Thinking About: Addiction

Hello, I’m Cyberkitten and I’m an addict.

Or at least I think I am….. But first a bit of background: I have a history of headaches going back as long as I can remember. It seemed that I was always popping pills to relieve one ache or another. I also used to get migraines though thankfully not that often. When I could feel one coming – and I normally had a good few hour’s notice of one building – I’d pop some Paracetamol and hope for the best. Often they had no effect whatsoever and it wasn’t until my Mum was prescribed some heavy duty painkillers that I had access to something that really worked, so you can imagine that I’m not exactly without experience when it comes to headaches and their causes. On days like this – hot and sunny with temperatures in the low to mid 80’s – I mitigate the heat as much as I can and most certainly do not go outside for prolonged periods. Excessive heat (not even taking into consideration the dehydration factor) makes my physically ill with headache to match. Likewise bright lights (big-city?) which is why I always wear peaked caps and in this weather sunglasses if I can. You see after 50+ years you get to know your body and how it reacts to various environments or foods – or at least you should know after that amount of experience.

This is how I clued in the fact that I’m addicted to coke – fortunately the liquid type rather than the powdered variety. It probably started last winter or maybe the one before that. At work we were probably as busy as we’ve ever been and between us we must have been juggling 20+ individual projects all in various stages of completion. It’s the kind of environment where being tired isn’t really an option. Most of the rest of the time lived on tea and coffee but as I drink neither I needed to get my stimulants from somewhere. Part of this was in popping natural stimulants first thing in the morning to give me an early boost. Part of it was abandoning my usual fruit squash for Coke or Pepsi during the working day just to keep my eyes open. Like my hero Susan Ivanova I have trouble getting up in the dark so winters mean increased caffeine intake so that I basically don’t fall asleep at my desk. It worked, though I learnt not to drink the stuff after 6pm if I wanted to have any kind of normal sleep pattern – I did find myself in the habit of taking things in the morning to wake me up as well things at night to help me sleep. I broke myself of that habit as soon as I noticed it.

So where does the addiction come in? Well I noticed some months ago that I often, though by no means always, get headaches of varying intensity at weekends but rarely if ever in the week. So I began to wonder what was different at the weekend compared to week days. For one thing I don’t work at weekends (been there, done that, never again). At weekends I’m often at home most of the time so there’s a lack of fresh air. That might be it, I thought. I also tend to read more at the weekends and wear my glasses less, so it could be eye strain….. Putting it all together I thought that I’d be in serious danger of a number of headaches over Christmas. I had several weeks off work and few plans on leaving the house in below zero temperatures. A perfect scenario for headaches I thought, but after 16 or 18 days I had not developed a single one. None. To say that I was surprised would be an understatement. What, I mused, was different over that extended period than my normal weekend? The only factor that I could think of was that, because I had made an effort to have enough food and drink to sustain me over that festive period I had a cupboard brimming with Coke bottles – so every day I drank at least a litre of Coke. As one more test a few weeks later I purposefully didn’t drink Coke one weekend and waiting to see what would happen. Sure enough a headache began to develop and, instead of reaching for the pill bottle (my preferred choice is now Ibuprofen rather than Paracetamol) I reached for the Coke bottle…… and the headache never fully materialised. It’s possible that I am the victim of coincidence. But I think that the more likely explanation is that I’m addicted to the caffeine in Coke and Pepsi. That’s right, my name’s Cyberkitten and I’m an addict. But I can think of many worse things to be addicted to. Books, Coke and Computer Games – these things I can deal with…. One day at a time…..