coffee achiever

Coffee Achiever

(one from the way back machine mr. peabody 1993)

I'm on my second pot of gourmet java and my neck is starting to feel like a varnished plank. Maybe I just need to give my neck a good twist to get the knots out. You know I heard somewhere that somebody used their hands to twist and pop their neck and severed some nerve to their brain and killed themselves. Freaky huh. Anyway drinking the coffee to stay up and have some peace with myself. I'm becoming quite the coffee achiever. I treat myself to a bag of that grind-your-own bulk gourmet coffee so see at the supermarket. Nothing like a nice steaming cup of inky mind wallop to get and keep you going.

Anyway the point I am trying to make is that my “drugs of choice” list has been reduced to one, caffeine. That's right it's now March 25th and I haven't had any alcohol pass my lips since New Years Eve. It is unbelievable news to hear is it not? It was kind of strange how it came about. The next morning after the celebration as I lied there in bed I thought about how crappy I felt. As we both know I ain't getting any younger and hang-overs aren't being shook off like they use to. I have to plan out one evening of drinking to two days of moaning; blinding headaches and two shows an hour for the flying Garbanzo brothers in my tummy. I just can't hang.


Along with the unsuccessful aftermaths of drinking I had the dilemmas in logic. I found it hard to discourage Kim from smoking pot and cigarettes if had a Budweiser in my hand. It just smelled too much of hypocrisy to me, and if there is one thing I hate it's hypocrisy. This is the same reason I have trouble with a lot of so called "Christians". Also what about my kid? How do I tell him not to drink, that's it's not right and it hurts your mind and body if I'm mixing a rum and coke? Can't happen in a logical, rational or hell "human" exchange between father and son. Eli is not going to head just my words, but more than anything my example. In part it's a personal morality question.

It is also a spiritual issue. I was giving up my soul to something in a bottle. Oh, sure your may feel "divine" at the peak of a drunken flood, but I didn't like what I had started to worship. My God was swimming in a little brown bottle. I didn't want my God there. I want my God where it belongs: in my actions, in my mind, in my eyes when I look in the mirror and in my poetry and my thoughts. My spirit wasn't free to search. It was bowing to a pagan idol called booze. It was inhibiting my search for meaning, for that connection everyone is looking for in life. It was a filter that began to clog and prevented truths to pass. It was becoming a wall not a window.

Psychologically the booze was my blanket, something to pull over my head when I was scared, confused or lost in that sea of depression. I started find that my worries weren't being washed away with the beers but were being depressed temporarily while I was in a chemical bliss. After the "bliss" wore off the worries would just bob back up to the surface unfrayed by the auto-induced flood. My worries and fears just laughed at me "ha, did you think we would go away just like that?" giggling, "we are liquor resistant and have the strength of many men, ugh!" Now for the last three months I've been dealing or not dealing with those bullies. It is hard, there are days when...

...then I pull up and try to level out the flight. Can't just ditch the plane with the engine chokes a little bit. You've got to fiddle around a bit and maybe you can fix it. At least you won't be giving up at the first sign of trouble. I respect myself a little better now.

I do physically feel better each day. Not perfect, for my diet is atrocious. I will fix that next month a little when I go back to my no mammal lifestyle. I'm just a caffeine freak now. I'm sure that's not good for me too, but my mind isn't adversely effected nor do I have coffee "hangovers". I'll keep this vice for just a little bit. Now if I could just keep myself from touching my wiener