CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERTING CAFFEINE CONSUMER

I know someone who’s given up caffeine for Lent.

So what? you say. So, I think it’s interesting to know what the effects are (they’re still making themselves felt).

Last year she gave up coffee, and thinking she’d have caffeine withdrawal she drank gallons of tea and had no issues whatsoever.

She thought about ‘living the same kind of life that Christ lived’, and about St John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church, who teaches that the ‘way of the nothing’ is the only way to union with the Divine. Giving up caffeine she thought, as the next logical step.

So she went cold turkey.

After three days she thought she might google the effects of caffeine withdrawal. Physically she was feeling so horrible, she thought she might be going down with Zika virus.

Well, she ticked all these boxes: Headache (unaffected by panadeine and her usual painkillers). Tiredness. Sleepiness. Aching muscles. Lethargy. Constipation.

In Google’s words, with caffeine withdrawal ‘dopamine levels drop drastically, causing the brain’s chemistry to be out of balance’.Now, dopamine is the ‘feel good’ chemical. Over time, caffeine consumption causes the adrenal glands to release more adrenaline, which makes you feel even better.

Hence, as well as the physical stuff listed above - all of which is still afflicting this woman - caffeine withdrawal also has serious mental effects.

Anxiety. Irritability. Depression. Irritability. Anxiety. So Google advises people who go cold turkey to resign from the world for a week, go away somewhere and hide.

The interesting thing is, my friend couldn’t tick those boxes.

In other words she’s gone cold turkey on caffeine and is suffering only physically.

Why? Because the blessings and graces she feels she’s received absolutely nullify any possible feelings of anxiety, irritability or depression. In fact she says she’s so pleased she didn’t google caffeine withdrawal before Lent, because it would have frightened her off. She thinks she’d have settled for going without coffee again.

Which would have meant going without a new sense of joy in Christ, a new closeness to Christ, a greater readiness to suffer for Him who suffered for us.