Unhorsing the Bean
Coffee makes me a might nervous when I drink it.” Karl Childers, Sling Blade
Each morning in the United States, 172, 437, 895 people awaken with the same vague feeling of existential despair. The instant they return from sleep to conscious awareness of the physical world, they realize something vital is missing from their lives. It is not love or meaningful work. It is not a more pleasing appearance or financial solvency. Words become poor, puny things, inadequate to describe this gnawing emptiness vibrating at the cellular level. It best expressed in graphic form:
This is a caffeine molecule, simple in structure, complex in implication.
A recent study reveals that about 80% of the world’s population simply cannot do what needs to be done without some form of this bitter, naturally occurring psychoactive substance. In the U.S., the Earth’s largest consumer of coffee, the drink has become so commonplace that the morning pour over is considered a part of the USDA food pyramid, equal, if not superior, to green leafy vegetables. Coffee is now an art form, a fashion accessory, and part of our culture wars, as in “Would you prefer a short pulled, low-foam shade grown Kona Ristretto or some Maxwell House?” Coffee is touted as a hedge against cognitive decline, the bane of gall stones, a spur to the afternoon slump, and for the working class, a cheap alternative to both anabolic steroids and Viagra. There is also the matter of regularity, which for committed coffee drinkers requires no further comment.
Coffee seems benign enough. Most people can pound down a tankard of Ethiopian Harrar, stroll down the hall and perform a perfectly successful appendectomy without so much as a tremor. Folks with steady nerves find a cup of Joe relaxing, an essential guest at any social gathering, a pleasant companion
on the daily walk, mildly inspiring, adding a spring to their step and an extra serving of valor to help them face life’s inevitable periods of tedium.
However, coffee is not suitable for everyone. For those who are “sensitive” to its chemical interactions, caffeine is essentially a DEA Schedule One Controlled Substance, similar to methamphetamine, only more expensive. To the caffeine intolerant, the initial euphoria of one percolated cup of Tanzania Peaberry is quickly followed by various degrees of mania during which one experiences an almost compulsive need to repaint the garage or mow the fairways of the neighborhood golf course. Next comes a lingering sense of irritability where the nerves feel like sparking copper wires and a slow download is cause for hurling the laptop through the nearest window. Irritation evolves into anxiety and after a second cup, full-blown panic, which if survived, eventually dissipates into ennui. And yet many people deny these ravages, and willingly climb aboard the same hamster wheel every day using a colorful variety of rationalizations.
During my years of swilling down everything from Folger’s Coffee Crystals to French Press Sumatra Firestorm, I’ve become well-versed in coffee’s schizophrenic oscillations-one minute “Ode to Joy” the next “Night on Bald Mountain”; from It’s a Wonderful Life, to Requiem for a Dream; today, the mind a choir of wondrous revelations-tomorrow, my cat’s loving meow transformed into an air horn. But sifting through the congestion of divisive voices, how could I ever uncover the truth about coffee? It was plain that I needed advice from a sage.
One mild Spring afternoon I attended a workshop hosted by Patricia Bragg, N.D. Ph.D. heiress to the physical stamina and expansive product line of the “Vitality King”, Paul C. Bragg. It was entitled, “Regain Your Birthright of Super Abundant Health!”
The audience, all of whom, like myself, were in various stages of disrepair, was flushed with the anticipation that their allotment of Super Health was less than an hour away, and with it a return to the
Joie de Vivre of a nine- year-old. Ms. Bragg appeared, radiating agelessness, vigor and boundless perkiness, all without stopping at Starbuck’s on the way. She began with a short exercise in alternate nostril breathing, followed by a quick Q&A.
I seized my opportunity. “Is coffee really that bad for you?” Her response was swift and unexpected.
“Ask your pancreas.”
I’m ashamed to admit that in all my years on this planet, I hadn’t once consulted my pancreas about even trivial matters, and as I was crafting an ice breaker, Ms. Bragg continued. This time in a more didactic tone
“Son, coffee’s a brutal whip to the adrenals; it leaves your cells begging. Why would you drink that poison?”
Although I assumed this was a rhetorical question, even before I was able to reflect on my motivations, she had transitioned to the importance of daily lymphatic drainage and Apple Cider Vinegar massage, most of which I missed.
That night my dreams were visited by images from the Id.
In the first, my adrenal glands were hunched over to the oars of a Roman war galley, the task master flailing them with cat-o-nine tails as he shouted, “ramming speed!”
In the second, my cells, pale and dispirited, wandered mean streets with tin cups and placards “Spare some trace minerals?” “Will work for Niacin.”
I woke disoriented and after being restored by an invigorating cup of Kenya AA with its haunting
complexities, redolent nose, fruity undercurrents, and audacious finish, I decided to quit…once and for all.
