You're so right, Shortandcute, to remove anything with caffeine from your diet if you know that it reacts negatively on your mind and emotions. It means you have a sensitivity to caffeine and should remove it from your diet. No caffeine--not just cuttng back.

Please go to DoctorYourself.com and go down the left-hand column until you see
an article called "Caffeine allergy" by Ruth Whalen. It's one of the best articles on
how caffeine reacts in the brain of people who are sensitive to it and why they should remove it from their diets.

If you want to know what's best to do when you need to learn to care for yourself
to make alcoholism go into remission, I would suggest that you read Dr. Kathleen DesMaisons book called "Radiant Recovery" (which is a revised and updated book based on her first work called "Potatoes, Not Prozac". )

This lady really knows what she's talking about in helping people remove alcohol from their lives. (She had high percentages of alcoholics go into remission when she worked with them on diet changes--she has a website in California, and I feel sure she would probably be glad to talk to you to help you get started.)

The advisors mean well, I'm confident, but there are things they may not know sometimes that have to do with special sensitivities people may have and these folks need to have a different form of treatment to go into remission.

You are a smart person to know already that caffeine is bothersome for you, but that's only the half of it--it can cause brain damage in people who are sensitive to it. So you may wish to learn all you can before you agree to continue to use it.

I'm sensitive to caffeine, too, and if I have so much as a glass of tea I can feel the
depressive after-effects for up to three days following ingestion of tea containing caffeine. (This will mean for you, probably, that you will need to avoid caffeine in coffee, (not even the decaffeinated ones may be used) tea, and chocolate. (And anything else containing caffeine, I should add.)

Take care and good wishes on establishing the best program for you.