I Gave Up Coffee For a Month

I committed a mega-mom-atrocity and gave up coffee for one month.

Giving up my morning fix of caffeine, mixed with creamy sweetness, made me realize I need a minor vice to methodically dip into to avoid drowning in juicier vices.

I abandoned coffee for a month because I needed to know I was capable of doing it.

I had been drinking one cup of coffee every day for nine years when I began waking up at 2:00 a.m. with mental cold sweats and the word “addiction” floating in my mind. I like coffee, but I like control more, so I decided I would will myself to give it up — for 30 days.

Cold turkey was my modus operandi, and it made me a cranky serial curser. Everything enraged me my first coffee-less week, and I had a pounding headache so powerful I was convinced my eye balls might pop out of my head.

My mental cold sweats over addiction turned in to actual cold sweats as my body released its final reserves of caffeine.