Shoot me. Shoot me dead. Of all the bright ideas that I have who would have thought that one of the seemingly most innocuous would be one of the most painful and mentally challenging?

I am trying to stop consuming caffeine.

Caffeine the most popular drug in the world. You can find caffeine in a variety of foods and beverages, even medications and nutritional supplements. And I’m trying to not use it by going cold-turkey. Ouch. The bad thing is that I love beverages with caffeine. I used to down two pots of coffee a day. On top of that I used to drink Diet-Pepsi like crazy. Water? What is this water of which you speak?

They say that as soon as you try to kick the caffeine habit you’ll be liable to experience symptoms such as headaches, irritability and nausea. Hmmm…let’s see. Over the past few days I’ve been experiencing fairly bad headaches, Angela wants to kill me because I’m irritable and, yes, I feel somewhat oogy.

Why am I doing this? Oddly enough, I read in the July issue of FHM Magazine a few facts about caffeine that made me cringe:

• Your body absorbs caffeine and it reaches peak levels within 45 minutes.
• It raises your heartrate by as much as 14%
• It takes days to decaffeinate the bloodstream
• It takes 4-6 hours for your liver to metabolize half of the caffeine you consumed
• Caffeine stimulates the quick accelleration of dopamine. Once it is depleted your body immediately craves more.

This blows. In fact, I think it is starting to make me hallucinate.  In the middle of the night I woke up screaming that something was on fire. Sure did freak out Angela. I miss the fizziness of a cola and how cold and refreshing it is when it goes down. I really would enjoy a cup of coffee. At this point, I even look forward to some chocolate. Bah. After this caffeine habit I’m going to try to kick or at least limit something else in my diet.  Anyone want to suggest anything? Sugar? Carbs? Food?!