We’re sitting at home today, and in between carting loads of laundry down to the laundry room — taking advantage of the fact that other folks in the apartment seem to be out of town for the holiday weekend, thus freeing the major appliances from the usual conflicting tenant demand — I’m sipping a glass of iced coffee.
It’s my third dose of coffee of the day. That’s one more than I should probably have, but I’ve been out of sorts the last few days. My sleep schedule has been messed up. A combination of financial anxiety and sciatica — the latter of the two, at least, slowly being resolved — has kept me awake, and noisy neighbors don’t help much. I may regret the coffee later. Still, I want to get a few things done today and it was just sitting there in the pot.
It’s the first time I’ve had more than two cups of coffee in a day for the last month or so. It’s a strange and sudden change in my lifestyle. I have been ingesting near-toxic daily amounts of caffeine since Gerald Ford was President. We’re talking double-digit numbers of cups of coffee per day. Back when I was living in Zeke’s house with an espresso machine at hand, I’d drink perhaps 14 double espressos on a good day.
I wasn’t particularly satisfied with the situation. Five years ago I even made a grandiose pledge on the old blog to quit drinking coffee. That resolution lasted maybe two weeks. I couldn’t quit. When I drank alcohol, I drank coffee to sober up or get through hangovers. When I stopped drinking alcohol, I drank coffee to help me manage the ADD that the alcohol had helped me manage. When I started taking wellbutrin to manage the ADD, I drank coffee because caffeine was a monkey on my back. A monkey that had sunk its leech-like roots into the highway of my nervous system. A monkey that I could not toss overboard without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I was a caffeine addict.
In April, though, the Kaiser pshrink changed my Wellbutrin scrip from 300 mg staggered throughout the course of the day to 300 slow-release mg taken all at once first thing in the morning. I soon began to notice that I was unpleasantly speedy in the afternoons and evenings. Trouble was, as you are no doubt expecting me to say, brewing. One day in early June I tried to drink a third cup of coffee and I just couldn’t do it.
As I write this, I’m beginning to feel the effects of that unusual cup number three. They aren’t altogether pleasant, though the throbbing headache now growing in my left temple is warmly familiar.
Have you ever woken up one morning and found that you no longer recognized the loved one slowly waking next to you? That the companion whose company you once craved above all others had suddenly become just a little tiresome? Why, no, me neither now that you mention it. But if I had had that experience, this thing with the coffee suddenly turning on me would probably remind me of it some. It’s just a little poignant, and I might well be picturing a montage of happy, content past moments I shared with my cup of coffee if doing so didn’t give me a slight case of heartburn.
Maybe we’ll patch things up. Maybe we’re just going through a rough spot. Our first moments together in the morning are still wonderful, still give me that little spinal thrill and the feeling that all might just be right with the world.
I wonder if my pshrink could refer me to some kind of joint counseling.
But new studies on mice suggest that large doses of caffeine may be required to stave off Alzheimer’s—just two cups a day might not cut it! http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128110552&sc=emaf
Oops, links don’t go live. Sorry. Here.
Tough to give up coffee (though I drank tea for what is now about half my life before switching). Maybe things will even out after a few weeks and you’ll get back together again (or not).
There was a study making the rounds a few weeks back that claimed caffeine consumption had the net effect of restoring mental acuity that caffeine withdrawal pilfered from our finite store of attentiveness and acuity. Didn’t bookmark the study because it is wrong. I just know it is wrong.
(Coffee was a stand-in for me when I finally managed to give up cigs a couple of decades ago. For several years thereafter I always had a cuppa nearby, dozens a day. Finally managed to cut back to a half dozen or so cups per diem. One way I found to reduce coffee consumption is chemotherapy. Don’t recommend it, at least not for coffee control.)
“joint counseling.”
Heh, heh, heh.
Might work, though.
Ah, Chris, I know the feeling. I’ve recently had to make the switch to decaf after being a caffeine addict for most of my adult life. I’ve used my morning coffee as a way to manage the side effects of my migraine and depression meds for a long time. But some of those same meds did a number on my stomach, and the caffeine just made it worse, so now I’m stuck with decaf. I miss the effects of the caffeine, especially mid-morning, when I’m drooping at my keyboard, trying to write something coherent.
Maybe i am just losing a touch on keeping up with coherent reality; but is this post about merely consuming coffee or about how you and the Raven are getting along? Sorry to ask, but i am on summer tour, and i don’t think quite as clearly.
I don’t mean to brag, but I gave up coffee cold turkey over ten years ago, and I’ve never once wanted another cup. I do drink green tea, and occasionally black tea, but I can’t stand the jumpiness that black tea gives me, so I try to avoid that. I’m very sensitive to caffeine—took an Excedrin once and was awake for almost 24 hours.
It’s funny, I used to drink several cups a day of strong, industrial-strength Louisiana coffee. I would sniff the beans just for a quick fix. But since that day I don’t even like the smell of coffee. Not at all tempted to pour a cup.
Spyder, this post is about coffee. The Raven and I are doing wonderfully well. Thanks for asking.
I had that very same slowly falling out of love with infinite cups of coffee you describe so poignantly, back when I was in my late 20s. After years of drinking it slowly, savoring every mouthful, all day long, I began to find that anything after the first cup seemed tasteless and set my nerves on edge. So I stopped drinking it so much. It was one businesslike cup in the morning, and out. I am happy to report, though, that, well into my 40s, I found the romance blooming again. Perhaps not with the full fine fervor of my youth, but enough that a morning mug is followed by another mug, and sometimes more…. Ahhh, coffee.
I couldn’t decide if “You told me that espresso meant nothing to you!” or “Honey, is there something you need to tell me?” was funnier, so instead I’ll just wish us a very happy (and slightly early) 2nd anniversary. :)
xo