Self-Awareness Essay On Coffee And Drinking Coffee

For this self-awareness paper, we were required to give up an addictive behaviour or habit for three weeks. I hope to think that I do not have many addictive habits or behaviours, and therefore it was difficult for me to decide what to give up. An addictive behaviour can be hard to define, however they often increase as time goes on, lead to an inability to stop even if one is motivated to do so, lead to a discontinuation of other activities in favor of the behaviour, and often times are difficult to stop even though they cause harm. Sometimes withdrawal and tolerance are also present (Moss & Dyer, 2010). None of my behaviour really qualify for this, however keeping this definition in mind I decided I should try to give up drinking coffee. Not only is caffeine a mood altering substance, but drinking coffee is one of the few things I do

Therefore, I decided that this would be the habit that I would give up.

Before I start describing my experience over the past three weeks I should start with some base line informations about my coffee drinking habits. On a normal day I drink about 3-6 big cups of coffee. Occasionally, there can be a day when I only drink one cup or even no cups of coffee. These days, however, are very rare and usually only occurs when I am sick and not able to drink coffee or on days when I have no possible access to any coffee. I drink coffee throughout the whole day, but especially in the morning or evening when I have late night classes. Both my parents are avid coffee drinkers, both of them drinking about 4-5 cups a day, and this might be part of the reason why I started drinking coffee when I was about 11 or 12. Ever since then I have been drinking coffee on a regular basis, the amount of it increasing over the years. Other than coffee, I do not tend to drink other caffeinated drinks such as soda or caffeinated tea. Usually, the only fluids in my diet are