I love coffee. I do. Over the years, it's been a daily companion, a joy, a vice. It's true. I love, love, love coffee. Good, strong, fair trade coffee. Let me emphasize the good and strong one more time.
Anyway.
A couple of weeks ago, we ran out of coffee. And for one full day, I didn't have any. No three cups in the morning. No two cups with my afternoon book. None. And my day was terrible. My head was pounding. My energy level was low. By six at night I was waiting for Jim to arrive, and dozing off and on in my chair. No lie. Not pretty.
This was of course not the first time I realized I was drugging myself. I've never even considered stopping cold turkey. I love coffee. Eliminating it from my life is not something I needed, or wanted to do. And finding very good decaff is hard to do.
But, it owned me. And I knew it. And I was very, very uncomfortable with that.
So I was in the process of deciding how I would slowly cut back. And then I got violently sick. A 24 hour thing. You know what I'm saying.
You don't need details.
And even after I was on the upswing, most things made me nauseous. Coffee smelled overwhelming to me, I could. not. do. it. And I felt terrible anyway, so I couldn't tell what was the sickness bug and what was the detox.
I didn't drink coffee for a week. Simply because most things that smelled strong made me sick. But finally my body regulated and I could eat again.
And I was clean.
Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I was free at last.
I was well again, all my energy was back, and...I had no cravings for coffee at all, whatsoever. I felt amazing.
So I had to decide- I didn't really want coffee anymore, but I do love it. So, I now drink one cup in the morning, because I love the smell, the ritual of the steaming cup to greet the sun.
And that's it.
Anything other than that is the occasional recreational cup, which is rare.
I'm clean and my mind and body are decaffeinated (almost). It's exhilarating. It is possible.
So that's the deal.
I can love it, and it loves me back.
But I'm no slave.
4 comments:
WooHoo, Megan! Way to go.
I just did the same thing, and in the same way :) I got a stomach bug and had to go two days without it. And then I figured, the worst is over, may as well keep going.
Everything is permissable for me, but I'm not mastered by anything :)
Good for you! I'm a huge coffee drinker, but I like the taste, not the caffeine. I try to drink decaf most of the time, unless my husband wants the caffeine. I'm one of those rare people that caffeine doesn't seem to have an impact on. I've tried, believe me, on late nights writing papers in college to caffeinate myself, but to no avail!
Well done! I love coffee as well, although possibly the best thing I've done for myself is refuse to drink it at work. While I don't have a caffeine dependency now, I would have probably developed one.
Besides, the coffee here isn't any good...
Caffeine makes me grumpy. Can you believe that. I love coffee. LOVE it. The only time I let myself drink it is when I am child-free for a few days, that way I can still be a "good" mom and be fair to my kids.
Even decaf has enough decaf in it to make me grumpy. I know, I'm totally weird.
It's pretty awesome not to be owned by anything... except my camera. Because I totally am.
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