What am I talking about here? Catch up on part one.
I started drinking coffee at a relatively early age. I moved out and started going to community college full time while working 20-30 hours per week when I was 17. When I had early morning classes, I motivated myself to attend by rewarding myself with a sugary coffee drink on my way to the lecture. This treat turned into a serious habit, to the point that I can consume a 32 oz french press on my own over the course of a morning without even thinking about.
I have tried weaning myself by incorporating some decaf into the mix, and increasing the ratio over time. I have tried black tea, green tea, and matcha. But nothing makes me feel truly alive the way my fully caffeinated morning coffee does. I love the ritual of preparing it first thing in the morning. I love drinking it slowly in bed on the weekends, or as I get started on my workday. Breakfast isn’t breakfast without a hot cup of coffee. I feel that I am more productive on caffeine, and have an almost emotional dependence on coffee. If I am having a bad day or can’t focus, I’ll treat myself to a little pick me up by way of iced americano, cappuccino, or cold brew. Similar to why I enjoyed smoking cigarettes, coffee can be used as social ritual and also as a way to take a few minutes to myself.
I have noticed that before coffee I feel sluggish, and if I don’t drink any caffeine at all early enough I start to get a headache. But I had never in my life experienced true withdrawl until I was, ironically enough, in Colombia, the land of delicious and plentiful coffee. One of the first and most surprising things I learned is that most Colombians prefer to drink instant coffee.
In Leticia we were staying in a cabin owned by a local woman on the edge of the rainforest. Leticia already has a remote feel. The heat and humidity is oppressive and constant. Everything is made of slowly decaying wood and rusty corrugated tin. The visual effect this creates exaggerates the offer to connect to the constant process of rot and regeneration that is always all around us. But where we were staying, beyond the outskirts of the town, felt even further removed. The only to access to the cabin for the last several hundred yards was a dirt footpath. The kitchen was open, with chickens running around the yard and parrots flying overhead. The ad had featured a natural pool, which turned out to be access to a river that flowed from the Amazon.
We had mosquito nets covering our bunks, but insects would swarm the flood lights at night while we sat outside after dark. One of the first nights a friend accidentally threw a flying cockroach into my face in a fit of fear. Which, while not damaging, was obviously horrifying and really set the tone for what could be expected from this sort of environment. We covered ourselves in DEET bug spray that burned. There are plants and animals everywhere that could potentially be poisonous or carry disease . I think that on every trip it is very important to be deferential to locals, but this maxim seemed especially relevant for this particularly foreign journey.
The morning of a full day tour our hostess served us coffee with milk, but mine tasted like it was just warm milk. When I asked her for more coffee, she carefully measured out a small mound of powdered instant coffee using the flat edge of a butter knife and stirred it into my cup. Not wanting to appear ungracious, or take more resources than she was able to offer, I accepted my coffee scented milk and prayed it would be enough to get me through the day.
We went on a tour down the amazon, experienced an island populated by some delightful little monkeys, visited a local tribe and stopped at a town for lunch. This was around noon and I was already feeling a slight headache from the heat and lack of my favorite drug. There was no coffee at the restaurant so I ordered a coke to wash down the fried meat and bread combo, thinking that would be enough. It was not. An hour later I was experiencing full blown withdrawl for the first time in my life. I had a pounding headache, I was extremely nauseous, and very sensitive to the sunlight and oppressive heat. All I could do was lie down on the sidewalk in the shade with my eyes closed and feel unbearably sick, wondering what in the hell I was going to do.
Miraculously and with the help of my friends, before we needed to leave for our next stop, I found a grocery store in town that served strong coffee. I downed an espresso shot and within 30 minutes, I felt completely fine. I couldn’t believe that lack of caffeine had done that to me, and then how completely I had bounced back in such a short amount of time. That day, I resolved to wean myself off caffeine. Since then, I have gone down to as little as one cup of black tea per day, but have never dared to go completely off. I also backslide regularly and still consume at least one cup of coffee most days. Instead, I decided to keep black tea with me when I travel in case of an emergency like the addict that I am. I justify this by telling myself that after all the damaging substances and behaviors that feel good in the moment but that I have given up over the years, can’t I have just one little vice left for myself?
Continue reading Part three.
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