On Tuesday, I very unwisely made a confession to a couple of friends.

This confession went, “Yeah, I usually drink about three… four? five? cups of coffee a day.”

They were thunderstruck. Three cups of coffee? As in, three cups of coffee? A day?! They really were horrified. They told me that, if I cared for my health at all, I should reduce the amount of coffee I drank each day right now. (In fact, coffee actually has health benefits, but I didn’t have the evidence on hand at the time to argue my case.) Preferably to zero, like them.

Well, I wasn’t quite prepared to do that. However, the next morning I woke up late, and simply didn’t have the time to make a cup of coffee. By period five, I was really regretting this. I was trying to study globalisation, I really was, but it was simply impossible. The headache was too strong, the exhaustion too overpowering. Finally I complained to these friends: “I didn’t have my coffee this morning.”

“Whoooo!!” cried one. “Well done, Jess, you’re well on your way to recovery!”

I couldn’t quite be so optimistic. When I got home, I made a cup of coffee almost immediately. My headache cleared up. I was still extremely tired — or at least, that was my excuse as to why I wasn’t studying — but the headache was gone. So I didn’t drink another. Over that whole day, I only had the one cup of coffee.

The next morning, Thursday morning, I told my friends of my achievement. “Round of applause for Jess!” they cried. “You’re going to beat that addiction in no time!”

My Psych teacher looked up from her laptop, alarmed. “Jess! You’re addicted to something?”

“Coffee,” I answered.

“Oh, pfft,” she said. “You know the other day, I was supposed to be teaching my year nines not to drink coffee, and I was thinking the whole time, ‘But I just had one. At recess.’ Isn’t that a bit hypocritical?”

“You should give it up too,” my friends informed her.

On that Thursday, I had only two cups of coffee. I was going to have only one, but the first one was so substandard (instant Nescafé crap with no milk) that I couldn’t bring myself to call that my coffee for the day. I could hardly even call it coffee! So, I had two.

Today, I’ve had none. None as in “not one”. As in “not a single cup”. I’ve had several cups of tea instead, but my head is not thanking me for this small mercy. It’s pounding. I’m thinking I should have a cup of coffee to try and fix it (protecting myself from Alzheimer’s in the process!), but, well, it’s almost 9pm. It’s getting a bit late to drink caffeinated beverages tonight.

On the other hand, I have a headache, I haven’t had coffee all day, and I don’t want Alzheimer’s. I don’t think this is going to be a really difficult decision to make.