I used to be a morning person. I used to be one of those
insufferable people who could bound out of bed at the alarm clock's
first beeping, cook myself an omelette as I checked the box scores,
shower, throw clothes on with blinding speed, and be out the door
with a spring in my step and a song in my heart.
Then there came a new addition to my morning routine: coffee.
Now, after hitting the snooze alarm five or six times, I finally
drag myself into a semi-vertical position and stagger gingerly to
the kitchen. My head at this point feels like it's stuffed with
used Q-Tips, but somehow my hands recall the ritual involved in
preparing a fresh pot of joe. While it's brewing I go to stick my
head under the shower and drag a toothbrush through my mouth. When
I return that familiar rich aroma has filled the kitchen and I
drift dreamily through it to that first steaming hot cup, which I
suck down greedily until the last of the Q-Tips is cleared. If I
overestimated the dosage, I may top off my cup, and if I'm feeling
really inspired I may even pour a bowl of cereal to go with it.
Only then am I ready to muster the creativity necessary to pull
together a presentable outfit from the contents of my closet.
After years of battling my addiction to caffeine, I have to confess
that the caffeine is winning. A recently acquired new job has
prompted me to fall off the wagon again in a big way. It requires
me to be in by 8 a.m. and to be boundlessly enthusiastic between
the hours of 9 and 4:30, which I spend teaching po-faced
administrative assistants how to use word-processing and
spreadsheet programs. I suppose the programs and the po-faced
peons are more inspiring to work with than, say, cadavers and
embalming fluids, but not by much. Fortunately, however, the
company I work for makes really good coffee. So of course, when I
get there, I drink more, and thereby achieve a fairly high level of
artificially induced boundless enthusiasm, which usually lasts me
till about 4:30, at which point I crash into surliness or
sonambulance or both.
As bad as this sounds, I used to be worse. I really bottomed out,
as many people do, in grad school, when I always kept one of those
20-ounce plastic travel mugs, usually full, somewhere on my person.
I seem to recall even sleeping with it, though that may only be
some caffeine-induced lucid dream. In any case it was not unusual
for me to drink three or four travel mugs worth of coffee in one
day. I don't have my fluid measurement conversion chart handy, but
I believe that translates to a fuck of a lot of coffee. Plus I'd
throw in a Coke and a few cups of tea for good measure. The health center
wrote out my pulse in scientific notation. My pupils were the size of
hockey pucks. My sweaters fluttered with each heartbeat as if I was
standing in a light breeze. And still I slurped down cup after cup.
A couple of times, when I had caught up on some sleep, I would try
to skip my morning fix. But that would inevitably lead to
headaches and crabby moods and even outright panic attacks in which
my caffeine-starved brain would lose track of everything I had
going on in my life and start screaming, "There's something you
should be doing RIGHT NOW! Figure out what it is, quick! There
must be something! Hurry!" Usually I would decide that what I
needed to be doing right now was getting some coffee. So I would.
Finally, about three years ago, my body rebelled against this
systematic abuse. I got some kind of stomach virus and it lasted
for two weeks. During that time one of the things I couldn't hold
down was caffeine in any form -- coffee, tea, soft drinks, not even
chocolate. For about two days a big caffeine-withdrawal vise
clamped itself around my skull, but on the third day I found I
could wake up and feel almost normal. And when the virus finally
left I felt positively fantastic. For the first time in years my
thought patterns were entirely caffeine-free and I was astonished
at how clear and focused they were. And, for the first time, I saw
clearly that I had been genuinely addicted.
I suppose most junkies live in denial, no matter how obviously
deadly their substance of choice may be, but I think it's
particularly easy for us caffeine addicts to ignore all the signs.
Caffeine, after all, is such a benevolent, socially sanctioned
drug--how could those cuddly polar bears in the Coke ads, or Fred,
the avuncular Dunkin' Donuts guy, be pushers? So for all my
obvious inability to function without frequent java infusions, it
hadn't occurred to me before to think of my dependence in terms of
an addiction. Besides, as every true caffeine junkie knows, you
can't really O.D. on the stuff. After a certain point caffeine
actually has a reverse effect -- ingest too much, and it simply knocks you
out. That last cup of Earl Grey before bedtime is sometimes the caffeine
junkie's only guarantee of a decent night's sleep.
I decided to go cold turkey for about a month, after which I slowly
reintroduced coffee to my diet, but only one cup at breakfast and
one cup to get me through that mid-afternoon energy ebb. Once in
a while I'd treat myself to a double latte. Tea and soft drinks I
resolved to avoid, fearing that mixing caffeine sources might make
it difficult to regulate my intake and thereby lead to further
addiction.
But let's face it, I was still hooked. Like many dope fiends, I
had simply domesticated my addiction under the guise of
connoisseurship. Leaving the Mountain Dews and Snapples to the
less sophisticated set, I made my move to Kenyan Aa and Guatemalan
Antigua. I began experimenting with my own blends: Espresso and
Vanilla Almond, Hawaiian Kona and Irish Cream, and my personal
favorite, French Roast and Hazelnut. I got my own bean grinder.
I still haven't made the move to an espresso machine or a French
press, those caffeinehead equivalents to bongs and bowl pipes; I
prefer to leave the preparation of the hard stuff to the
professionals.
My morning coffee ritual is every bit as elaborate and fetishized
as any smack addict's. I have my gear: the grinder, the drip
maker, the filters, the milk, the sugar, the mug, the spoon, and of
course the coffee beans themselves, which I keep in the freezer to
preserve the flavor. For one mug of coffee I measure out exactly
3/8 of a cup of beans; grind them for 8-10 seconds, depending on
type (French Roast grinds faster because it's oilier; the flavored
beans tend to take longer); pour just over two cups worth of
filtered water into the coffee maker; insert a fresh filter and
pour in the grinds; brew; pour into a mug; add milk and sugar to
taste. I'm perfectly capable of performing this entire operation
while half asleep. And I rarely clean up after myself immediately
because I'm too busy enjoying the high.
I've often pondered why it is that certain drugs, like coffee and
alcohol, remain part of the fabric of society while others, like
pot and, increasingly, nicotine, are outlawed and demonized. I
think it's because we all have a need, and society has an interest
in allowing us, to wind up and wind down occasionally. I think
most of us have days where we would never be able to leave the
house without some chemical intervention. Some mornings it just
doesn't seem worth it, and in fact it's probably not, but there's
a paycheck or a degree waiting for us out there, so we zap
ourselves to life with our stimulant of choice and fling ourselves
out the door into the maelstrom of modern life. And after a week
or so of this our ids have been squeezed down to maximum density
and the quickest release valve at hand is usually a six-pack or a
tequila shot.
At least I find this is how my life works. It's not the healthiest
way to live, I suppose, but it's better than smoking crack, and it
gives me that boundless enthusiasm I need to pay my bills. And pay
for all that coffee.