My middle child is stubborn. Really stubborn. When he was young, I wanted to throttle him regularly. I often joked that one of us would not make it to his adulthood. As he got a bit older, I started to see this stubbornness as a positive sign. He had a “stick-to-it” quality that would surely serve him well. That mental strength was key to his success last summer as a tree planter – and why he’s going back again this summer.
I was slightly horrified to hear from my other two kids that they figured he’d inherited this quality from me. I didn’t think I was quite that stubborn, but it certainly explained why we drove each other crazy.
And it also explains why, when over the Christmas holidays my kids declared me “addicted” to coffee – or caffeine, more properly – I was determined to show them they were wrong. While I declare my “need” for coffee most work mornings, I’ve never had difficulty not drinking it, and seldom do on weekends.
So there we were in Costa Rica getting up very early each morning to hike among some of the most spectacular lush forests I’ve ever seen. Early morning equals coffee, right? And the coffee there is very good. But my bullheadedness won out and I spent a week NOT drinking coffee. As expected (by me, but a surprise to the kids), the lack of caffeine had very little impact on me, but it did get me thinking about addiction.
If I say I “need” my coffee, but experience no symptoms of withdrawal, what is that? Where’s the line between a desire, a habit, a ritual and a physical need. This wasn’t just hypothetical for me. My kids have been touched by addiction. They’ve unfortunately seen the effects of alcoholism up close and personal. As they’ve grown older, we’ve had to have uncomfortably conversations about those “addiction” genes running in the family and how they may need to be more careful than their friends, in those years of experimentation. And there was one holiday season as our family was going through that time that I remember being very careful to show them that it was possible to drink without getting drunk. It was a lesson they needed to know.
But back to coffee. Turns out, that for me, the daily cup (or two) is less about what’s in the cup and more about the ritual of holding something warm in my hands and giving myself a physical signal that it’s time to concentrate a little more seriously on the day ahead. Current medical science suggests that a little caffeine isn’t a bad thing. And so I’m back to drinking coffee most mornings. But I am making an effort to switch it up regularly and drink other hot beverages. Herbal teas make a great substitute (I’m particularly fond of the sage tea a friend introduced me to several years ago) and the effect on me, at least, is no different.
Now if I can only figure out how to make fruits and vegetables fulfil the same rituals for me that chocolate does!
