Suburban Caffeine Addiction

Well, a few of you indicated that you wanted me to write about Suburban Caffeine Addiction, so I will give it a shot (of caffeine, not bourbon). of course, I am up in the middle of the night as usual. Can't sleep and wondering if the caffeine addiction is to blame.

Bryan Stephenson, an old high school classmate of mine, indicates that caffeine addiction is OK with him generally because it's legal and free (well, I guess it depends on what type of coffee you buy or how many times a month you visit Starbucks, but generally he is correct--it's not an expensive habit like cocaine). Bryan agrees that too much caffeine can raise one's stress level, however. Jonathan Manteuffel seconds this with his comments about the wonders of sugar and chocolate, and Greg Burbo says that if they want to help his stress level, add spellcheck to FaceBook!!

(By the way, Greg has started an "I use complete sentences on FaceBook" group that might be interesting to join. Whether or not you can use spellcheck. Greg invited me to join, but sometimes I don't. Use complete sentences. Or check. Spelling.

Also, Greg, since most of my friends on Facebook are either college grads or pretty smart dudes from High School, or SCA friends, I don't see a lot of misspelled words on MY Newsfeed--in fact, almost never. I got a post today from a college kid friend that I haven't seen in a while and he could even spell "F******." And he's at SMU!!!

Maybe it's not that Facebook needs spellcheck. Maybe you just need smarter friends! ;))

But back to caffeine addiction, which is rampant in the Suburbs across America. And I have to say, I am right there with them although I rarely go to Starbucks and my coffee these days comes from Wallyworld most of the time. I probably consume at least as much sugar and caffeine as anyone on the planet. I can't stand artificial sweetners so I drink old style regular Coke at 150 calories a can. I try to limit it to one to two cans a day, plus the coffee (probably 2-3 cups in the morning). I do drink herbal tea in the middle of the night, but even the stuff with Valerian does not help. I would like to tell you that I limit chocolate and desserts somewhat, which is true, but when it's here, I eat it.

I think we all assume out here in the suburbs that these are fairly harmless addictions and I don't necessarily disagree. After all, it's not like we are on cocaine, or diet pills, or narcotics for back pain (well, some of us are but not me). We are entitled to a coke, a brownie, a shot of bourbon or a beer every once in a while, right? And maybe even one or two cokes a day, or shots a day, or beers a day, or a pan of brownies a week. We aren't hurting anyone, right?

Even my buddy Michael Kavannaugh, who was up late last night working and noticed that I was active on Facebook at 2 am, indicated that I should either take Benedryl or a shot of something to go to sleep (I had a toothache but of course lately I am up like this almost every night anyway). While these are certainly reasonable suggestions, I didn't want to give myself indigestion or morning grogginess so I didn't take them. Of course, since I went to bed at 4:30 am and got up again at 6:30 am, I was still groggy, so what did I do? COFFEEE!!!!!!

I don't remember how I got this crazy. In fact, when we were doing infertility treatment I drank nothing but decaf for almost three years based on a comment from my doctor that limiting caffeine "couldn't hurt."( well, the headaches and the withdrawal symptoms hurt but I guess it's easier than quitting smoking). Many men have switched from briefs to boxers for less. I also did not drink very much alcohol for three years, at least while I was taking my basal body temperature, because I found that even one glass of wine elevated it a degree or two and made it look like I was ovulating when I was not. I also didn't drink alcohol much because every month for three years there was at least a possibility (usually wrong) that I was pregnant. Now I remember being pretty stressed out and upset during this time but I don't really remember suffering too much from the lack of caffeine or alcohol. I probably still ate plenty of sugar though.

When I was off the caffeine, I got sleepy in the afternoons while I was working at JCPenney in the legal department, but you would get sleepy too if you were drafting credit card-related language all day and sitting in boring meetings, among other thrilling jobs. (Oh, sorry, I guess most of you probably do that now--the boring meetings. I feel for you--meeting hour is now my time to sit down and eat lunch or take a shower after cleaning all day, or run errands, or eat bonbons or something. Whatever we moms do all day.)

When I was at JCP, however, it was easy to get sleepy in the afternoons, caffeine or no caffeine. Somebody has to write those little letters you get in the mail when you get turned down for a credit card or get behind on your payments!!!! So that was one of my tantalizing little jobs. Being a lawyer is so glamorous.

I think I've made up for lost time, on both the caffeine and the alcohol fronts, since my twins were born. You need caffeine to keep you awake when you are sleeping four hours in a three day period. True story. And the four hours were not consecutive because the damn monitor went off several times after 45 minute naps. This was the first three days after Amelia came home from the hospital (Miranda had already been home for 2 months). And this was not the only three days with twins that were difficult in terms of sleep deprivation.

