Dependant Personality

I'm in the midst of a personal crisis: My iced coffee doesn't taste good.

There's nothing wrong with the coffee, it's the tried-and-true Dunkin' Donuts blend, no, I think it's me.

I used to be addicted to the stuff, a heavy drinker, six cups a week, or ten smalls (because the paper cups are better for the environment). And it did become a problem - not the expense, not coffee breath, nothing like that. It was a problem because I am apparently accutely susceptible to caffeine dependence.

Drinking coffee wasn't the problem. Stopping was.

It got so bad that if I missed a day without coffee a migraine would set in turning my formerly caffeine-saturated brain into a head-sized Io, on of Jupiter's small moons, breaking apart and erupting molten material from the inner core due to intense tidal forces brought on by the gas giant's gravitational pull.

I recognized that I had to cut back, way back. So I did. It wasn't easy. Friends and family sometimes refer to this stretch of my life as "the lost period." The first few weeks were spent just surviving crash after crash after crash, like trying to coax a day or two, just a few more hours out of that college laptop from Gateway running Windows ME so you could try and back up your research papers and mp3s to an external hard drive.

After that it got harder, I would snap at people, cursing and sniping and being generally unpleasant, disagreeable, and mean.

But I made it through. I stopped drinking coffee almost altogether. I was a new man. My average heart rate dropped by ten beats per minute. My hands stopped shaking. My eyes changed color from hazelnut back to blue. I vowed to never fall into the trap again.

Now, years later, I do still imbibe in the occassional caffeinated beverage. But now I have limits. I have become much more of a social drinker. If I'm out with friends I will let myself enjoy a coffee. Never two in one night, never more than three in an eight day span. I never order a large, and only order a medium if I'm eating something solid with it.

Lately, though, things have been sliding a little. The new job starts earlier but I haven't adjusted my schedule yet. It means earlier mornings and late nights, which means I'm not fully awake in the mornings. I made the mistake of turning to caffeine.

I swore I wouldn't. That I didn't need it. That I wouldn't use caffeine as a wake-up. But I did. And now I sit here, with my iced coffee in hand, tasting bitterness, cream, and unflavored, watered-down coffee.

It's horrible.

I need to get back to where I was. Back to where I can appreciate coffee. Because if I keep drinking it I'm going to descend into pandemonium, and if I ever want to come back out it will mean migraines, and volcanoes, anger, furious anger.

This is a cry for help. Somebody stop me.
-t

recommended downloads:
The Ike Reilly Assassination, Heroin
The Velvet Underground, Heroin
The Dandy Warhols, I Never Thought You'd Be A Junkie (Because Heroin Is So Passe)