I Quit Coffee

In 2011, I quit coffee. I didn’t think it was possible, but I did it, and I was calm. Incredibly calm for the first time in 15 years.

The backstory is this: I had been dealing with digestive problems for 13 years. Frequent and disruptive bouts of heartburn with the occasional lunge out of sleep in the middle of the night with a rushing sensation of fiery fluid and gurgling.

This even after taking over the counter and prescription drugs that were supposed to heal me but didn’t. After one angry (but correct, though I fought it at the time) doctor told me I needed to lose about 30 to 40 pounds.

Nobody wants to listen when the truth whispers in their ears at two in the morning. Everybody just wants to get back to sleep and forget about their troubles.

Starting in 2006, I rode my bike to work with regularity. At first I was so out of shape I had to get a ride home in the evening. But gradually, I built up strength and could ride both ways.

By 2008 I was riding the long way to work and the scenic way home.

In the morning, I’d ride through San Martin Drive, which is hilly and rambling and beautiful.

At quitting time, I’d take the switchbacks up into Druid Hill Park, loop around the zoo, sometimes taking a lap or two around the lake and musing on the view of Baltimore from up on the hill.

I lost 30 pounds. I felt great, but I was annoyed that I had to go out and buy new pants.

Gradually, some of the weight came back.

In 2011, I became convinced that coffee was killing me. I quit. I drank green tea instead. It seemed to help, but not completely.

In the spring of 2012, I was fed up. I signed up to have a tube put down my throat and have a look around. The nurses joked that I was getting the Michael Jackson drug. My head felt icy for an instead, then I woke up in another room.

Nothing terrible was wrong, my doctor told me. I had moderate gastritis. I looked at the photo of my stomach. Nothing looked moderate to me. I asked if I could have some coffee once in a while. He said no.

I stayed off coffee for another 9 months or so.

When my desk at work was moved away from a window into the darkest part of the office, I succumbed and walked to the closest coffee shop. I bought 10 ounces of heaven for a ridiculous $3.71.

I repeated this daily, usually around 2pm. I found that if I started the day with green tea and waited until two, I could tolerate my indulgence, my sin.

For that is what coffee is to me. A sin. Addiction. Coffee is sex, a rite of passage. Coffee is bound up in memories of love, lust and regret. Coffee has an aura, it is a mark of experience.

I’ve been drinking coffee for four or five months now. It’s killing me again. I went from one cup in the afternoon to two cups in the morning and one in the afternoon.

You could say I quit again last Wednesday, when I went to jury duty. Maybe not the best day to quit, but the coffee from the machine looked nasty.

I had a headache all day, but I was calm again.