I am an addict.

It will come as no surprise to people who know me when I say that I am completely, horribly, and happily addicted to caffeine. My relationship with the substance began my freshman year in college, and never let go--like so many people in the world, it's what gets me going in the morning, boosts my mood, and makes me a more productive person. The consumption form of choice for me is coffee and espresso, both black. Sugar and milk mar the taste of perfection for me.

I'm not here today to debate the pros and cons of caffeine consumption--let's just say that if I did, I would weigh heavily on the pro side, and have a very difficult time coming up with an unbiased argument. I'm here to simply state that I've had a long history of overdoing it, and a little moderation is required.

I've laughed in my doctor's face when he has suggested getting off of it entirely--armed with some simple facts, he's let it go after I quickly retorted. There's only a casual association of caffeine consumption with high blood pressure, and the medical literature basically states that increased blood pressure is a transient response present in caffeine-naive individuals--simply put, if you're going to drink it, drink it all the time and drink it consistently. My issues with depression kick into high gear during caffeine withdrawal periods. He backed off immediately after hearing that.

My kick-ass espresso machine

My problem is that it's been too much, and not well timed through the day. In the height of my most recent peak with it, I was putting down 12 shots of espresso a day--somewhere between 900 and 1200 milligrams of caffeine, which far exceeds the maximum recommendation of 300-500 milligrams of consumption per day. Even I could not argue with the idea that this was probably contributing to my issues with anxiety, inability to sleep, and generalized grouchiness. In my defense, I had just bought a new espresso machine, and the stuff was delicious.

So, about a year ago, I tapered it down to 6 shots a day, and things got better. Still consuming between 450 and 600 mg of caffeine a day until about a week ago, I continued to have some issues with sleeping, though not nearly as severe as I've had in the past. My most recent look at this was brought about by some of my friends buying me a pound of something called "Death Wish Coffee," which is a brand of coffee made entirely from the Robusta variety of coffee beans, and those beans contain about twice as much caffeine as the more typical Arabica beans. I tried it out one morning, and had two cups of this coffee instead of my usual four shots of espresso--the result was that I did not sleep at all that night.

Tassimo--Creator of the "weak" coffee I drink in the afternoon

My heightened detective skills were put into play to come to the conclusion that my two cups of Death Wish coffee had not been metabolized by my body over the course of 16 hours, and I drew the conclusion that my issues with getting to sleep in general were probably due to having too much caffeine in my system when trying to get to bed.

I've now been one week with dropping down from 6 shots to 5 shots of espresso a day (or sometimes 4 shots of espresso in the morning, and an equivalent "weak" cup of coffee in the afternoon). Sleeping seems to be going better, but the real results won't be in for a while, after I've gotten through the adjustment period and I've seen what the long term effects of the change are.