Some Sympathy for the Addicts in Your Life
This morning I woke up without a headache. Last Thursday (5 days ago), my espresso machine arrived.1 2 The weeks preceding, every morning, I had been buying a mocha or a nitro cold brew. Most afternoons, I’d get an iced caramel latte. In the refrigerator, I had stocked store-bought cold brew concentrate that I would dilute with oat milk. On occasion, I drank the concentrate with just a few ice cubes.
When the espresso machine arrived, I decided to switch to decaf. Why? Whimsy, mostly. But also I was sooooo tired all the time, despite the copious amounts of coffee I was drinking. And I had recently finished reading this book, which I highly recommend, which reminded me that sleep and daydreaming and walking without headphones helps me make memories and recall connections better:
It also has a chapter on how the foods we eat have destroyed us.
So, back to Thursday. Espresso machine unpacked. Decaf espresso beans bought and ground. Ever since, only decaf lattes or decaf americanos. And a never halting headache. Mild, yes. But not stopping in it’s constant throbbing. An unwelcome squeezing pressure over every experience.
Boys want to be pushed on the playground swings? Fun! Yet the headache remains. Family goes apple picking at a Virginia orchard over the weekend? Gets a bag of Golden Delicious we pulled from the trees?! Fresh Cider?! Cinnamon sugar donuts?! Kettle corn?! Amazing!! But the headache lingered through every smile and bite into autumn sweets.
At night, my wife studies Farsi and I read a book.3 I wake early to hush the twins jumping on their big boy beds. But despite the headache, yesterday I began to feel more energetic and alert. I could focus.
And this morning? The headache was gone.
And all I can think about?
My most inner voice whispering to my less inner voice? You did it! You kicked your need for caffeine!
You should treat yourself.
You deserve a mocha.
(Not decaf).
Get yourself some real coffee.456789101112
Also, the kid’s winter clothes, kid’s toys, our camping gear, and kid scooters and bike.
We move every 2-3 years because of my wife’s work; our stuff follows a few weeks behind us.
Currently: a story or two from Other Terrors edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Rena Mason and a chapter from Monsters in America by W. Scott Poole.
If you don’t this morning, you know you will this afternoon.
If you don’t today, you know you will tomorrow.
You just proved you can do it! Easy! Now you know you can do it again! Treat yourself!
It’s not like you’re going to drink five lattes today if you order one mocha this morning. It was good to stop. But now you can go back to a more reasonable latte a day.
You’re not fooling anyone. It’s just a matter of time. You wouldn’t lie to your kids. Why do you insist on lying to yourself?
You may feel more alert, but more focused? Come on! All you can think about is how nice a caffeinated mocha would be this morning. How it’d motivate you to work on that short story that you’ve been putting off because it’s about a fictionalized high school you that gets (not unjustly) mistaken for a demon and murdered! I bet if you got an extra shot in that mocha you know you’re going to drink eventually anyway, the guilt might just motivate you to finish the story even! That’s justification enough, isn’t it?
You can always quit again! But seriously, you can’t think of anything else, why keep pretending? This is who you are. A coffee drinker. Not decaf. Who drinks decaf anyway? You’re always going on about how personality should be defined in what ways you are similar to others and individuality should be defined in what ways you are different and how it is always better to encourage those parts of yourself that connects you with others than those parts of yourself that cuts you off. Don’t abandon the majority of humanity just because you selfishly want to feel more alert and focused and awake. Asshole. Try loving others for a change. Get a drink.
Just do it already. This battle between will and desire is boring and minor and inconsequential. It’s not like we’re talking about drunk driving or pornography or identity stealing or serial killing. It’s just coffee!
You can always quit again.
I must confess. I got a mocha already. (Not decaf).
As it happens, my intention wasn’t really to get everyone thinking about how I could handle my coffee addiction, which is totally a true and real thing, but to use my struggles with a silly (probably not that destructive) habit as a metaphor of sorts to better empathize with friends and family craving harsher drugs/behavior. But I guess that’s exactly what an addict in denial would say on why he’s sharing his story, isn’t it?