Flaws of Consumption

I recently gave up caffeine--it wasn’t intentional at first. When at the ER a few weeks back, the doctor told me that I needed to cut caffeine out of my diet to help with my intestinal pains until they knew for certain what was going on. As I was recovering from being sick, Kirby told me that this eating plan—I refuse to call it a diet—that we were going to do necessitated us cutting out all forms of caffeine from soda to coffee.

Of course, this was not what I wanted to hear. Coffee and I are old friends; some of my favorite memories are of me clad in my white trench coat, scarf around my neck with my coffee and cigarette as I made my way through the Public Gardens in Boston. I use coffee as a reason to get up in the morning, the last push of energy before a big night on the town, the small treat I allow myself to go out and get when I am cranking away on my writing. It’s been as much a part of my life as anything else and something that I romanticize on a regular basis. Needless to say—it was going to be difficult.

After a painful few days, I found myself over the headaches and general crankiness that comes from the withdrawal. I was able to pull myself out of bed and into my morning routine a bit easier, I worked around the writing/coffee connection with mineral water and a champagne glass, I would take an extra long shower to re-energize before heading out into the social whirlwind. It was easy to work around the actual mechanics of my coffee addiction.

But what I realized was how much I used coffee to prop myself and ignore what my body needed. I found myself getting more and more tired in random ways; I could start to feel how hungry my body was getting when before I would use coffee to give a boost of energy and could actually feel that moment when I needed sleep as opposed to cover up the tired with a last minute jolt of java. Doing this led me to really sit down and consider how I am actually living in terms of my health; of how much I used caffeine as a way to ignore food and sleep and all the things that a human being actually needs to make one function.

It’s amazing all the little things we do to try and control what is so basic for existence. That I was constantly running on empty when it came to my stomach and on fumes when it came to sleep bank. It has forced me to be more careful about not only trying to eat right but eat when I need to—not waiting until the point that I am so hungry anything will do. That it makes my sleep better and deeper, that it teaches me not push my body so far out of the safety zone that I become a zombie and how much better it feels to know how my body wants and needs to work as opposed to just forcing it along.

But with all that said—I still miss that jolt. That rush of energy and focus that caffeine seems to bring on some level. Eventually I had to work back in decaf coffee just for my own sense memory, a way to trick myself into thinking I was giving in. I have found that Fresca goes well with vodka, that I can do Sprite in restaurants and that I can usually find a decaf version of almost anything drink I like. The pull of the caffeine still lingers but can be tricked.

But I have to admit when Kirby told me that the eating plan—not diet—allowed for caffeine to be reworked into the meal schedule—I have to admit my heart did a little leap. We’ll see if I can handle the temptation—even though I know the flaws of consumption.