Veganfairy:
I, too, went through the "mother" mill as a kid. My father died from a combination of SAD and their marriage, I'm ashamed to admit. Once it was just she and I we ended up moving to some new part of the country almost every year -- classic "grass is greener" syndrome -- so from the age of 7 until the age of 13 I had no chance to make permanent friends. And that's far from the worst of it, to be sure.
Several times in my life now, I've lost 100 lbs. or so only to end up gaining back even more. I've McDougalled with some success twice now just as you have. In the past, it's usually been either romantic or family issues which have caused me to go off the wagon. Getting on to begin with was something I did just because I wanted to. I was in my 20s and didn't have serious health issues (at least outwardly). Now, for me, the situation is much more different and dire. I've realized that I really do like eating the McDougall way, and that I have no other choice but to do it with 100% compliance to save my life.
It sounds like you're in about the same boat, where it's getting close to "do or die" time for you. As scary as this all seems, I've found that my whole attitude has become more relaxed, focused and "Zen"-like than it has been in a long time. I would like to think that you could also adopt this kind of outlook if you give yourself a chance. To that end, I'd like to offer my encouragement and a couple of suggestions.
First and most importantly, you have made it resoundingly clear that the caffeine and sugar
have got to go, yet you suffer from major withdrawal. What I recommend you do is try and take at least a couple of days off work, run concurrently with a weekend, so you have 4 or more days where you can just sit at home most of the time clearing some of the clutter from your mind and breaking these caffeine and sugar addictions
for good. How I would do this would be to drop your caffeine and sugar intakes by 1/x each day you have off (which is why I say the more days, the easier this will be), where x stands for the number of days you have mostly to yourself. So, if you have 6 days off and tend to drink 6 sugary, heavy cups of coffee each day, what you would want to do is on the first day, either go to 5 cups for the day
or mix 1/6 decaf into 5/6 regular coffee and drop the amount of sugar by 1/6 (say, from 6 teaspoons to 5). The following day, drink 4 cups
or shift to 2 parts decaf to 4 parts regular coffee, and drop yet another teaspoon of sugar. Use something like stevia as a backup sweetener if you have to.
I think this will allow you a chance to transition out of the sugar and coffee with much less pain and discomfort than quitting "cold turkey". If it's proving difficult to do then please don't hesitate to come here for more support and shoulders to lean on! I honestly believe that once you have removed this obstacle, then the rest of your journey will be easy in comparison. But, no matter what you choose to do we're here to listen and help.