Coke Rehab

Hello, my name is Tenor Dad, and I am a Coke-oholic.  I am here today to report on my progress in self-imposed Coke rehab, and today is not a good day for me.  But before I get into that, let me tell you the story of how I got into this mess in the first place.

I grew up in Vermont, and even though it is a small state, Coke use was still rampant.  I don’t remember how old I was when I tried my first Coke, but I was pretty young.  That being said, I was a very casual Coke user, mostly having it only at McDonald’s or at parties.  My real problem started in college.

The actual problem in college was that my university did not serve Coke.  They were a Pepsi-only campus, and there was no Coke to be found.  Normally that wouldn’t have bothered me, because at the time I could not tell the two apart and I was not a big soda drinker anyway.  The problem was, that for reasons both financial and diabolical, my wonderful institute of learning decided to do away with traditional dining halls and replace them with fast food restaurants.  When I went to the “cafeteria” I was met with choices of Burger King, Taco Bell, Chick-Fil-A, and more.  These places did not serve cranberry juice, let me tell you.  The only choice was soda, Pepsi to be exact.  And so, every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I drank Pepsi.

I hated it.  I was sick of it.  I didn’t want to drink soda all day, but I was young and had a good metabolism, so it didn’t bother me too much.  But slowly and very surely, over the years I became addicted to the caffeine.  When I graduated from college and left the university, I still hated everything about Pepsi, but I also needed my caffeine and I had become accustomed to soda at every meal, so there was only one choice.  The sweet sweet nectar of the gods that is Coca-Cola.

Now, I know what some of you are saying.  Why not drink coffee like normal people?  And I say to you, coffee tastes like I am eating a forest fire.  I have no desire to pour black death into my throat thank you very much.  Even the smell of coffee is disgusting to me, although since I have very little sense of smell I get by okay, even in a Starbucks.

So now I am out of college, addicted to Coke, but many years pass and suddenly my metabolism decides to make me fatter, and years of soda drinking slam my reflux into high gear, and I know that I need to quit.  But I don’t.  I can’t.  My wife and I decided to do one of those cleanses about 6 or 7 years ago, where we reduced our diet to basically brown rice and some other gross stuff, and it was supposed to last 2 weeks.  I think I made it a day and a half before I was balled up on the couch moaning and holding my head.  My wife just handed me a Coke, and almost instantly I was restored.  End of cleanse, beginning of sadness.

Now I have decided to wean myself off of Coke for good.  I know it is delicious, and has been inspirational to me, but I refuse to let this soft drink control my life.  My latest attempt has been to try and only have one Coke a day.  In my prime I would often have 6-8 a day (more if it was the Superbowl), but lately I have been drinking probably 1-4 a day, depending on the day and whether or not I am somewhere with free refills.  But I figure if I can have only one a day for a week or two, then I can start to skip days, and eventually give it up altogether and just drink water.

Three days ago I had one Coke at lunch, went to work at the pizza place, and only drank water all night.  I woke up feeling good.  This is not so bad, I told myself, and so two days ago, I also drank only one Coke at lunch, went to work, and drank water.  Yesterday I woke up with a headache.  Not a terrible one, but it wouldn’t seem to go away all morning.  At lunch, I had a Coke and the headache disappeared.  Then I worked again last night and once again drank only water.

Today I want to die.  I have taken my migraine medicine, I have lain on the couch moaning, nothing is working.  So I just opened a Coke.  I feel a little guilty about it, but maybe my mother-in-law has the right idea.  She says I should spread my Coke drinking out throughout the day like normal, but just drink less.  So I could drink half a Coke at lunch and half at dinner, and that way maybe I could get to the point where I am just having a sip here and there.  I hope that works, cause I am not going to make it through today otherwise.  Daddy needs his medicines.

Thanks for your support.