The beast has been tamed. I am now virtually caffeine free for the first time in my entire life.
I’ve gone from drinking 6 to 8 canned Pepsi’s a day to just one can with my supper at night.
I decided I’d get serious over the Labor Day weekend and cut myself to near cold turkey levels of my delicious carbonated nectar of the gods. I was sick of dealing with the problems I was having and knew that there was only one way it was going to get better. I could prolong it over the course of weeks or I could jump on it with extreme prejudice.
I chose to attack with extreme prejudice. All the withdrawal stuff I was reading on the internet was probably all from a bunch of pussies anyway. I mean really, how bad could caffeine withdrawal actually be?
I’ll tell you how bad the withdrawals were…I felt like I had the fucking flu. I had muscle aches, headaches, nausea…I was one extraordinarily unhappy Cinlach. All I wanted was a Pepsi…fuck my kidneys, fuck my bladder, and fuck that dumbass Urologist who told me to quit.
As I was to discover, the cosmos does indeed have some sort of perverted sense of humor because as I was coming off caffeine I found myself absolutely and unavoidably surrounded by it.
Let me give a little background…currently my Mom and two brothers are living with Sappy Chick and I, and my brothers drink about the same amount of drinks I used to, possibly more. Between the three of us we’d kick the fucking shit out of a case of Pepsi’s in a damn hurry. Every time Sappy Chick and I went to the store I’d buy three or four 12 packs and Mom would do the same.
Mom went to Publix and Pepsi’s were four for $10 so she picked up four cases. Then she had to go back again and she got four more cases. Sappy Chick and I had already bought four cases that week too (this was before I was told to give them up of course) and we actually had 2 cases of Pepsi’s left from the previous week. So that’s 15 cases of Pepsi total, all sitting in my kitchen in plain view of a recovering addict who’s coming down hard. It was like a fucking mountain of Pepsi products sitting in my kitchen and they looked incredibly inviting everytime I went to get a glass of water.
I am in the throws of a full-on caffeine frenzy and there’s fifteen Pepsi 12 packs in my house. I want a fucking Pepsi more then I can put into words and I can’t have one. My damned kitchen, however, is practically overflowing with the shit. So take it from me, anyone who tells you God doesn’t love a good joke is a lying bastard.
I compared it to something akin to throwing a pound of heroin out on the kitchen table and telling a recovering junkie not to shoot any of it.
I mean, the junkie knows the shit’s bad for him…but he’s a fucking junkie. Junkies will always want what they’re addicted to regardless of the consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, I was a junkie and I wanted those Pepsi’s.
But in the end I managed to hold out, overcome the withdrawal symptoms, and I’ve kicked the caffeine monkey off my back. I sincerely hope the hairy little bastard stumbles out into traffic, gets obliterated by a UPS truck, and then gets worn into a greasy red spot on the highway from passing cars. It’d serve him right for being such a unrepentant little fuckwad.
Something I’ve noticed however is that I never realized how much I fucking adore the taste of Pepsi until I couldn’t have it anymore. I’ve been buying the caffeine-free stuff and it tastes pretty close to the original but I can still tell the difference.
My wife of course cannot believe I can tell the difference but I’m a connoisseur of Pepsi. I’ve been drinking it from morning to night every day for the past 30 plus years and frankly, I know my shit. Try giving a wine lover a glass of cheap wine instead of the good stuff. They’ll spot the difference immediately and so can I. Trust me, it’s just not the same.
But I’m solidly on the wagon and I’m feeling pretty good. My mouth still waters at the sight of a regular Pepsi though and I guess it always will.
All I need to do is just walk by the display without stopping.
