I quit drinking coffee last week. Actually, I quit drinking coffee six days ago. I'd been drinking coffee every day for months, and then one morning a month or two ago, I missed my morning cup. By ten o'clock, my head had split open. Apparently my body couldn't have sent me a fax or a voicemail saying, "Hey, I'd like some caffeine, please." So my body sent me the headache that Zeus must have felt right before full-grown Athena sprung from his head. That's when I realized that I had a problem. So I stood up and said, "My name is Sandra, and I'm addicted to coffee."
All say, "Hi, Sandra."
As far as addictions go, a coffee one is pretty wimpy. No one gives testimonials about how they gave up coffee. Those are saved for the crack/heroin/meth addicts. You can't buy a coffee patch. There is no coffee-quitting gum, only gum that supposedly gets the coffee stains off your teeth, which is only an abettor in your denial to your problem. Most people probably don't even understand why I would quit coffee. I'll tell you. It's a control issue. I want the freedom to not have a cup in the morning without suffering the consequences of having a headache nailed to my forehead. Simply put, I don't like the idea of being addicted to something, even if, truth be told, the addiction isn't necessarily harmful. Most reports say that coffee in moderation isn't harmful at all. Those old studies done in the 50s have been retracted, mostly because everyone who drank coffee at that time also smoked, and as it turns out, coffee does not cause lung cancer. But still, I wanted to be done with it.
The missed cup incident had taught me that I was not ready for any sort of cold turkey solution. So I opted for a "slightly more chilled turkey every day" solution. I made less coffee for myself each morning. However, this also meant that I made worse coffee for myself each morning. My regular brew involves 4 cups of water and putting enough coffee beans to meet a certain mark in the grinder. It's very inexact, so trying to decrease the amount of coffee brewed while still maintaining a consistent flavor is nigh upon impossible. I supposed I could have employed some more exact measuring device than "a certain mark in the grinder" and then let my mad fraction skills do the rest, but by the time that idea had occurred to me, so had another one: ah, screw it.
So I came in to work last Friday without my coffee in my hands. I was fully prepared to run and get a cup of company coffee in case of headache. Company coffee is punishment in itself. But I was fine. I continue to be fine. Okay, I'm a little sleepier in the mornings, but that is a small price to pay for my freedom. I'm even going to put my coffee maker and grinder away in the closet with all the other infrequently used appliances. And I guess I'll only buy half-and-half by the pint when I'm expecting people who have yet to give up their coffee demons. Considering I'd been buying it by the half-gallon, I'd call this a step up.
But now, man, I kinda want some coffee. It's not one of those I-quit-smoking-twenty-years-ago-and-I-still-want-just-one-drag kind of things. It's a hmm-coffee-would-be-tasty-right-now thing. With most addictions, once you quit, going back in even a minor way is bad news. But if I'm driving past my local independent coffee shop one day and I get to craving a vanilla latte, am I backtracking so much to give in? Caffeine is addictive, but not in such a way that once you have a drop, you're doomed to be its slave forever.
There's a short vignette in Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes featuring Iggy Pop and Tom Waits. Tom Waits lights up a cigarette from a pack he's carrying, saying that he quit smoking, so he can have a cigarette now. Iggy is pretty confused by this logic, but he quit smoking, too, and he wants a cigarette, so he goes with it. My question is, now that I've quit coffee, can I have some?
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