The decaffeinated life

About a month ago my doctor told me that I needed to get off of caffeine.  I tried to suggest that I go half and half with my coffee for a while but he said “nah, just do it.”  So I did.  Aside from the headache on day one and the sense that I was dragging for much of the week after that it hasn’t been so bad.  I wasn’t one of those people who had coffee all the time but I really enjoyed my cup of coffee in the morning and a couple more throughout the day as well as a can (or two) of pop (or soda, depending on where you’re from).  So, aside from missing the drug I was also missing the taste and the comfort of drinking the coffee in the morning – I enjoyed sitting in my family room on Saturday morning before anyone else in the house was up, watching a DVD and drinking a good cup – or two – of coffee.  Two years ago (I think) I decided that I would try “expensive” coffee and started buying Starbucks.  It was good.  It was very good.  But that particular pleasure is lost to me now.  Decaf just isn’t the same.

It hasn’t been easy though.  One week after starting on my new lifestyle I was in St Louis for a conference and the hotel had a Starbucks right in the lobby!  I was mostly startled, though, to find that, in many food establishments, if you want a caffeine free drink you’re stuck with something clear – a 7-Up type drink.  I’m not a huge fan of 7-Up.  I don’t hate it – how can anyone hate that stuff, there just isn’t enough there to hate.  But I don’t really want to pay for it.  So I’ve been disappointed to find that some of the excellent caffeine-free soft-drinks (Caffeine-free Dr Pepper and Mug Root Beer, for example) tend not to be available at many fast food places.  But I’m not going to go on a decaf crusade.  I don’t want to be that guy.

So, my energy level is back up, my stomach feels a LOT better and I now have the moral high ground with those of you still addicted to that terrible substance.  But I promise not to be a zealot and try to decaffeinate my friends.