I did drink water instead of a latte though, and I'm very proud of that. The more I read about coffee the better I feel about quitting. Though I still loooooooooove the stuff!
I should mention that I'm perhaps too knowledgeable about addiction because of issues in my family, with much heavier substances than sugar or coffee, substances with which one can't risk trying to be moderate. So I tend to see addiction through the lens of all the stories, advice, pitfalls, etc. that I've heard over the past year, some of which applies, some of which probably doesn't, or at least not with the same degree of gravity.
However, because of this immersion in the world of addiction and recovery, I've also done a lot of thinking and noticing of short-term rewards vs. long-term, and addictions and habits that cause damage right away vs. over the long-term. Though extremely painful and sometimes fatal, the "hitting rock bottom" caused by hard drug use can be a blessing in disguise, since people are basically forced to get help and learn to live new lives before it's too late. The consequences of using are crystal clear and impossible to ignore. On the other hand, there are countless things we do--on an individual level: regularly consuming things that are a little bad for us, and on a societal level: driving cars, for example, that cause almost no noticeable damage if done once, twice, even 100 times. But add up the effects over the years, or over generations, and it's like a slow, drawn-out version of a drug addict's life spiraling out of control. Like the frog who jumps out when thrown into a pot of boiling water but stays there and boils if he's in there from the beginning and doesn't notice the slow rise in temperature. The question for these "smaller" habits is whether the short-term gain is worth it (feeling alert, getting somewhere fast). Some people have to take medications for certain conditions, and those medications may be hard on the body in other ways, but they're necessary and the benefits outweigh the risks.
I've been drinking coffee for so long (except when pregnant) that it's hard for me to know whether I'm self-medicating or whether I can have an acceptable level of energy and motivation and concentration once off it for a while. I've often told people that I feel like I'm self-medicating for a mild case of ADD, because coffee increases my level of concentration so much, and because growing up, I was always such a daydreamer. In first grade, I missed recess EVERY DAY because I never copied the whole paragraph from the blackboard in time. I was perfectly capable of copying it--I could write--but there was something about staying on task that I couldn't do (it was pretty boring too) and so my punishment was to stay inside and "finish", without any advice on how to do that. I certainly would have been labeled with something nowadays. My the time I was in college, I looked forward to staying up all night with books and papers all around me to write a paper. When many years of one's life has been taken up with primarily mentally taxing responsibilities and interests (both in school and at work), coffee helps sustain that level of mental activity. Although now that I write that I realize that probably the same could be said about physical labor, truck drivers staying up all night... Well, whatever the purpose for drinking it, coffee most certainly, while it can be useful every once in a while, must cause us to be at least somewhat out of touch with our own limits and rhythms of mental and physical rest and activity.
It's interesting though that I didn't start drinking coffee for concentration purposes. I started--I remember this very clearly--consciously using coffee during a break from college where I got really into making things out of fimo. I worked all day, so when I got home around 11pm, I didn't just want to go to bed, I wanted to work on fimo, but I was tired, so I'd make myself some coffee and settle down in the basement for a good few hours of creative fun. So it was to stay awake, not to concentrate. But I guess I soon realized how much it did help me to concentrate and to work effectively at whatever I was doing. I soon started routinely drinking coffee before and during work--I was a canvasser for Greenpeace--and felt like it really helped since I had to be friendly and enthusiastic all the time, which I probably was anyway, but the coffee was like a guarantee. A shortcut, that's what it is, and maybe that's one of the non-health related reasons I want to quit--because I want to be able to come to conclusions and do things and think without a chemical shortcut.
