Chris Clarke recounts the history of his addictions, and his breaking thereof. He's gone through tobacco, alcohol, and now, caffeine. I've never been a victim of the first two, but the latter—hoo boy.

I have never ever smoked. A cigarette has never touched these sweet and supple lips. I've also never tried marijuana, not because I have anything against mild recreational drugs, but solely because the thought of inhaling the fumes from flaming paper-wrapped dried weeds is thoroughly repulsive.

I've always drunk in moderation—a father who struggled to get off the bottle and a grandfather who didn't bother cured me of any temptations. I will have a beer or two in social situations, a small glass of wine now and then, but I never drink for the buzz, and if I'm feeling any effect, I stop drinking, immediately.

But since college I have been a black hole for coffee. I'm a two pot a day man, man. And I don't make it weak, either—I like it velvet black and thick enough to be mistaken for tar. No sugar, no milk, just pure plant alkaloids and water. Mmmmmmm.

In a strange coincidence, though, I took a hard look at my intake last week and decided that anything I was taking to that much excess was probably a very bad idea. So last Saturday I beat Clarke to the punch and I drank my last cup of coffee. I also axed the Coca-Cola (oooh, I'm bad—I'd start the day with coffee, and then around mid-afternoon switch to coke. I'm a caffeine junkie, yes I am.)

When I feel the craving now, I lurch into the kitchen and fix myself a great big glass of ice water. It helps to have that liquid to take the place of the physical correlates of the habit. I've been gulping water down in torrents this week, but strangely enough, haven't noticed much of a change in my excretory patterns. I think the increase in volume has been compensated for by the absence of heavy doses of a diuretic; I'm a little worried that with inflow exceeding outflow, I'm going to develop the consistency of a great bloated jellyfish.

I've cut out caffeine cold turkey, which everyone tells me is just awful with withdrawal headaches, but so far, it hasn't been a problem at all, but then, when I've been off coffee for a week at a time before it hasn't been a problem, either. No headaches, no twitchiness, no lethargy, no changes in my sleeping patterns. I may have a weird caffeine metabolism, since I've always found that coffee steadies me—back when I was doing single cell surgeries on insect embryos, I had to have at least two cups before my hands were steady enough for the work. The absence of withdrawal symptoms makes me wonder if I have to wait for all of the drug to leech out of my super-saturated tissues before I suffer from those problems…in which case, given the quantity I've got in me, I expect 'round about December I'll piss out the last of it, fall asleep, my heart rate will slow to one beat an hour, and the top of my head will blow off.