I didn't think I was addicted to coffee until I realized I was addicted to coffee

I may be taking the word "addiction" too lightly here, in which case I apologize to those suffering or recovering from addictions to truly harmful substances.

It's just that I've only recently come to recognize how much I rely on my morning cup of coffee (not to mention my mid-morning, late-morning and early-afternoon cups of coffee...and sometimes, when it's that kind of day, my mid-afternoon cup of coffee).

If "addiction" isn't the right word, I would say "dependence" is.

When I walk into the office each day, the first thing I do is ensure that my early-arriving co-worker Dave has made a pot of coffee. If he hasn't, I drop everything and get the coffee maker going.

When we go on vacation, the detail in which I take keenest interest is how – and how often – we can get coffee.

My last few jobs, while I didn't ask about it during the interview process, I was always quick to check with a new co-worker on the office coffee situation.

I can get through a day without coffee, but it's not very fun. All day there's a gnawing craving for just one cup of the sweet brown bean liquid. Just one.

I wonder whether it's the coffee I crave or the caffeine that powers it. On days I don't meet my normal coffee quota, I don't feel especially tired. I just get antsy, to the point that I wonder whether caffeine is more of a relaxant for me than a stimulant.

In any event, I don't like being this reliant on any substance. Until I turned 40 years old, I could take or leave coffee. After that point, it was like a switch flipped and it became an indispensable part of my daily diet.

This all worries me so much you won't be surprised to hear I'm headed to the kitchen for a cup of joe. You know, just to calm myself down.

I tried (and failed) to make the transition to black coffee

I have been a regular coffee drinker for only about a decade. This surprises some people, who assume that those who work in newspaper newsrooms (as I did in the 80s and 90s) are caffeine addicts from their very early 20s.

For whatever reason, the coffee switch didn't flip for Terry and me until we turned 40. Prior to that, neither of us drank coffee or wine. But from then on, we became fans of both...she likes wine more than me, but the fact is that I'll drink it now, which wasn't the case when I was a young adult.

From the very first days when I developed my coffee habit, I have always drunk it with cream. More specifically, plain half and half. No flavoring or anything, just good old, solid-white, milkfat-laden half and half.

This routine has worked for years, though it has its drawbacks:

• It involves taking a small container of half and half to my Goodyear office every day, since the company does not currently offer complimentary creamer to associates.
• It doesn't always work when purchasing coffee from, say, gas stations, many of which only provide that nasty powdered creamer, the existence of which I don't even acknowledge.
• Over the course of a day in which I drink 4-5 cups of coffee, the calories and saturated fat in half and half add up.

That third point is crucial. As a Weight Watchers lifetimer, I have to count one point for every cup of coffee in which I pour my half and half (which is to say, every cup of coffee I drink). Black coffee is zero points.

It doesn't seem like much, but those 4-5 points are valuable. If I could find a way to eliminate them from my daily food budget, it would make room for an additional healthy snack or two in my lunchbox.

So I tried. One day a couple of weeks ago, I went cold turkey on half and half. I started drinking all of my coffee black.

And when I say "all of my coffee," I mean exactly one cup of it.

During my drive to work that morning, Terry texted me promising to buy a container of half and half that day, as we had run out of it.

"Actually, don't bother," I responded to her once I got into the office. "I'm going to experiment with black coffee."

Two hours later, I texted her the following: "Screw this. Get me the half and half!"

I just don't like the taste of black coffee. I want to. It smells great. But when it comes to actually drinking it, I have to add the creamer.

Let it be known, though, that for those two hours, I was a brave soldier. I jumped right into the world of black coffee, and then I jumped right back out again.

And honestly, my life is better for it.