An unfortunate uncoupling

It was only a matter of time before coffee found me. I was in college at Western Kentucky University with aspirations of becoming a newspaper reporter. Movies like The Paper and Network showed me that newsrooms run on stamina, gumption and caffeine, usually in the form of a mug of black coffee slurped down under deadline. I knew coffee was going to be a part of my career some day.

But coffee never appealed to me. It smelled like stale cigarette smoke, long nights and bloodshot eyes. None of the adults in my family drank coffee when I was growing up. The one time I got Starbucks in high school, I ordered a tall hot chocolate. In college, I preferred my caffeine from Diet Coke. Every once in a while, when I had to put the student paper to bed in the early morning hours, I’d throw back a sugar-free Red Bull.

So it’s fitting that coffee came to me at a Society of Professional Journalists regional conference in Chicago during my junior year. I sat in a classroom nodding off as some notable journalist of the midwest talked about freedom of speech or cultivating sources or the importance of attending conferences like this one. I wasn’t 21 yet, I hadn’t been living it up at the bars. Instead, I spent the previous night attempting in one queen bed with three other female journalism students. I laid like a mummy all night, trying to take up as little space as possible and not touch my friends. As a person who likes to turn like a rotisserie chicken at night, I woke up exhausted.

I struggled to keep my eyes open during the morning session. I needed a caffeine infusion of some kind. There weren’t any soft drinks, but there was plenty of coffee available (it was a journalism conference, after all). I grabbed a small, white styrofoam cup and filled it with what I hoped would be a miracle. I eyed the coffee accouterments and, with encouragement from my equally sleep-deprived friends, tipped a couple of sugars and a tiny serving of half and half into my cup. I sipped, then gulped, the concoction, ignoring the bitterness that lingered on my tongue. 

Ten minutes later, I was in another session. I yawned.

“I don’t think this is working,” I whispered to my friend.

“But your leg is shaking,” she said.

Unbeknownst to me, my leg had started to bounce, a move I only made when it was past time to find a restroom. My mind hadn’t caught up to the caffeine yet, but my body was on board for this ride.

From there, I was hooked.

I developed a steady coffee habit that carried me through college graduation and into my first big-girl job at the Lexington Herald-Leader. I started with a cup of coffee in the morning from a $20 coffee maker I had picked up for my first apartment. Then the universe threw me some variables that pushed me into full-blown coffee devotee: I started working in the main office of my newspaper on a shift that started at 7 a.m. And this office was in walking distance to a newly opened Dunkin Donuts. By the time I left that paper, I drank a cup of coffee in the morning before I left my apartment, then one a couple of hours into my shift, then would celebrate the halfway point of the day by walking with a coworker to get a cup from Dunkin. At noon, I switched to Diet Coke, and I’d drink a can at lunch and another to get me through the last hour of the day. 

My doctor, hearing how fast I talked and considering my growing anxiety, recommended I cut down on the caffeine. 

And I did — sort of. I transitioned to becoming a coffee enthusiast. I no longer settled for an office brew in a 12-cup pot. Thanks to Dunkin, I knew that coffee could taste good; I just had to find the balance of good beans and coffee additions to make my cups worth the heart flutters. I made special trips to local coffee shops to buy bags of whole beans. I’d stand in front of shelves, comparing flavor notes of the shop’s different blends until I settled on the profiles that I liked (dark roasts with notes of chocolate and caramel). I took advice from my friends who were coffee aficionados about the best way to prepare a cup of coffee. I started to collect different methods of coffee making: a pour-over dripper, a Chemex, a French press, an Italian moka pot, a Bonavita machine I found on Craigslist and paid for in a Meijer parking lot, and a Chemex. And then there was the electric kettle, grinder and mugs on mugs on mugs that filled too many shelves in my kitchen cabinets. I rebranded my addiction to caffeine into a hobby I could enjoy for two cups a day with a Cherry Coke Zero chaser in the afternoon.

It was the ritual that fed me. I padded into the kitchen, awake just enough to decide what type of coffee I wanted to make. I listened to the burring of the grinder at my coffee station while the sun hit my face. I turned on the smart speaker to listen to public radio while the hot water trickled over the grinds. Those quiet moments to myself before the day began let me go forward from a peaceful place — at least until the caffeine fully kicked in and amplified every deadline and stressful moment that would come my way.

Lately, the coffee grinder has been quiet. I have unopened bags of beans in my cabinet. Many days, my Keurig hisses on and heats water in the reservoir that will never work its way into a mug.

A few months ago, I was diagnosed with ADHD. My treatment? A daily dose of amphetamine to get the neurotransmitters working like they should. And according to my mental health professional, I shouldn’t stack a stimulant on top of another stimulant. 

Being a coffee drinker, like being a journalist and storyteller, is a part of the narrative I’ve created about myself. Who am I without a mug of coffee to my right as I tackle emails and Slack messages during the week? Who am I without asking the servers at my favorite brunch spots to keep my cup of coffee warmed up throughout my meal? Without coffee to propel me through my days, who am I?

First, I decided to focus on semantics. My medical professional said I shouldn't drink coffee, not that I couldn’t. So I went full steam ahead, living my life like I always had. The amphetamine helps me focus. Drinking coffee with the medicine makes me feel like Mario when he goes into hyperdrive on Super Mario Brothers. With this battery in my back, I whizz through my to-do list with a level of focus and energy I’m sure is only reserved for Olympic sprinters or pageant kids after a couple of Pixy Stix. But deep down, I knew this wasn’t a sustainable way to live. I’m a writer – I need to let my mind wander sometimes. That’s where the creativity hides. A double dose of stimulants makes that nearly impossible (I didn’t even try to drink more than one cup of coffee with my medicine because even I have limits).

Then, I started whining. Incessantly. I complained about not being able to drink coffee to anyone who would spare a minute for my complaining: my group chats, my mom, baristas, bookstore owners who happened to also sell coffee, and, of course, my therapist. I would be ashamed of this phase of being a grumpy grownup if it had not brought on useful suggestions.

“What about decaf?” friends asked. “What about non-caffeinated tea?”

At first, I was appalled. I was petrified of looking into what I perceived as lesser options.I remember watching the Late Show with David Letterman when I was 14, and the titular host had returned to the desk after having quintuple bypass surgery. He told some wry joke about having to drink decaf, maybe even calling it dirty water or something like that. All these years later, that assessment stuck. So when I started drinking coffee, I was Team Death Before Decaf. And I had dabbled in tea thanks to a cousin who owns a tea shop, but every brew seemed dainty in comparison to the gravitas of chugging down coffee. 

I saw myself as a full-caffeinated coffee type of writer, not a tea type of writer, a distinction that MFA grads will probably understand. Yet the medical treatment that I needed to make my life better was at odds with the story of myself I’d held onto since that trip to Chicago.

So I had to craft a new story.

I am an almost 40-year-old woman who has a firm grasp on her mental and physical health needs. I like my life better with ADHD medication than without, and I’m willing to make changes because of that. When I get out of the bed each morning, I still walk to the kitchen first, but I reach for my medicine before a coffee mug. If I want something warm to drink, I’ll make decaf. If it’s cloudy, or I’m still a little sleepy, I’ll make a mix of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee. If my throat is scratchy, I’ll make a mug of tea. And if it’s a leisurely weekend, I go all out and drink full-caf. 

It’s not a perfect system, but it’s mine. It works for me for the moment. And I still get those quiet moments to sip a beverage before my day begins.