If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will...
Yes.
I started drinking coffee when I was in high school and had grown tired of drinking soda and even lemonade at work. Once I developed a taste for it with lots of cream and sugar (liking it black came later), I adopted it in its traditional role as a tool for students. I was young and my body handled the abuse pretty well, as far as I can remember. Once I even stayed awake for 46 hours straight (though at that time I also employed instant iced tea: yikes)! Gradually, over the past dozen years or so, it has become both a tool and a pleasure, and, since college (or so), a stumbling block.
I think about coffee daily, many times daily, over and over. Why? I think I like it. I think I need it. I think it will help me. On the other hand, I think I don't like it. I think I need to stay away from it. I think it will make things worse. Daily I decide, exhaustively, over and over, if I will have it or not. I make rules about how much to have, how often. Then I decide over and over again how to follow them, to what extent.
See, for me, there is no "I'll just have one cup of coffee per morning". That doesn't work for me. If I'm going to drink it and feel ok, I need a little more than yesterday. Each day, a little more, or it doesn't reach the point of being enjoyable and feeling normal. I quickly start to get to where I feel bad if I don't have any, in all kinds of ways, and as the threshold of "enough" coffee creeps higher, drinking that much makes me feel unwell too. Furthermore, I lose the ability to tell if I'm tired or just behind on my caffeine intake. I feel confused and grouchy and, often, in physical pain.
Then, withdrawal. Ouch ouch ouch.
So yes, coffee is a powerful force in my world. I am easily drawn in to the shadows and illusions that it generates. Happiness? Yes. Feeling of being not tired? Thanks, coffee.
I think it's safe to say that I spend a lot more energy on this drink than any drink really deserves.
I know there are people who stumble to the coffee in the morning, drink their cup(s), and are then ready for the day. They are at peace, and even happy, with their habit. Maybe that will be me some day, but now, it is not. I have trouble even isolating what the variables are, especially now that I figured out that drinking coffee makes me groggy the next day. Seriously! How does that help?
Another problem is that coffee doesn't always seem to help me like it generally used to. Or at least, sometimes it doesn't make me happy. Instead it makes me edgy, and then really grouchy when it wears off. But only sometimes.
Why does it have to be so confusing?
This had gotten so bothersome in the past week or so, that I seriously considered calling it quits. No complicated rules about "I can have a moderate amount once every third day" or whatever. Just no coffee. Would it help? Or is coffee really good for me, as I used to think (sometimes) and as some studies seem to show?
But now that I like it again, maybe I won't entirely quite after all. Maybe I'll work my way back to one of my complicated schedules.
Sometimes I just don't know what to do with myself.
