Undrugged

Many many years ago, I was a nicotine addict. Never very heavy. At most, I smoked about 8 cigarettes a day. Not so much, but man, did I ever enjoy them. Until I didn't anymore, and decided one day to quit. One morning I went out for a smoke break, and when I threw the butt on the ground, I couldn't even remember having smoked it. I tossed the rest of the pack in the garbage on the way back to my cubicle.

The first three days without cigarettes were awful. I was irritable and unpleasant and miserable. So miserable, in fact, that all of the times I have wanted to smoke again, and they have been numerous in the past 10 years, I think of sitting at my desk at my old job and how achingly numbingly awful it felt to be in a body desperately wanting its hit. I do not ever want to be in that position again.

I had my last cup of caffeinated coffee at about 13h30 on Friday, November 23rd. Since, I have been irritable and unpleasant and miserable. The headache started Saturday morning and just faded this afternoon.

I didn't drink a lot of coffee, one or two cups a day, but I *loved* those cups.

A few weeks ago, I started seeing a nutritionist. And a chiropractor. This is what I do when I get sad. I find other people to try to fix things. I'm a little wary of this nutritionist, for various reasons. But he's got some good advice. Nothing revolutionary, nothing I didn't know myself: you need to get more sleep, you need to stop drinking coffee.

Well yes. But it seems to make a big difference that I'm paying this man to tell me to switch to decaf and go to bed at 23h15 instead of 23h30 or midnight. I'm doing it.

And what I will tell you is that if you go off caffeine, going to sleep at 23h15 is a challenge, because what you want to do is go to sleep at oh, 21h35.