I was sitting on a patio eating frozen yogurt on a warm, breezeless Easter Sunday.  In between bites of “Grandma Ruby’s Cookies n’ Cream,” I mentioned to my girlfriend that I needed to stop by the grocery to get a few things on the way home.

“What exactly do you need to get?” she asked.

“Eh, a few things. Coffee, oatmeal, eggs, etc.”

“Well isn’t tomorrow…”

“Crap.” I cut her off.  I had already forgotten.  This isn’t going to be easy.

I’ve been drinking coffee since I was sixteen and can say with some conviction that I’ve hardly gone a day without it since.  I’m not just a morning coffee drinker either; I have a cup before I leave the house, another once I get to work, one more in the dead hours of the afternoon and occasionally another before dinner.  It’s delicious, calorie-free, and I love it beyond words.

I had never really felt any negative effects of drinking coffee, except for its impact on my wallet, until last week’s challenge.  Since I normally go to bed between one and two in the morning, my caffeine blitz usually wears off by bedtime.  When I tried to go to bed early in order to wake up at dawn, however, I found myself staring wide-eyed at the ceiling for what seemed like forever.  The message was clear: it was time to cut back, and what better way to get started than with the highly anticipated, and much feared, One Week Without Coffee.

Even before the challenge began, I started to notice the benefits.  My grocery bill was nothing, since I stopped buying meat, the most expensive single purchase has been 12-cup Keurig pods of coffee.  Not this week.

While browsing through the produce aisle, the clouds parted as I spotted the small Starbucks kiosk.  What the hell, I might as well have one final cup, I thought.

As soon as I walked away, with coffee in hand, I felt the boiling liquid bubbling out from underneath the seam of the soft plastic lid, searing my knuckles.  No matter what I tried, I couldn’t keep it from leaking out, and I lived with this hardship for the duration of the trip.  The coffee seemed to know my plans.  It was fighting back–punishing me for what I was about to do.

Alas, I refuse to be beaten by an inanimate object.  Thus, today begins One Week Without Coffee.  For one week, I’ll try not to become a lifeless, withdrawn zombie while living without my miracle elixir.  Though I’ll try to avoid replacing coffee directly with any vice, the kind folks over at Cognitea sent me over a few bags of their tea which I highly recommend.  In times of trouble, I’ll turn to tea to comfort me, and I’ll gladly pocket the two dollars I would have spent on a cup of moderately satisfying coffee.

As always, I’ll post a midweek update and a wrapup here on OWW, and will cover the day-to-day on twitter (@scottmarquart).

may we all get better together.

-s 

Start your own One Week With/out challenge!  Begin here.