Part of what's also hard about this for me emotionally and physically is that I really like to indulge. I'm in no way ascetic, and I often feel annoyed by people who turn down treats, like they don't know how to enjoy life and are party poopers. You may ask, "Doesn't everyone like to indulge?" I've talked to people who actually enjoy the feeling of control they get from limiting what they eat. Someone said to me the other day that with sweets it's the first few bites that taste the best anyway, after that it's all downhill, why have more than a few bites at all? For me it's not like that--I could eat apple pie and brownies with ice cream and creme brulee and rice pudding all day long. I baked a pumpkin pie last fall and ate THE WHOLE THING (minus one piece for Ko). For me it's almost not worth it to eat just one bite of something really good--I like to have tons, and the strange thing is I usually don't feel stuffed until I eat what most people would consider a disgusting amount of food. Maybe it's partially because I'm nursing, but I think I just also have an extremely fast metabolism. I know that there are obese people who probably don't eat that much more than I do. I also feel hungry most of the time. I am confused by people who "forget to have breakfast" because for me it's the first thing I think of when I get up and if I don't have breakfast I'm going to be nauseous and dizzy and useless within an hour or two. So, calories aren't calories, and my guess is that I'll still be eating plenty, just they'll be good things not replaced by bad things and so I may have fewer blood sugar problems in between and maybe feel satisfied a little more quickly. I should make it very clear that I'm NOT trying to lose weight, just improve my health!! In fact, I wouldn't mind gaining a few pounds.
Anyway, back to liking to indulge, I think that's only natural in that we're probably wired to eat while we can, especially if it's something good. The problem is that as long as you have money and there's food available, we can always get it. I hate that! I don't like identifying my way of eating in the negative--no this, no that. It feels much better to me to try to eat whatever I want, while trying to include as many healthful foods as possible. I'm trying to eat more food that is in season, because it's healthier for obvious reasons, but there's also something relieving in it for me, in that I'm being limited by nature to certain foods that are available at that time. But, since all these foods and drinks are readily available, it is necessary to set limits, annoying as it is.
This past winter I knew there was a snowstorm coming, but couldn't make it to the grocery store for a variety of reasons. I knew I was in for it, since we were almost out of "everything". But, what happened? Necessity is truly the mother of invention, and I baked fresh bread several times (I guess the "fresh" is a little redundant there, eh? I didn't bake stale bread...), soaked beans and made a delicious soup, etc. etc. etc. We had PLENTY in the house, and I probably ate more healthfully than I had the whole week before, and had fun being stuck in the house and cooking.
I have the feeling this journal is going to unearth lots more about my relationship with food than just sugar and coffee!
OK, here is the plan, for one month plus one menstrual period (that way the experiment will include two of those, since this one has been hard and I anticipate that they will be both harder in the beginning and easier in the long run, headache-, mood-, craving- and fatigue-wise):
- no coffee or tea
- no white sugar
- no white flour
- 8 glasses of water a day
- journal every day (unless I fall asleep with the kids!)
A brief review of what I've done so far:
Over the course of three days, I weaned myself off of coffee by having less each morning, accompanied by more milk, and none in the afternoon, and quit white sugar cold turkey. These 3 days were very difficult, but I had braced myself and was very determined and also did not have any headaches, both out of luck (timing menstrually and no storms) and because it was the first time I didn't try the coffee cold turkey (during my last pregnancy I quit cold turkey and had a migraine for 3 days).
On the third day I mentioned to a friend what I was doing (just the sugar part) and she said, "Oh, the third day's the hardest!" Wow, was it great to hear that. I've heard so much about how important it is in recovery from addiction to have a road map, some sense of what to expect on the road to recovery. A difficult period is SO much easier to handle when you know it's something everyone goes through and you have some sense of when it will probably end. So it was great to hear that--wish I'd known it before. It certainly was true in my case. The next day I went off coffee altogether, and felt GREAT. In fact, over the next week or so, I felt interestingly calm and collected and also energetic. I also found that excercising (tae kwon do) GAVE me energy and was more invigorating than it was before. I was actually less snappy with the kids during potentially irritating moments (I wouldn't have anticipated that). I had periods of tiredness in the afternoon that I just got through and then went on.
Another thing I've realized is that I've been making all these (other) positive changes in my diet and lifestyle over the past year or so, but that without also cutting out these few "simple" things (coffee, sugar, and white flour), the opportunity for those positive changes to make any difference in my health were being sabotaged.
More on that later--time for a glass of water!
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