DOSE:

1 cup

oral

Coffee

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

180 lb

I haven’t always loved coffee. At first I found it bitter and terrible despite its intoxicating aroma. In graduate school, however, I finally gave in when I was around daily coffee drinkers who initiated me into its glories. Would I call myself a coffee connoisseur? Maybe. But the thing I am certainly a connoisseur of is the ritual. The ritual of measuring the beans perfectly. Grinding them just so. Carefully measuring and pouring the water. Adding just the right touch of milk (whole, please) to the final product. That is my favorite part. Not the boost in energy, which truthfully has waned over the years as my habituation has become entrenched. The addiction to the ritual remains strong and is one of the true joys of my day. Of course if I forget to have some caffeine I do suffer withdrawal symptoms, with the requisite headache right between my eyes.

Don’t get me wrong: I do like the slight rush caffeine provides. And I have certainly become mildly euphoric after having 2 or 3 strong cups in a morning. Nearly manic, talkative, racing heartbeat. It’s a state I no longer try to achieve intentionally but when it does happen I usually enjoy it.

Friends and family have told me on many occasions that they cannot have caffeine after a certain hour of the day or they cannot sleep that night. I’ve never had that problem, and can have a cup of espresso right before bed without any issues. However, I did have some sleep disturbances from morning caffeine intake over a span of months, and it took some investigative work to understand caffeine was the culprit. I used to come in to work early so I could make coffee for myself and one other person. Nobody else was a coffee drinker, so we had the whole pot to ourselves and I could enjoy the mild high without anyone bothering me. I was drinking 2-3 cups of very strong drip coffee per morning. After several months of this, I began to have trouble sleeping through the night. At first I would awake at 2 AM and take about 15 minutes to fall back asleep. Gradually the gap between waking at 2 AM and falling asleep again widened to 4 hours. Falling back asleep at 6 AM will really ruin your day, let me tell you. So I decided after some thinking to see if my sleep problems were caffeine-related. I quit coffee cold turkey. The first few days were hell. A persistent headache plagued me for about 3 days. Copious water intake alleviated some of the headache, but ibuprofen wouldn’t touch it. However, after the first day off caffeine, I slept right through the night.

Being thorough, I thought I should try to reproduce the symptoms by reintroducing caffeine to my morning ritual. So after about a month without caffeine, I started making coffee in the morning again. I had no problems at first, but eventually the same sleep symptoms started up. I quit caffeine again and again slept through the night. Case closed. Now I’ve settled on a small dose that I’ve consumed daily for the last 5 years without any sleep problems. The ritual continues. Here’s to the world’s most widely used drug and my favorite way of consuming it!

Exp Year: 2008-2014	ExpID: 102356
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 36
Published: Sep 8, 2019	Views: 4,585
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