As with most college students, my ability to function as a non-homicidal individual in society depended on getting a daily caffeine fix. As long as I had a cup of coffee each morning, I was a content person.

However, circumstances have changed (dun dun dun).

For the past year, I suffered from chronic urticaria, a medical term for hives or welts that reoccur for months or years. It basically just means daily torment through incessant itching. In addition to these delightful hives, the eczema I was born with was exacerbated. The skin dried out faster, which caused it to become irritated and have more hives, which dried my skin out even faster…It’s a vicious cycle.

After months of splurging on coffee and increasing my caffeine doses, I noticed an upsetting correlation. The more coffee I drank, the more the outbreak area spread. Wishing to see if there was a causation in this correlation, I decided to quit coffee cold turkey for a week and see how my hives fared.

Truthfully, from Day 1 to Day 4, I was purely miserable. Without the familiar energy rush to facilitate my morning class, I was hanging on a fine thread of consciousness. I was constantly in the middle ground between sleepiness and awareness, so I couldn’t think at all. Hives still appeared as normal, and my skin was still easily irritated. I was upset that I seemingly made a sacrifice for no reason.

Starting Day 5, though, visible changes began to occur. Although not sudden, the hives flared up less frequently and over smaller areas. They also disappeared much faster and were not so itchy anymore. Another surprising result was that I had become somewhat independent of coffee and was no longer groggy. My hives and independence from caffeine continued improving till Day 7.

Long story short, though this painful but beneficial change in habits, I learned that caffeine is a trigger for hives and unwittingly improved my eczema and broke my addiction to coffee. Of course, I went back to drinking coffee, but I could manage drinking it once every two days. I also saw how cutting back just one food could cause such a difference for my health, which made me evaluate my dietary habits.

Through this experience, I have learned through my suffering that if you have an addiction that you wish to break, you can do it. If you want to make a new change to improve your health, do it. The benefits are worth the initial few days of agony.