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"You can’t just go back to doing what you used to after you finish The Soberhead Challenge," my know-it-all husband barked at me with a proverbial finger-wagging that made me feel about three years old.

"Excuse me?" I said with more attitude than a drag queen who just had her favorite wig snatched away – forever.

"You just can’t use it the same way, the same amount," he clarified.

My eyes narrowed with a glance that communicated the way my stomach had just dropped with this newfound insight, while my lips curled into a slightly satisfied smile.

"Say that again," I prodded.

My husband stopped any further words from flowing. I saw the gears in his mind click into place. Consciousness of the gravity of his words weighed on his expression.

"Oh my God. It sounds like you are an addict," he uttered, color dropping from his cheeks as he continued to realize the enormity of his statement.

"I told you," I shared with true pride, not in any way with narcissism, smugness or arrogance. "This challenge was the perfect parallel to understanding what drug and alcohol addiction are like for those affected with it."

The conversation above actually took place as I fantasized about this very moment. This very moment I am having as I sit at my computer and relay this story to you, the moment of having my first cup of coffee since Sept. 3, 2014.

That dialog was spurred as we drove by my favorite coffee shop (that serves java with atomic levels of caffeine) and I declared that I was going to put them out of business with my "off the wagon" consumption. Scary thought, especially considering the parallels to addiction and recovery I had been experiencing for the past month as part of The Soberhead Challenge in support of Recovery Month.
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The idea of The Soberhead Challenge was to create an understanding of the plight of addiction and empathy for the challenges / rewards of the recovery process through a personal experience cultivated by giving up a "substance" of choice for at least 72 hours.

Challengers gave up things like caffeine, sugar, nicotine and alcohol; things they used/consumed daily and may have "needed." Some even modified the challenge and added in new "habits" like volunteering and practicing yoga in place of the axed item or gave up more intangible "addictions" like gossiping in order to demonstrate a desire to improve themselves and live healthier lives.

The intention was to help remove the stigma of addiction/long term recovery more for the general public or "normies" by instilling some compassion and awareness for just how tough rehab and sticking to a clean lifestyle is, especially when attempted in one’s current living situation or once back in one’s old or usual environment. But, there was an overwhelming show of support from the recovery community as well, from those who obviously had already given up their much more serious and difficult to abstain from vices. (To learn more about WHY it’s harder to give up a substance of "no-choice" please read the interview with Recovery Coach, Kevin Schaefer.)

The Soberhead Challenge was to "fast" from the "substance" of your own choice for a minimum of 72 hours, declare this in a video, challenge someone else and "anyone out there struggling with addiction to please seek help," but I committed to go the entire month of September. I chose coffee as my "substance" to give up.

The Challenge was in no way meant to trivialize the immensity of giving up an actual substance of addiction through these "chosen" substances which were of course, "less serious" than say, meth, cocaine, heroin or alcohol. The hope was that the feelings and knowledge gained through this parallel experience would be enough for synapses to connect, for people to go – wow, it IS harder than just "deciding" or "willing" your way out of addiction. The Challenge was also a gesture in loving memory of those lost to addiction. The concept has also been echoed by "#14Days on the Wagon" presented by CBS News.

I’m always 100 percent honest and forthright with you guys here, so I am going to continue to that in this piece. I made it through the Challenge, but I hopped off the moment I allowed myself to. So, please keep in mind as you read all this that I am disclosing my true emotions and experience as a veritable demonstration of the kinds of feelings an addict of any substance, legal or illegal, healthy or lethal may feel when trying to "recover."

I was a part of the organizing committee for this event, so it was important to me that I take it very seriously. I had recently given up "everything else," so coffee was what was left. I am relatively certain that I do not have a physical or chemical addiction to substances like alcohol and marijuana. That fact however, does not protect me from the sh*tty day-after physical feelings or preclude me from making bad choices while under the influence of either.

So, coffee it was. I had actually become pretty concerned about my caffeine consumption. I’d been "using" it pretty hard for a couple months. A gigantic vat that would better be described as a bowl had replaced the standard 6 - 8 oz. coffee cup. I made a daily custom of supercharging my coffee by making it "bulletproof" – adding MCT oil and coconut butter, thereby sustaining the buzz in the bloodstream for hours. I was in short, getting "high" off the coffee.

I am not judging anyone else’s use of coffee in any way, for coffee is a legal substance, commonly used by billions each day and even has some health benefits,. But, for the purpose of The Soberhead Challenge – I knew it would provide me with a perfect personal experience to create a metaphor for the struggle of drug addiction and what committing to recovery entails.

Plus – it is the substance I am actually ADDICTED to. I know it because before I even gave it up I was already plotting going back to it. Its lure has a magnetic pull on me. It’s effect and sensation so desirable to me that I often go to bed excited about waking up to consume it. Giving up social drinking, recreational pot smoking, even cigarettes and some even harder stuff back in the day was never difficult for me because I was not truly addicted. Some of it was, for lack of a better way to describe it, experimental – a phase. I easily walked away from these other substances and feel incredibly blessed to be spared from an addictive need to partake in any of them.

But, caffeine is another animal. I am hard-core addicted to it, making the Challenge a true one for me. And boy, did it work. I experienced many parallels to addiction and the recovery process through my giving up of this substance, seemingly so innocent.

