I have an addictive personality. I get mentally hooked on things, and have trouble letting go. This explains why I saw every episode of Boston Public, or why I spent ~75 of my Friday nights in 2002/2003 at Greens and Polkers for happy hour and supper. My superstition occasionally crosses over to OCD behavior, and it's grown worse as I get older. Because I know about my tendencies, I work to stay away from anything that's actually physically addictive, because the last thing I need is my body helping my mind convince itself to endulge. The classic example is my relationship with soda.
In elementary school I observed that both my parents were big "pop" drinkers. My mom would take down a Diet Coke or 2 before 8 AM every morning, and my dad constantly sipped on Dr. Pepper, a relic of his Southern roots, like it was going out of business (and he freaked out when it nearly did). I was never allowed to drink real soda, only the diet equivalents, but I'd have a whole lot of whatever we had in the fridge. Because I had no purchasing power as a 10 year old, I couldn't really align myself with any one brand, because I couldn't guarantee that it'd always be around to consume, but I was always a big Sprite guy, when it was cold and available.
By the time I arrived at boarding school, my procrastination methods were practiced as Belichick special teams' play. I'd mess around until 10 or 11, then begin my homework. I discovered that Mountain Dew was not only tasty, but also had loads of caffeine. I'd stay up into the wee hours chugging the Dew and water. My roomate had sleep issues, so I'd study in the dorm's basement, by the boiler room in order to keep the lights on. As I developed tolerance and dependance on thses drinks, it'd take more and more to keep me awake down there, and enough of that stuff in one night would really get me spooked out. I got to a point where I'd regularly put down 10-12 a night, and couldn't stop even when I had light nights work-wise. My teeth felt like they were rotting out, I'd be taking bathroom breaks every 15 minutes, and I'd have horrible headaches the next morning.
By the time lacrosse season rolled around, I was in a real bad place. As a goalie, I didn't have to run around a whole lot, but I needed cat like relexes, and they don't come easily when you're getting 180 hours/month of sleep, mostly on the weekends. Right after the season started, I had the opportunity to go to Italy for my Spring Break that year with my buddy Drew.
Drew was a very healthy athletic friend of mine, who never drank booze and rarely drank any kind of soda. While roaming around Florence one afternoon, I mentioned to Drew that I had this problem getting over caffeine, but that it was more than just that. It was the habit of cracking open a soda, the cold feel of a can in my hand, the fizzle you'd hear, etc. I loved the experience, having grown so used to it, but saw that it was awful for me. Drew said he thought it'd be easy for him to quit, and bet that I could just quit, too. While walking to the Duomo and hiking its stairs that day, we made a bet. We'd see who could go the longest without having any soda products. Diet or regular, caffeinated or otherwise, didn't matter. We didn't bet money, and we didn't put a time limit on the deal. This was simply about self-improvement.
I quickly discovered that there's a lot of times when it's inconvenient not to be a soda drinker. When you're under 21, it's handy to be able to get drinks with free refills at restaurants, but that basically went out the window for me, because only a very few places included lemonade or iced tea on the refill list. Also, at Fenway Park, it seemed downright un-American to have a hot dog in my right hand, but no Coke in my left.
The Final Four that month happened to coincide with a huge snow storm in Boston (literally the most snow the city had ever received in 24 hours). My Milton friends gathered to watch at a Houlihan's/Chili's/AppleBee's type place right as it started coming down. As we looked out the window and saw that we might be stuck in this place over night, we all decided to enjoy a huge dessert and then roll the dice on driving home. Drew and I mutually agreed to temporarily suspend the bet and enjoy some root beer floats. As a result, these days, when I'm offered a soda at a catered business lunch or from a friend's fridge, I often respond with, "No thanks. Haven't had one since March 31st, 1997."
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