stop drinking coffee

I’m on the verge of giving up this goal… I don’t think it’s realistic for me not to drink coffee, even though I think it’s bad for me. As far as addictions go, caffeine is a relatively harmless one.

I go to bed too late every day and wake up too early. I need to be awake and alert for class.

I mean, I would like to stop drinking coffee, but I just honestly don’t see it happening, anytime in the near future OR the distant future. But for now I’ll keep this goal and perhaps I’ll have a moment of inspiration/motivation and give it up.

For a while I’d kicked coffee altogether except this quarter’s been rough. I feel like I’m not getting enough sleep and I’ve turned to coffee once again. Luckily I haven’t been having the same bad effects… still, I want to try to kick it again.

So, I’m on my way to kicking out caffeinated beverages altogether by substituting tea!! Well, yes, I’m drinking tea with caffeine (my preferred is a cup of Tazo Joy tea in the morning which is a blend of Black and Green which both have natural caffeine) but the caffeine in tea is nowhere near the amount in coffee.

The main difference is, I haven’t had a panic attack in a while. The last time was one week ago, which was, I think, the 2nd day having only caffeine from tea. The whole day I was really nervy, having waves of mild to moderate panic attacks. I think it was a bad combination of withdrawl symptoms (because I would normally have 2-3 shots a day), lack of sleep, and a certain time of month ending (for some reason the last 2 days or so give me just as much hell as the week before it starts). Anyway, that day was really, really bad, I was even having occasional heart palpitations all day. I mean I would get heart palpitations before (comes with being an extremely anxious person) but nothing like that. Since that day though, I’ve been feeling good. More energized, I think.

The next step is to ween myself off of excessive caffeine through tea. I have one cup in the morning but then I also have a habit of having a cup of tea in the afternoon (like, a starbucks London Fog Tea Latte during lunch, or another cup of joy tea when I get home) and even that amount of caffeine is sometimes enough to keep me up at night.

On kind of a tangent, this is the reason that I keep myself away from ANYTHING that could become addictive. I have an addictive personality. I mean, there are a MILLION other reasons that I am extremely anti tobacco, alcohol and drugs, but that’s one personal reason why I will never smoke even one cigarette, drink even one beer, or do one joint of marijuana. It’s bad enough just being addicted to caffeine.

When I have too much coffee or caffeine I usually feel very sick.

It causes panic attacks (yes, actual panic attacks. They’re very unpleasant and scary and you feel like you’re having a heart attack and can’t breathe), or even if I don’t get a panic attack, I feel anxious all over and get cold sweats and way too over-energized.

I find that I’m more agressive when I drive caffeinated.

It stays in my system for hours and hours and if I have any caffeine past noon I can’t get to sleep at night.

I’m jittery when I don’t get it and get awful headaches and I’m grumpy to everyone.

Clearly this isn’t healthy for me but why do I do it? Because I get into cycles where I stay up extremely late, then have to wake up early for class, and then I pour myself coffee into one of those 16oz paper cups and drink it in the car in the half hour it takes to get to school. I get into cycles where coffee is the only thing that energizes me.

I just need to keep in mind how unhealthy it is for me, how sensitive I am to it, what it does to my body system and maybe I can motivate myself to quit. I’m probably the most anti-drug person there is; I’m suspicious of medicine, and even though I’m 19 I’ve never drank alcohol, smoked cigarettes, or done drugs. Yet, I drink coffee…