One more cup of coffee 'fore I go to the valley below.

Warning: This post makes me sound pathetic! But perhaps because I recognise my own patheticness you can forgive me.

Sometimes I wake up stupid!

I question whether the painting above my bed fell off its hook in the middle of the night and rendered me a half-wit.

I say this because sometimes I’ll rise from my slumber with ideas of grandeur, invincibility seeps from pores and I think “today is the day I will forgo my morning coffee.”

“I don’t need my large long black with cold soy this morning” I tell myself.

“Today is the day I break free from the caffeine shackles that bind me and start the day with a squeeze of lemon in hot water.”

Ha! I think I may have to get someone to reinforce that picture hook above my bed.

There are far worse things in this world than a freshly brewed long black. Caffeine in moderation is shown to be not only harmless to the average person but in some ways beneficial. However, I’m not your average person. ‘Little Miss Sensitive’ my ma calls me. And not cos I’m all meek and mild, cos I’m not! I’m strong and tough and stuff but when it comes to physical reactions to foods, or cosmetics or hydrochloric acid. . . I’m your girl. As a child I suffered from just about every food allergy under the sun. I grew out of them as I got older but I found other means of intoxicating my body – coffee being the biggest and best of them.

I’m not one of those crazy people who drink six cups a day (you crazies know who you are). If anything, I think I’m quite conservative in my coffee drinking ways. I’ll have an absolute maximum of two but most days a coffee first thing is all I need. So why would I bother cutting it out? Well I’m glad you asked.

I am 100%, without a doubt, unequivocally addicted to the stuff. Of course I’m enamoured with its taste, and the smell of it sends me into a state of nasal passage ecstasy, but what petrifies me the most is that I am physically at its mercy.

Those of you who know me will understand that this does not sit well with me. I’m not really all that okay with being at the mercy of a cup of coffee (even if it does sit on an eco-cup shaped high horse). I’m not so cool with the fact that if I decide not to have a coffee one morning I spend the entire day walking around like a zombie nursing a headache that rivals a red wine hangover.

I’ve done it before. I went 30 days last June without so much as a sip of the divine elixir. It only took me 3 days to get over the throbbing head, glazed eyes, and slow up takes.

Sure people commented on the whiteness of my eyes, my glowing skin and my fresh breath (nobody commented on the breath but coffee breath IS gross) but it came with its pitfalls.

My quick wit waned somewhat. I didn’t get to see my buddies at Bru every morning. I found myself still needing to replace the hot drink habit so was consuming unhealthy amounts of hot soy milk and most of all I missed the rush.

I remember the first coffee I had after my 30 day fast. It was terrible. I could barely finish it. My heart was pounding at a million miles an hour, the taste stayed on my tongue the entire day and I could still feeling it pumping through my veins hours later. But then I was tired one day and had to be on the ball at work so I had a coffee and what do you know, it freaking hit the spot and I’ve never gone back. . . until a few days ago when I woke up stupid!

Reading “Healing with Whole Foods” by Paul Pitchford before bed probably has something to do with my sleep induced stupidity. He talks about caffeine as if it’s a drug. I mean it is a drug, but he talks about it as if it’s toxic. Well it is a toxin but he talks about it as if it’s the reason my adrenals are out of whack, I get irritable in the afternoons and my liver is what the Chinese medical folk commonly refer to as stagnant. And that my dear friends is because it’s true. Gasp! No! Yes, it’s all true!

He also goes on to say that toxins like caffeine have a depleting nature and destroy key nutrients in the body. It makes me wonder why I bother taking so much care with all the good stuff I put in my body if I’m just killing it with my coffee consumption.

So I’m faced with a dilemma. I want to give it up, but it’s so damn inconvenient. I mean is there ever a good time, to have a throbbing head, vague demeanour and increased drowsiness? Certainly can’t do it on a work day! Would be next to impossible to get through a six hour prac class at TAFE. How could I start a Sunday morning without a coffee while I read the paper?

Paul admits that withdrawal from coffee is difficult for many (that’s me. I’m many).And that a gradual withdrawal is sometimes best. He suggests drinks made from barley or wheat-grass juice powders and satisfying grain-and-root coffee substitutes like dandelion, burdock, chicory or carob teas.

I gotta say dandelion does work. When I had a little stint living in Byron Bay back in 2004 I became somewhat addicted to LSD’s. Not the hallucinogenic silly, the drink. Latte Soy Dandelion! Sure the acronym only works when you rearrange the order, we all know it should be Soy Dandelion Latte but that’s not nearly as hilarious now is it?

There are quite a few cafes around Sydney that offer it and it can be easily created yourself. I like the tea bags because their kind of bitter (and for some reason I like that – weird I know) but the granules are a fave amongst many. They’re sweet and when mixed with frothy milk pretty much mirror a latte.

So what does this all mean? Well I’m not making any promises but when I’m ready I’ll give the whole giving up coffee thing another go. My bestie is actually in the process of doing it herself this week. The most agonising thing for her though is that she owns a friggen coffee shop. Talk about temptation, I admire her perseverance through self-inflicted torture.

Here’s some food for thought

Let’s say for arguments sake I do give it up, what am I gonna do if a tall dark handsome stranger asks me out for a coffee?

Say “no I’m sorry I can’t, I don’t drink that toxic filth. How about an LSD”?

Fat chance!