Having twins means that I can go and go and go, sort of like the Energizer Bunny, and even after 9 years, for about 2 days with a series of 1-2 hour naps about every 8-10 hours. I eventually collapse, exhausted, on a bed or couch somewhere (once I was drinking a glass of wine and sitting on the couch, and collapsed mid sentence and dropped the glass). But I still get up after 2-3 hours as if I am still feeding identical twins of different sizes who are on two different feeding schedules. For nine months we lived this way and now neither of us ever sleeps through the night. Of course, R is often getting paged by work during the night too, or he falls asleep watching the History Channel and some obnoxious ad comes on at 3 am.

Anyway, we are all (well those of us with kids anyway) trying to teach our kids to be drug free, but we don't live in a drug free society. Drugs are advertised constantly. A drug for depression, a drug for pain, a drug for chronic conditions like asthma and diabetes. My husband calls it Better Living Through Chemistry.

The ones of us who can control our addiction to substances that make us feel better are those of us who are drinking the cokes and coffee, eating the brownies or candy occasionally, or having 1-2 beers or drinks or glasses of wine on occasion. But we all know about the OTHERS--the ones who are addicted to pain killers at OTC drugs (my husband has been taking 2 naprosyn every day for years and I have to wonder what it is doing to his liver, but he has so much knee pain without it that it is hard for him to function otherwise). Is he addicted? Should he just give up and have a knee replacement even though he may have to do it again later?

We know there are plenty of secret alcoholics and alienatede moms and disenfanchised digusted workers out there (male and female) who are going through a series of antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs and so forth so that they can function happily, or at least pleasantly. Now, I am not knocking these drugs any more than I would tell my husband to suffer and not take naprosyn but I have to wonder--what is long term use of these drugs, prescribed or taken as directed but still taken every day for years--doing to our systems. I took birth control pills for years. It turned out I was infertile (just think how much money I would have saved had I known this at 25!!!). So I took fertility drugs for years. What will this do to me eventually? Will it cause cancer or liver failure prematurely? Who knows?????


I actually had pain pills stolen out of my toiletries at a scrapbooking retreat a few years ago, when there was nobody there but us suburban moms. You must be pretty addicted to steal pain pills at a scrapbooking retreat. But why did I even have them there? They were left over from my c section--well, I had them there to help me sleep, of course!!!

Back when I was a Creative Memories consultant, our Unit had a boring meeting and it got really interesting all of a sudden, because we found out that everyone in the room, all 10 of us ladies (including me at the time) was on antidepressants. Some of these gals had been on them ever since they got married or had children. It's what it takes to make it in the suburbs--that mellow frame of mind.

So no, as far as I know I am not addicted to drugs, or alcohol (although one or two drinks does help with the tooth pain, the hip pain, the knee pain, etc. etc. that I am experiencing as I age). I no longer drink to excess, although I was pretty wild in college and even into law school and afterward. A lot of lawyers have serious problems with alcohol, and I did my best to keep up, but after I saw some marriages break up and some people lose their jobs it just wasn't fun any more.

My final hangover was about 9 years ago. Someone on the street hosted the first Whine and Wine, and I had not been out since I moved to Pleasant Valley, so I decided to whine and wine with the ladies on the street. And wine. And wine. About four or five of us got completely smashed, which for me is about 1 bottle. I have always been a lightweight, at least when it comes to drinking.

Well, the next day my husband, who has never really minded too much if I got smashed, woke me up and said, "I'm leaving for work. The girls are up and are crying and need to be changed. See you later." He also did not clean up the bathroom where I had thrown up the night before. I got to clean this up myself with my hangover. The kids screamed and screamed all day (they were 9 months old). I was by myself with a dreadful hangover, although certainly not the worst of my life. At least when I was practicing law I could go hide in the Lexis room! Here there was nowhere to run.

Ok, so now I am Virtuous. I am not getting hammered during the SuperBowl, or even if I go out for a special dinner with my husband (if I drink too much I either get indigestion or I fall asleep really easily, by the way, so I am not really the life of the party any more. If I ever was.) The only meds I am on right now are for asthma. Well, well, what a good girl am I.

But I still think I should start tracking the amount of caffeine and sugar that I am consuming, and how often I am using alcohol to come down from that caffeine-induced energy boost. What kind of message are we sending to our kids with all this mild "substance abuse," and what are we really doing to our bodies? I am not medically trained of course so I have no idea. Do you?