No Coffee, No Fear
By Peter S. Kahrmann 
I love coffee. Nearly as long as I can remember, coffee
has been a source of comfort. During my days of homelessness, we called it
"living on the streets" and then "courage." If you had a coffee and a cigarette
and, if Lady Luck was with you, a buttered roll, you were thoroughly fortified
on all fronts. You were, in a word, wealthy.
My relationship with coffee began when I was a boy. My
father and I would sit on the front steps of our house in the early morning. He
would be drinking his morning cup of coffee, and I would be drinking mine. Mine
was a cup of half coffee, half milk, which was, in reality, about 80 percent
milk. But sitting on the front steps having a cup of coffee with Dad was pretty
heady. It felt as if I were being allowed to sneak a taste of adulthood, and
with my father no less -- then and now the greatest gift life has ever given
me.
As the years pass, things change. Things you thought were
healthful and acceptable you find out aren't, so you break free of them. I've
been a non-smoker now for 20 years and next month will celebrate eight years of
sobriety. Through the years, however, coffee has remained a close friend.
During tough times, simply being able to whip up a cup of coffee for myself has
been comforting. With the fear and anxiety I feel when I go out -- exceeded
only by the post-traumatic stress disorder and brain injury I live with from
getting shot in the head -- I can at least make a cup of coffee and relax.
Nearly every time I go outside it is only a matter of moments before every part
of me wants to rush back to the sense of safety waiting for me inside, and at
the speed light, if that were at all possible, thank you very much. Never has
the notion of cutting down on coffee or giving up coffee been on the landscape
of possibility.
Not until last month, that is.
By the middle of last month I was six weeks into a fight
with prostatitis. Prostatitis is an inflammation or infection of the prostate
gland that, until it is cleared up, can have you in the bathroom every 20
minutes or so, which, as you might imagine, makes it impossible to get enough
sleep.
Anyway, as I was waiting for the antibiotics to take
effect, I decided to temporarily cut down on my coffee intake. After all, it's
a diuretic, which is pretty much the last thing you need or for that matter
want when you're grappling with prostatitis. I drink my coffee black and strong
and on average consume 10 no-nonsense cups a day.
Given the prostatitis, I cut down to two cups a day: one
in the morning, one in the afternoon. That's it. Not easy, but I'd seen more
than enough of my bathroom and could use a break. So, apparently, could the
bathroom. You may not believe me, and I certainly understand if you don't, but
I'd been visiting the damn room so frequently when I walked in that I began
hearing an annoyed voice saying, "God almighty. You again?"
Anyway, for a coffee lover like me, the reduction felt
like I was agreeing to get through the day with less oxygen. But the way it
feels does not automatically define the way it is
On my third two-cup day, I was out in the vegetable garden
weeding. I was using a small hand trowel to dig out the weeds. It was a sunny
day. The sky was an endless dome of beautiful, uninterrupted blue. The air, as
John Steinbeck once wrote, "looks cleaned and polished."
I was gardening for more than two hours when, suddenly, it
hit me. I was feeling no anxiety! No fear! I had been outside for more than two
hours and I was at peace, completely and utterly. And then the two-plus-two of
the matter hit home: it was because of the dramatic reduction of coffee, of
caffeine. I was sitting there smiling with tears streaming down my face. I had
regained a part of life I have loved and cherished since I was a little boy:
the outdoors, nature -- the source of all we are.
Days later my discovery was further confirmed when I read
something by Roland Griffiths, a professor in the departments of psychiatry and
neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine: "Caffeine is
the most widely used mood-altering drug in the world. People often see coffee,
tea, and soft drinks simply as beverages rather than vehicles for a
psychoactive drug. But caffeine can exacerbate anxiety and panic
disorders."
I am still doing two-cup days. But there are days that I
don't even finish the second cup. After all, I can't wait to go outside.
Peter Kahrmann is an advocate for people with
disabilities and writes a blog on disability issues. He resides in New York
state. |
