a little bit of a decaffeination headache, but that’s it. I found myself slipping back more and more into coffee drinking a few months ago (for a couple of years I was drinking tea, and mostly green tea at that). I don’t think there’s much wrong with drinking black coffee (as opposed to sweetened-milk-laden coffee) although it does stain the teeth eventually, and we all know about coffee-breath.

    At the same time, any time you put yourself in a situation where you NEED a substance, you need to reduce your intake a bit just to avoid that dependency – food, cigarettes, alcohol, etc. etc. I am back at the point now where I can take or leave a cup of coffee in the morning. A few months ago I NEEDED it. But sometimes it’s nice on a chilly morning, and sometimes I like an afternoon espresso. I can go for a while without one, though, which was always my goal. I do get plenty of caffeine from tea, probably, but it seems much less habit-forming than coffee, for some reason.

    Good one! You’ll do great – you seem to have a well-thought plan. I think you’ll find that just being freed of worrying about getting that first cup is a pretty nice feeling, regardless of any other benefits from lowering caffeine intake.

  9. Amy on November 8th, 2007 2:29 pm

    Wow! That is hard core! I can’t imagine giving up my caffeine fix. Good for you for making the effort and I hope you don’t get the shakes like I get when I can’t have my coffee- hee, hee ;)

  10. Kyle on November 8th, 2007 2:35 pm

    Shhaakkess….whaaayttss ssssshaskees?/??

  11. Kyle on November 8th, 2007 2:48 pm

    But seriously, thanks Amy and Brip Blap for the encouragment! BB, you nailed it for me, I hate when I am not at home and I have to think about where I am going to get my morning fix. I think if I could get to a mix of 75% decaf and 25% caffeinated I would be OK w/o it completely for days at a time if need be. I really do enjoy the taste and SMELL of coffee so I don’t plan on giving up coffee. Just the dependency on caffeine.

  12. Andrew on November 9th, 2007 11:48 am

    Good luck to ya, Kyle. I totally feel your pain. I must go through 3 larger-than-normal mugs a day myself. That’s just the morning. Gets worse around the holidays when work really piles up and sleep dwindles down though. Especially when you have a 2 year old who’s not even close to sleeping through the night… Yeah, i just talked myself out of joining you on your caffeine-free crusade. Heh. But keep us posted!

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