Bleh........one of the worse lingering side effects from my pneumonia? Renewal of my caffeine addiction. It's not bad as a vice goes, but I'd given it up largely for my running, my weight, and more importantly to me, because it was an addiction.
I've been seriously hooked since I was two. Dr. Pepper was the drug of choice, but I've often got my fix from tea, coffee, chocolate, what have you. At times, up to 3/4s of my caloric intake consisted of Dr. Pepper. A twelve pack a day was an absolute minimum. (at an extra 150 calories a pop, pardon the pun)
Fortunately for me, I realized what a problem I had, before had to hire help in putting on my pants. I've been for the most part limiting myself to one can a day, with long dry spells when it started to go downhill for years now.
Doesn't sound bad? Try it some time. Bad caffeine withdrawal = three days to a week of severe headache, grumpyness/moodswings, switching between hyper jitters and exhaustion, and in some cases (only once for me) the shakes. After that, on and off energy collapses and mood swings for a couple more weeks. Bleh. It's not cigarettes, and it ain't coming off heroin, but I don't recommend it as a party game either.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I was off clean, hadn't had but a can (and diet at that) a week or so for the last seven, eight months. But when I was "down with the sickness", and I could barely get up, a friend knew I liked Dr. Pepper, and brought some by............whoops. Seemed like such a nice pick-me-up at the time.
A month later, I'm back up to a six pack of the real deal a day. Time to quit. Just one can, very late today, after some nut started beating dents out of the inside of my skull with a hammer. Here we go again...........
Addictions are stupid, no matter what they are.