Bizarely, I did not experience the typical detox symptoms notorious of the first three days without coffee. (And I’ve gone off it before – I’m familiar with the course of events.) I believe I was jazzed enough about the launch of The Challenge that my excitement overrode or distracted me from the negative physical feelings. If only this was a reality of more serious detox, from hard drugs and alcoholism.

Of course, detox is a huge consequence of giving up addiction to anything. In the past, I’ve been afflicted with the blaring headache that accompanies caffeine withdrawals. It is a frightening symptom that the body is functioning differently without the external stimulation from caffeine. It’s a desperate crying out for what has been taken away. I attribute my being spared this torture to the endorphins that were pushing me through, to the thrill of seeing others commit to The Challenge as well, plus a new work situation that entailed a big physical performance commitment – so I was drinking tons of water and sweating a lot, probably pushing the detox along.

Some bodily stuff did pop up along the way like skin breakouts, some rapid heart beating, exhaustion, a bit of depression, writer’s block/lack of inspiration and a rekindling of my sugar dependence that I had kicked about a year ago … but, these were nothing compared to the lessons I learned.

The very first "big" thing to hit me was the "one day at a time" attitude necessary for recovery. Every day I felt differently without coffee. I would wake up one morning with not a grind on my mind and then the next day be fixated on the fact that I was not having a cup of Joe. Distilling entire days down to moment to moment differences became real for me as I would start out strong and then something would happen to "trigger" a craving for caffeine, or even just the desire to smell a cup.

Addiction is a disease. Not a habit to break. People in recovery need a village. When I wanted to crack – my husband supported me. My co-organizers cheered me on. The other people doing the challenge – especially those in recovery - inspired me to go forward and stick with it.

By the completion of two weeks, the cravings actually got worse. As people learned about what I was doing, coffee came up in conversation a lot. People wanted to tell me they "could never give up their coffee." They would have a cup of coffee right in front of me. This made me draw a parallel to Recovery Houses / Sober Living. I realized that in order to stay "sober" it would be easier for me to be around people who didn’t drink coffee, who were on the same path, who were there to support me, not lure me back to my old way of living – just like Recovery / Sober Living Houses are meant to do.

By the final day, I had mixed feelings about what would come after The Soberhead Challenge was over. I had all these "days" under my belt that would just go away if I decided to take that sip. 28 days of "sobriety" gone – poof - in an instant. Back to zero. I now know the value, the stakes for every day earned on the path of sobriety and how delicate and fragile keeping that number increasing can be. I felt lucky and truly blessed that zero was a viable option for me, because for so many … zero can mean repeating rock bottom or even death.

So back to today. Right now.

I just mouthed off a little more about the entire pot of coffee fixed "Bulletproof" style I was going to have after a month "clean." I could almost feel the rush of caffeine hit my bloodstream with only the words crossing my lips.

So I couldn’t resist any longer. I didn’t. I did it. Just now.

I was incredibly conflicted yet staunchly committed to pouring that steaming hot, fragrant cup of organic caffeine into my mug.

"Not too much" I reminded myself.

After day dreaming of huge mugs of supercharged java trickling down my throat, the black gold warmed my mouth. As it washed over the tip of my tongue and slid down my throat it felt familiar yet strange, foreign but comforting, exciting and frightening and … I drank the entire cup.

Back to zero.

Immediately, I realized - this wasn’t at all as fantastic as I had imagined it would be. In fact, it was a let down.

The real caffeine rush did not hit my physical body until a few hours later when I became wracked with anxiety, shaking hands and rapid heartbeat. I began to regret my backslide while simultaneously trying to validate my actions.

And then my mind could not help but travel to the whole point of The Soberhead Challenge.

What if what I had given up was a potentially lethal substance? What if my "substance" was an illegal drug with possibly fatal consequences? What if I had gone this many days, detoxed, made progress and even started to enjoy life without it - and now it was all gone? In an instant. And what if perhaps that "one last time" or "one more time" or "I’ll just have a little" amount had gone wrong?

It’s called relapse. And I just did it. It’s even touted as a "part" of recovery.

It happens all the time. And sometimes with deadly penalty. Heroin addicts who have been clean for any of amount of time go back to doing what they used to and die in the process.

Just that one time.

Challengers who posted videos about their experience made similar parallels in an even shorter amount of time, as most committed to the three days. They reported awareness of what detox feels like, the pressures of going back to the same life and same friends when you’ve given something up that they still partake in and the feelings of "craving" that really never do seem to go away. All lessons from giving up legal, common substances like nicotine, sugar and alcohol.

Recovery is hard. It’s an everyday, every moment, conscious decision you have to make from the minute you wake up until the second you go to bed. And then repeat. Again. And Again. Addiction does not just go away, even after withholding physically for a period of time.

So, what now for me?

I am going back to coffee in great moderation – if and when I want it. Truthfully, it didn’t taste or feel as good as I had imagined it would. It actually felt worse than I built it up to and I truly grasped the negative physiological effects caffeine has on the body. I have noticed I do not really want it as much as I imagined I did during The Challenge nor do I need as much to get that coffee jolt. The best part of waking up now has an extra pour of awareness in each and every cup.

As one of my dearest, dearest friends counseled me in our "post-mortem" of The Soberhead Challenge in the days following my "relapse," "Some of the biggest lessons come from the smallest (perceived) experiences."