For the past 6 years, give or take, I’ve had a cup of coffee at least once a day. Usually in the morning. But as a nurse working 3 shifts, the general rule is within 1 hours from waking up. General rule; the sooner after waking up, the better. I prefer mornings, because then “it’s done” as well as it’s a nice start on the day for me. It’s a habit, I drink it with my breakfast.

Also, I’m quite sensitive to caffeine. Generally I don’t drink coffee after 6 pm. Unless there’s a big happening like wedding party or NYE, or I have a night shift ahead. Drinking coffee, or energy drinks, after 6 pm makes that it’s impossible to fall asleep for me until at least midnight, often all the way until 2 am. Fellow coffee drinkers often gets surprised by hearing this. At least in Finland, it seems like very few others have this problem (maybe because Finnish people consume the most coffee per capita?). But I’ve tested this out a few times on myself, and it’s no fun to be up very late so I avoid this.

During the past year while we have been traveling, it hasn’t been much of a problem to get my coffee fix in the morning. I believe there has been once during this year, on a day off where I’ve forgotten it in the morning and drunken my life elixir in the afternoon instead.

This is, until yesterday…

We had a relaxing day, basically no plans, in the waiting for our service of our van that was today. We had breakfast, watched some movies, talked about life. Normal stuff. Petri also focused on fixing the last things for our new table tops in our van. Around 3 pm I was starting to get more low in my mood, low on my energy and a headache. Now I’ve had a sore and stiff neck after pulling a muscle 2 days prior, so I just assumed that was why I was low on energy. Petri also mentioned that he was feeling a bit weird. So a theory was that it was from the glue he had used earlier. I took some pain killers, had a nap, watched a couple of episodes on Netflix with Petri. Ok, a lot of screen time, which probably isn’t good for headaches either, but we all have these days, right?

Bedtime comes around. I’m thinking about my neck and my headache. Are they too bad to fall asleep? Should I try to zone out with a book? Some more checking of social media? Any future plans I can try to loose myself in? Then it hits me. We haven’t had coffee today! My headache is mostly due to not having coffee! I tell Petri. He also has a bit of headache and can see that he’s eagerness to get the table tops done made him forget the coffee too! Then I start contemplating if it would be worth to have coffee right then and there, just to get it away. But then the sleeplessness that follows would destroy the next day… Petri advises against it, and he has a good point, so I don’t.

But it probably takes me another 30-45 minutes to fall asleep, thinking about coffee, trying to not think about coffee. One thought that is persisting is if I should go “cold turkey”. I’ve done day 1 of withdrawals already. In the past it has taken me 3 days of headache and feeling mildly to moderately miserable to loose my need for the daily coffee. It’s tempting.

Come morning, I’m not so sure anymore. We had a bit more to do. I take pain killers from the start, just to deal with the worst symptoms until the coffee is absorbed. I do last nights dishes and then have a shower while Petri prepares breakfast. And while in the shower, I am starting to have an uneasiness in my body. Not really shaking, maybe more of shivers, or a slight tremor. Definitely not feeling great.

At that point it was rather clear, I’m not ready to give up coffee quite yet! And oh my how good it feels to be a human today compared to yesterday! This is also what scares me, that I am so addicted to a substance, that just forgetting for a day makes me feel so bad. And yet it’s such a, in a way, subtle thing, that it can take me a full day to realize why I’m feeling like I do. Therefore I sometimes consider that I should quite coffee for a while. I’ve had 2 breaks previously in my life. So I know I can do it. But maybe at a point when I can schedule 3 days of not having to leave the house and with no obligations so that I can be miserable on my own and not unnecessary insult or be rude to people. But definitely not yet, so for now I’ll hold on to my drug.

Do you as well have a coffee addiction? What symptoms do you get when you forget cup of heaven?