180 days without coffee

I really don't see the point of coffee anymore.

Photo by Demi DeHerrera on Unsplash

Statistics say that after water, coffee is the second most consumed beverage in the world.

Every day, billions of people are drinking a warm cup of diluted caffeine to wake themselves up even if they have adrenal glands. Every day, tons of coffee grounds go somewhere. Every day, gigawatts of power are burned to boil water for coffee. And for the last 6 months, I took a break from coffee.

For most of my life before 50, I was not a coffee drinker. Then on a road trip a few years ago, I decided to try a bottle of Starbucks because I was feeling a little drowsy. It worked. I was fine after that. A few weeks passed and I thought I’d try another one. One thing led to another.

I was buying coffee whenever I went out. I tried many flavors and variations, all of them more expensive than making it at home. I started making it at home, too. I liked making it at home. And all that time, something was running through my mind.

I wanted something from coffee that I could not get from coffee. I couldn’t get it. I never got it. I kept wanting more.

I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I didn’t feel right most of the time. I kept thinking about how I was going to prepare my next cup, when I was going to drink it, and what I was going to mix it with. There must be a better mix, something that I could tolerate.

My body simply rejected coffee. No matter how I tried to make coffee fit into my life, I could not make it fit. My body wouldn’t have it. I could not make it do what i wanted it to do. I did not know what I wanted it to do. I only knew what I did not want.

I am a walker. I like to walk for 5 miles every day. Coffee made that difficult. There’s a hill in my neighborhood, coffee had me huffing and puffing up that hill. Maybe it was something else I ate. Refined flour is the worst. I just know that my physical life was really uncomfortable with coffee compared to without coffee.

Coffee impaired my food choices. Coffee made me lean to processed foods more than processed foods. I wanted to lose weight. My metabolism suffered with coffee, too. I kept going to the pantry instead of the refrigerator for my food choices. I wanted to make better choices with my food.

Then there was finances. My finances weren’t terrible, but I hated the confusion I had with coffee. I didn’t want to spend $7 on a cup of coffee. I hated forgetting things with coffee. I hated thinking about coffee.

I know, hate is a strong word, and I strenuously avoid using that word. I only use it as a last resort, when all other words fail to express my sentiments.

Hate is a complete and total surrender of personal power to someone or something that can’t or won’t change. If coffee and hate seem to go together, for me at least, then I’m done.

None of what I say here is to be construed as criticism or belittlement of people who drink coffee. I consider them to be more qualified than me to drink coffee. They can do it. I can’t. I’m OK with that. I know what it does to me. I don’t need to know what it does for them.

I am aware of a few health benefits of coffee. I understand them. Maybe I could benefit from a cup of coffee a day. I just lack the capacity to enjoy and drink coffee without abusing it. I have a strong tendency for addiction. I know where it goes. I know that I have two choices: keep going or stop.

I stopped.

I am 180 days sober from coffee today. I don’t need it. I don’t want it. I love the smell of it, but I know the routine. I know the process for me and only me. I know that I will feel nice for a little while and then I’ll come down. Reality will still be here, waiting for me to do something with it. Tapping its foot, arms folded.

A few decades ago, I had a realization. The brain is a 2.5 million year old pharmacy. The brain makes everything I need to think and feel the way I do right now.

I am aware of people who know how to alter their state to have an LSD-like experience without LSD. I know that my brain has had a lot more practice at ensuring my survival when sober than it does after ingesting any mood altering substance, coffee included.

I’ve tried a few things. Alcohol. Hated that. I hated the way I felt the next day, so I don’t drink alcohol. Cigarettes. I only had to try smoking once to know it’s not for me. Mushrooms at a party once. Didn’t do anything for me. Cocaine. Tried it once, hated the smell, saw too many people die over it, on it. Pot. Now that one had me for 7 years. Really bad decisions.

I remember the Netflix series, Disjointed. I enjoyed it. I knew the pot humor. I remembered Cheech and Chong. I remembered this scene from an episode of Disjointed. I remember two women in the showroom/lounge thing. It was the first room customers would enter when they opened that door on the set.

One woman was standing, the other was sitting in an easy chair, reclined and happy. Very relaxed.

The standing woman said to the other, “So why do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Why do you smoke pot?”

“To take the edge off.”

That was the tell, the clue for me. If I need to take something to take the edge off, I’m doing it for the wrong reasons. I reflected on that scene at least once on my adventures with coffee. I knew that I was drinking coffee for the wrong reasons. Not all the wrong reasons, but just enough to confuse me.

I remember the ritual, the confusion, the not really being there part of pot. I remember all the bad decisions I made while stoned. Well, not all of them, but enough of them to know that they mattered. I’ve thrown out my bong and bag and retrieved them more times than I can remember, I mean, count.

I could see parallels in the way I used coffee with the way I used pot. I could see that I wanted something from them that I was never, ever going to get.

I wanted to be loved. To feel loved. I wanted to know that I was lovable. I wanted to be somewhere other than where I was right then. I wanted to be like the other people who could drink coffee and still be sane.

I understood that coffee, like pot, was a displacement activity.

Then I just stopped. I just made a point of not going back. I counted the days I had not had any coffee. I held that knowledge inside, wanting to see what I would feel like in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and 180 days. 365 days. Whatever. I didn’t want to go back.

If you drink coffee and you’re reading this, know that I’m not talking about you. I’m just talking about all the reasons I decided to stop.

I breathe easier since I have GERD and people who have GERD should not drink coffee. I don’t cough as much. I get better sleep. I get regular exercise, well, I still exercised with coffee. I feel more alert without coffee. I feel like I make better decisions without coffee.

Regardless of the benefits I can enumerate in my life without coffee, I just know that I don’t want to go back. I have no need to go back. I can think through the ritual, the temporary high, even bliss, and then reality is here, waiting for me to do something with it. Over and over and over again.

I see coffee shops around town. I see the lines of cars at Starbucks and Beans and Brews and some of the mom and pop shops. I see the commodities markets really unhappy with tariffs on coffee. I see an entire ecosystem built around coffee. I see the need, the want, and the justification.

“Wow, Scott. Those are some pretty strong feelings.” Yes, they are. I wanted peace. Coffee did not bring me peace. I wanted love. Coffee didn’t have that, either. I wanted to know where I was and what I was doing, and coffee just got in the way. I tried so hard to make it fit. I could not make it fit.

If I don’t like the way that I feel after I do something, eat something or drink something, I stop or curtail that something until I feel peace again.

So I stopped drinking coffee.

Write on.