Last week I wrote a few lines about my endeavor to quit drinking coffee.
This post serves to be more of a final report of my thought process,
reasons, timeline of physical symptoms and general reflections.
For many years I have had pain in my upper back and neck. Busy doing
things with my life at the time I ignored it and "powered through" these
symptoms. Two weeks ago, I got my first ever massage for this area.
Coral, the therapist, noted that the area was extremely tight and ropey.
After our session she recommended stretches to help loosen the area.
Frankly, I was dismayed. Why should one have to suffer to greatly to
then have to perform a daily ritual for something that should work
"out-of-the-box?" (My back and neck that is) I decided that I, lazy as I
am, would instead try to do less rather than more. I brainstormed and
searched around the http-net some before concluding that I would try to
cut coffee out.
Stepping aside for a moment: I am fiercely independent. I am strongly
motivated to do things which promote my sense of independence. Two years
ago, I quit drinking. Last year: smoking. I spend way more time on my
bicycle than in a car and my wife and I have a small garden.
Needless to say, when the opportunity arose to cut out some dependence
in my own life, feel better, and abstain from the global commodity
marketplace on another front, I bit.
Over the last 12 years, I have been a coffee drinker. It started in high
school and I picked the habit up from my parents. My consumption has
waxed and waned from more than a pot a day to one cup. As of late, I had
been consuming 2.5 cups. (8oz ea)
Everyday I would wake and without any other care ramble down to the
kitchen. Measure and grind. Boil and pour. Wait. Plunge. My morning
thoughts were completely dominated by coffee. There is nothing I could
care about in the morning without paying my coffee tax.
And the evening too. Before bed the beast would clamber into my mind.
With elevated blood pressure, my upper back in knots, I was looking
forward to waking up and performing my ritual.
Fast forward to last Monday at 5AM-
I woke up at 5am and did all of my typical day off of work things except
make coffee. So far so good.
Around 8AM I was really sleepy so I slept until 11am. When I awoke the
second time, I had a mild headache and felt very foggy. Coral invited
me out to the lake for a snow-shoe and I thought the exercise would be
good for me. The exercise went fine but I was very crabby, approaching
nasty, during the trip. Returning home around 4pm, I ate and despite the
headache, took another nap until 7pm. Then dinner, read some book
(Brothers Karamazov) and went to bed.
Day two, 1:30am
I awaken in extreme discomfort. In the night, someone had come and lit
my head on fire after hiding an assortment of knives in my lower back.
Agony. There is no comfortable position to lay in. There is no escape
from the fire in my skull. I lay in despair for hours before I can
escape into exhaustion after the sun rose.
Some time later I awake to eat and wait. Foggy and confused, I decide
that it would be a good idea to get some exercise like I did the day
before. Since, I hadn't food to make dinner that night it was decided
that I would ride out to the grocery store despite the -2F (-19C)
temperatures and the buried roads.
Looking back on this, it was a bad idea. I froze on the way down the
hill because I didn't dress appropriately. When I arrived, I had to
leave because I left my bike lock at home. Confusion is the only way I
can describe this trip.
On returning home, I had another weird thought to try to write about my
unusual misery. With my headache and sore back, once again would I try
to lay down for rest. It was uncomfortable and included long periods of
waiting in pain, but I managed to fall asleep.
Day Three: Constipation.
Thankfully on the third day, my headache had waned. I was still cloudy,
but much less severe than the harbour fog of day two. Clear enough, I
went back to work. Cloudy and with terrible lower-back soreness I worked
through the day emitting the foulest farts I have ever come to know. It
is providence that my co-workers do not work within my olfactory-radius.
The gas gave way to a bloated upset stomach. Monday was my last BM.
With the same lower back soreness as the day before I spent my afternoon
and evening on the pot praying for divine intervention.
Eureka!
Days Four - Seven
I worked my normal shifts. The back pain and constipation had subsided.
My thoughts became less and less foggy as time marched on. My guts were
still irregular, but better and better all of the time. For anyone who
hasn't kicked an addiction, there is that period when one must find out
what they're going to do with all of the time and energy that has been
reclaimed. This period of time included much of this process. A process
I am still going through today.
I don't think I will every have another cup of coffee in my life if I
can avoid it. As sloum said in the Sterile Zone, I am a person who does
not have x. It feels good to gain my independence of time and thought
from the addiction. It is amazing to me how many more clock cycles I
have for other tasks now that the coffee has been eliminated from the
loop. It's true that when I wake up, I must stretch now and take a hot
shower to get my blood moving, but at least for the rest of the the day
my mind is my own.
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