I’d quit before, countless times, but armed only with underdeveloped will power and a flimsy sense of destiny, I was quickly vanquished.
I was told that before embarking on any important journey, it is beneficial to begin on an auspicious day, one in which the cosmic tumblers are properly aligned to invite the assistant of supernatural powers. I chose D-Day.
There are several traditional methods of giving up a stubborn habit. All of them fraught.
Cold Turkey. Fashioned entirely for masochists, the perils of sudden abstinence are widely known. Day One: That fragmented feeling better known as dissociative fugue. Day Two: Who lit this signal flare in my head? Day Three: Lethargy accompanied by the sensation that Redi-Crete had been transfused into my connective tissue. Day Four: Pacing frantically outside the Buzz Hut trying to trade my Amazon stock for anything with caffeine in it. Day Five: 12 ounces of Jamaican Blue Mountain single serve with a dollop of whipping cream, a dusting of nutmeg, the morning sports section, a reclining chair and….behold, the revenant!
The Tourniquet. Essentially a slow strangulation during which the daily amount of caffeine is incrementally reduced until all desire magically disappears. Best attempted in a padded environment.
The Unreasonable Facsimile. The peculiar idea that substituting a beverage composed of cereal grains, chicory, rain forest tree bark, or chaga mushrooms can somehow duplicate the transcendental delights of a Café Cubano.
Extinction. Drawn from Positive Psychology, this technique advises the addict to “toss out everything associated with the offending behavior or substance.” So, out goes the cappuccino machine, the IWAKA
Home Roaster, Braun grinder, Mr. Coffee drip station, the French Press, two packs of organic brown coffee filters, the five-year stash of old Barista magazines, tooth whitener, my gift card to Philz and finally the 40 pound burlap sack of green Columbian beans in the hall closet. However, it’s not so easy to discard your dopamine receptors I discovered shortly before trying to chase down the trash truck disappearing into the horizon.
As I straddled a precipice, I chanced upon one of those unattributed quotes that seem to be strewn about everywhere these days: “The Great Books provide not only solace and contemplation, but a compass and a lantern.” Emerson? Samuel Johnson? 50 Cent? No matter. I began with Moby Dick because of its uncanny parallels to my situation. A solitary figure haunted by personal demons pursues a mythic creature around the Norway Maelstrom and through Perdition’s Flames, finally to thrust a sharp object into its dark heart. Hmm. Now that I recall, it didn’t really end that well for Ahab, did it?
Better try something else. Lear! A bewildered monarch repudiates the thing he loves best, ending his days barking mad on some bleak storm-swept heath. Maybe the Odyssey. Odysseus lashes himself to the mast as the Sirens torment him with offers of free refills.
I was at an impasse. I couldn’t quit, the canon of great Western literature didn’t help and there were three new artisan coffee shops opening on the main drag downtown to undo whatever resolve I could muster. Just as it seemed I was doomed to spend the rest of my life staring at the bottom of a hand thrown coffee mug, I remembered the Bhagavad Gita, India’s trove of wisdom which Gandhi said could unravel any knot point confronting mankind. I snatched it off the shelf and picked a page at random:
The Gita, for the uninitiated, recounts a great war between rival clans in ancient India, but it is more importantly an allegory, with the principal warriors of one army representing man’s ennobling qualities while the other, man’s debasing behaviors and habits. I had opened to Chapter 2, Verse 3 in which Lord Krishna is exhorting his chief disciple, Arjuna, the greatest of warriors, to fight for righteousness in the
climactic battle of Kurukshetra. Arjuna in a state of despondency has refused to take up his bow and destroy his enemies, many of whom are his bad habits cleverly disguised as his kinsmen and therefore dear to him. It sounded uncomfortably familiar.
To rouse his disciple, Krishna engages in a timeless discourse which includes these lines: “Oh Arjuna, surrender not to unmanliness: it is unbecoming of thee. O Scorcher of Foes, forsake this small, weak heartedness. Arise!” A torrent of arrows follows shortly afterward, and the day is won.
And so similarly roused, I mounted up, hoisted my lance and strode forth to unhorse the bean. But as it turned out, this joust was no epic struggle matching sinew and cunning. It was really a matter of pride, of arising from an unwillingness to resist tyranny, of reclaiming my warrior’s heart and my independence. The outcome was decided more by surrender than volition. I yielded to the truth. I loved coffee, but unlike most people who can drink it with impunity and joy, the stuff was poison for me, just as Patty Bragg said it was-a foe that needed to be scorched.
A few nights after quitting, I had a dream. In it my adrenal glands suddenly stopped rowing. They rose from the oars, cast off their shackles and with defiant smiles clambered up the rope ladders from below decks and into the friendly, radiant sunlight with its promise of super abundant health.