A Different Kind of Monkey

Friday, April 13, 2007

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

A Different Kind of Monkey

By J’AMY PACHECO

Google the word “addiction,” and you’ll get more than 47 million items addressing the subject.

Addiction, as you probably know, is the psychological and/or physiological need for a habit-forming substance. Alcohol, drugs, nicotine – all of these are habit-forming substances that cause well-documented addiction in people every day.

Fortunately, drugs have never been a problem for me. The worst thing I’ve ever taken was a pain reliever prescribed by a dentist after I had a root canal. Just one of those babies made me loopy enough to convince me that drugs were never going to be on my list of things on which to blow my paycheck.

Alcohol is fattening enough that I don’t think it will ever be a problem for me, either. It was, however, the catalyst for my only bona fide experience with cigarettes.

I had a brief exposure to cigarettes when an adult male responded affirmatively to my request to taste the cigarette he was smoking. He handed it to me, I took a puff, and thought I was going to die. I still remember running to the sink to get water with which to put out the fire in my throat.

I was four. Nobody can say I didn’t get to experience the 60s.

The experience was enough to get me through high school without ever being tempted to light up, even though my high school had a student smoking area. Hard to believe, I know. I hated it so much that I held my breath as I passed the big hazy dirt square every afternoon on the way to gym class.

There was, however, one Fourth of July when a pal of mine convinced me that I couldn’t be considered a “real” writer until I learned to smoke.

I should point out that my pal was a smoker, and that we’d consumed a few margaritas when she made that statement. At the time, her argument made sense so we sat on my porch for hours, smoking cigarette after cigarette.

She may have been right, because here you are, reading my words. But the next morning, I was so grossed out by the butts on my porch and the taste on my tongue that I’ve never been tempted to try it again.

Unfortunately, a new addiction stepped in shortly after from a source I never expected – a soda can.

I don’t know when or why I started drinking diet cola. Frankly, I don’t know how anybody gets started on the stuff, because the taste is awful – until you get used to it. Sort of like cigarettes, I imagine.

But eventually, I became addicted to a particular brand of diet cola. At first, I’d just order it when I was at a restaurant. I rarely kept any at home.

When I became pregnant with my daughter, I stopped drinking diet cola completely. I knew whatever chemicals it contained couldn’t be good for the baby.

I stayed off the stuff for quite a while, but started up again when I was no longer a nursing mommy. Even though post-pregnancy I thought the taste was terrible, I started again.

Now, 11 years later, I crave the stuff as soon as I wake up in the morning. When I let my cravings control my intake, I have numb fingers and a jumpy heart by early evening. I know it’s time to quit.

I tried to free myself from the diet cola monkey a few weeks ago, cold turkey. By the second day, my head ached so badly that I gave in and might even have taken one of those root canal pills to get rid of it, if I hadn’t flushed them. Instead, I went to the fridge and opened a bottle of liquid relief. A plastic bottle, I hastily add.

A friend suggested I try mixing regular diet cola with decaffeinated, gradually increasing the amount of decaf until I was able to kick caffeine. Sort of like methadone for cola-holics. I liked that idea, until I realized the aspartame in diet cola is probably as addictive as the caffeine.

Now I’m at the point where I have to kick the habit. Next week, I’m chaperoning a weeklong elementary school trip to a seaside science camp where soda is prohibited. I’ll be hours away from home, in charge of one cabin and nine little girls, and I’ll have to do it without any caffeine, aspartame or root canal medication. Just thinking about it makes my head hurt.

So I’m back on the cold-turkey wagon, hoping it gets me to diet cola freedom before I get on the bus Monday morning.

It’s enough to drive a person to drink. But I guess that would lead to a whole new problem…