Mine is coffee. As of today, my coffee drinking days are over. I’ve had been drinking coffee for what feels like 14 some odd years. I used to have, on average, 2 ~ 4 mugs and on some days where I just pushed myself, 6 mugs. I would always have my coffee coupled with powdered creamer because I can never drink coffee straight.
However and for the past 4 years now, I’ve been noticing some health issues with it both mentally and physically. Mentally, I’ve noticed my anxiety is driven up the wall after having had coffee. Physically, I could not stop going to the bathroom to piss, for coffee accelerates your need to go to the bathroom since it is also a laxative.
And also in turn, kept interrupting my naps and times where I had a nice string of hours to sleep to. A few weeks back, I had thought that it was maybe the usual caffeine-based coffee grounds that was causing it. So I discarded them. I went to Decaf because I felt I wasn’t just ready to discard coffee entirely. But since the same stuff is happening again with even Decaf, even when trying to be more moderate about my intake, I’ve officially tapped out.
I’m going to miss it, all the times where when I was in a place of solitude and a nice warm mug of joe added to the feeling, helped make things feel right. And all the times when coffee actually did help me, but I guess I just over-indulged and spoiled badly what was.
Unhealthy eating. I’m down 50 pounds and my liver and kidneys are doing much better.
Masking; I dropped my facade in October and have been working on finding my true self.
EDIT: Multiple people asked me to clarify that OC may be speaking to neurodivergent/autistic masking rather than COVID masking.
Wearing a respirator (not a cloth/surgical mask) in public is my true self. The self who takes airborne diseases, my health, and more importantly the health of others seriously. The self who knows that COVID-19 & long COVID aren’t over and that measles is back thanks to anti-vaxxers and prohibitively expensive healthcare. The one who still follows Violet Blue’s weekly updates.
I’m pretty sure they weren’t talking about masks in the medical sense, so this is honestly a really inappropriate response.
Most likely OC is talking about surgical/medical masks, which are inadequate for COVID-19, though better than nothing.
- https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/commentary-wear-respirator-not-cloth-or-surgical-mask-protect-against-respiratory-viruses
- https://peoplescdc.org/2023/11/01/peoples-cdc-public-comment-on-hicpac/
- https://peoplescdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Layers-of-Protection.pdf
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8552225/
Smoking. Smoked a pack a day for 14 years. Been smoke free for over 20 years now.
Drinking soda. I drank it pretty much to the exclusion of all else for decades, it helped ruin my teeth and probably contributed to my developing diabetes at age 50. How it happened was kinda weird, one day I just felt like drinking something else, got some sweet tea at a restaurant or something, and it tasted great without being syrupy or too sweet and just perfectly hit the spot. That day I bought a tea maker and by the end of the week I poured out what was left of my soda stash and never looked back. Once in a great while I’ll have a craving for Barq’s root beer or something, but it’s all soooo gassy and syrupy.
Also quit smoking 2 years ago.
Gosh, I’m a little jealous. My soda addiction has got a right hold on me. Specifically Barq’s root beer lol. I’m trying to wean myself off slowly by cutting caffeine first and then hopefully transitioning to the less sugar sodas and then off soda entirely.
But hey, I’m happy for you, that’s excellent!
I wouldn’t really say I was addicted to soda, I just don’t like the taste of water and soda was kinda the only alternative that I liked until my body decided ‘nah fuck it, let’s do something different’ on me.
And yeah I drank mostly Mt Dew, so the super sugary/caffeine-loaded stuff. Blech. I can still drink it, but only in small quantities, vs where I was before, going through 4 2L bottles a week of the stuff.
Weed. Had to quit for an extended family holiday. I’ve had t-breaks like that a dozen times or so over the past 20 years, but was otherwise smoking daily. When I got home last September, I smoked a couple of bowls I had left behind and then just… stopped.
I don’t really have much to say about it. I don’t feel significantly clearer-headed or motivated. No profound physiological impact. Same as when I took breaks from it, had super weird and vivid dreams for a short while after stopping.
I’ll partake when I’m offered a doobie at a party, but I probably won’t go back to my old habits.
I think the reason I stopped is because I started taking (non-stimulant) ADHD meds a couple years back and the increase in dopamine made me just not feel like it anymore.
