Writing This Post Makes Me Want a Cup of Coffee

So I quit drinking coffee. 

Before you ask: yeah, I was a big coffee guy.  Big.  Thirty years, pot-a-day kind of coffee drinker.  Started in college and never stopped.  I got a real reputation for coffee consumption at a previous job (it was closer to two pots a day back then), and I enjoyed having that reputation just as much as I enjoyed a nice hot cup of well-brewed joe. 

 

Yes: joe.  As in coffee.  Not latte, not cappuccino, not half-caf something-something with a squirt or a twist or whatever the hell they do in those hifalutin’ little shops.  Coffee.  The strong black drink your grandpa drank out of a thermos while sitting on a steel beam at break time. 

I love coffee.  And I quit drinking it.  Why?  I won’t bore you with the whole explanation (maybe ninety percent of it), but it’s got to do with an ailment I developed: acid reflux, which I thought meant indigestion.  As I have now learned, it doesn't always. 

It did, however, make me so hoarse that often, I could barely speak at all.  I like to sing, and even in these Covid-ruined times our local theater folks are figuring out ways to put on performances, so something had to be done.  

Went to the doctor.  He said it was reflux.  Had to stop drinking coffee. 

Well, that’s not entirely true.  The instructions said to “at least limit caffeine.”  Also alcohol, spicy food, onions and garlic (even when the onions are cooked), carbonated beverages, and chocolate.  All the staples.  I’ve had to completely rethink my diet. 

 

I’m kinda fifty-fifty on half measures, so in this case “limit” meant “quit.”  I figured it would be good for me.  You know, do something totally different, see what life’s like on the other side, turn my middle-aged midlife-crisis self into somebody new, even if only a little. 

 

How did it go?  Oh, it was a blast.  

 

That doctor’s appointment was on a Monday.  I stopped drinking coffee that day.  Two days later, I bragged to my wife that, wow, it was so easy.  I wasn’t having any withdrawal symptoms at all.  I was fine.  No problem.  I’m almost superhuman in my ability to ditch life-long habits!   

 

The headaches started the next day. 

 

Okay, I figured.  That’s fine.  I can handle a little headache.  Just get through the next week or so.  No problem, he said, having no idea what was coming next. 

 

And what was coming next?  Worse headaches.    

 

In general, I’m not a headache guy.  I don’t get migraines.  I don’t even get hangovers to speak of.  A headache, to me, is a minor inconvenience easily fixed with a couple of aspirin and a glass of water.  Not these babies.  These were jackhammer-to-the-temple headaches.  Curl up on the couch with a blanket wrapped around my head headaches.  You’d have thought a newborn goddess was trying to pound her way out of my skull and, dammit Hephaestus, do something about it! 

 

Fun fact: caffeine withdrawal causes headaches because caffeine causes the blood vessels in your head to contract.  When you quit the caffeine, those blood vessels get bigger.  You’re literally putting physical pressure on your own brain. 

 

Oh, and of course there was the fatigue, and the inability to concentrate.  By Friday, it got so bad that I took a nap. 

 

I took a nap!  I never take naps.  Naps, for me, are even rarer than headaches.  As lazy as I am, as often as I'll just fritter away an entire afternoon, taking a nap seems like a complete waste of time, so I don’t.  Until I did.  Four days after quitting coffee. 

 

I wanted a new experience.  I got it.  Where the hell did I leave that monkey’s paw? 

 

Saturday, I’d had enough.  I brewed two cups of coffee, and drank one.  Wow, what a difference.  Headache: gone.  Fatigue: gone.  Inability to concentrate: gone.  Dull-witted surly gloominess: gone.  I actually got chatty enough for my wife and sister-in-law – who come from a family so incessantly talkative that they call each other after day-long family events, just to talk things over – thought I was talking too much.   

 

That was two months ago.  Since then, I’ve had maybe six cups of coffee, total.  They haven’t always affected me so radically, but I haven’t been suffering from acute withdrawal symptoms, either.   

 

As for the rest of it, yeah, I’ve cut out almost all the foods I’m not supposed to eat, and I’ve been taking a little pill every morning.  Has it worked?  Kinda.  Sometimes.  Other times, not.  I could blame the doctor for not making it go away completely, but I might need him, so I’ll blame getting older instead.  Although, I kinda need that, too.