Today is my first day without coffee since 1975.
After a beautiful 35-year friendship, I am going to try and break it off.
Without dwelling too much on my health issues of late, let’s just leave it that I’ve come to terms with the reality that the painfully strict diet my doctor has prescribed may actually help me. The flip side of this reality is that I can no longer have any of the beverages I like—including coffee, orange juice, milk, sparkling water, beer or wine. I also can’t have 90 percent of the foods I enjoy, which amount to about 95 percent of the foods in existence on the planet. Basically, if it’s acidic, or acid-producing, I can’t have it.
I am on Day 11 of almost total compliance. The final step is the coffee. Luckily, I don’t need to give up caffeine altogether, and I can have limited kinds of tea.
Even so, people battling addictions often say the substance itself is only part of the challenge. It’s the ritual that’s difficult to give up.
I’ve always said I could give up wine before I could give up coffee.
But it’s not about the caffeine. Coffee is my morning companion. I awake to its aroma. A mug of the warm elixir helps me greet the day with hope and enthusiasm. It goes so well with the newspaper.
I ask for your patience. If you see a mistake in the blog, or sense a more subdued tone than normal, please be kind. Remember I’ve just lost my best friend.
Remember there’s no blog tomorrow. I’ll be curled up with the Sunday paper and a steaming mug of hot water. I can’t even have lemon.
Word Nymph 
Very sad.
Perhaps giving up all these foods & beverages won’t have any effect at all on your health and you’ll be able to introduce them back into your diet and thumb your nose at your doctor. Let him/her find a better cure!
Outrageous! (Perhaps I’d better double my own coffee intake just in case I’ll be told to quit at some future point.)
Hang in there!
dear girl, I hope this rights itself and you could then enjoy more than you can presently. i’m the one who should be banned; you were always the ultimate moderate. not fair and i’m pulling for a 360/ at least a 180! they have the non-alcoholic beer and wine, so…..maybe we will learn of or even concoct the non-acidic aroma/taste of that bff on the drawing board to reality. This is not easy. I’ll be pulling for you in the most empathetic of wishes.
You have my sympathy. Living in Hong Kong for 10-plus years, I’ve developed lactose intolerance and gluten intolerance (because of osteoarthritis). That means three-quarters of the food here is out of bounds for me. If that wasn’t bad enough, I spent the last 37 months with crutches (broken pelvis) and a restricted diet. Right now, I’m two sizes down from my normal. I hope that won’t happen to you.
We just got an espresso maker at work about a week ago and I have been thoroughly enjoying it. 2 doubles every morning has certainly become a part of my daily ritual.