Sippable vices

One month and one day ago, I said good-bye to a longtime friend, a friend who was never more than an arm's reach away, a friend who assisted me on a daily basis, a friend who pumped lifeblood into me. I said good-bye to coffee.

A full week before I said adios to the java, I parted ways with Diet Coke (and any soda for that matter). The soda thing was based on the possibility that artificial sweeteners and bubbly stuff might be damaging my body in some way. The only bubbly I've had since then was when I had some Alka-Seltzer this morning.

The coffee thing was about the caffeine and its dehydrating effect ... which may be a source of some pain issues I have.

Where I grew up in west Texas, the tap water was fairly impossible to drink. I think this is where my penchant for consuming non-water tasty drinks got started.

I started drinking coffee in an addictive kind of way when I lived in Colorado. It was pretty cold in the Rockies, but coffee kept me a little warmer on the inside. I continued drinking coffee when I moved to Hong Kong, then to China. Even when I couldn't get coffee, my parents mailed it to me. Then when Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts came to China, I was able to buy my own coffee beans (even though it cost twice the price for half as much coffee).

I started drinking Cokes in China when I realized it was probably much cleaner than the water. I drank a lot of Cokes in the early years. I could boil water, but there would be so much sand at the bottom of the kettle that heat could not eradicate, that it just didn't feel like a wise decision to consume it. Later, Diet Cokes and then Coke Zero arrived on the scene. Bottled water in big dispensers also arrived, but rumors persisted about the cleanliness of its source. Carrying sodas up five flights of stairs was not easy, but since it had to be done whether it was water or soda, and the price was about the same, I went with the tasty option (soda).

In the past month, I drank more water than I have ever before in my life. I should feel extraordinarily healthy -- right? -- but for some reason I feel just the same. What's up with that? I'll give this experiment a little longer, maybe until the end of the year. If I don't detect health benefits by then, I might re-unite with my steaming little coffee beans. I think I will permanently forego the sodas though (which I don't miss).

P.S. I had several weeks' worth of caffeine withdrawal headaches in the past month, in case you were wondering.