Feb
16
Conniving Caffeine
Filed Under Life
I was never a big coffee drinker. Even the smell of it made me just want to gag (such a teenage phrase!) But over the past few years I grew from a non-coffee drinker to a cup of coffee a day drinker. It was a slow process. While I was home in MN raising support, I made Caribou my office. I wasn’t a huge fan of their chai tea so I decided to branch out…slowly. My drink of choice, which is still to this day, a Turtle Mocha with no whip cream. Initially I would always get one shot less of espresso than what originally is put in. My barista knew me and knew my drink. Medium Turtle with one shot and no whip.
As time went by, days I was really tired, I opted for both shots. “Medium Turtle, no whip.” But I was still not a coffee drinker.
I moved to Ohio and I started going to Tim Horton’s and getting their vanilla cappuccino every so often. Our baseball director would always joke with me (real shocker there) about drinking coffee. But I was not a coffee drinker because I had to get the “foo-foo” drinks.
Last August we had a new staff and intern conference here in Xenia, which meant late nights and early mornings. And free coffee. I figured it was free so I would experiment and try to “doctor” it up so I wouldn’t taste the “coffee” in my coffee. I fell in love with the Keurig butter toffee flavored coffee with hazelnut creamer. A few weeks ago I realized I was drinking a cup every day. Not that it’s an awful thing, but how did I get there?
So I decided that I didn’t need it. It was just something I wanted. I only had one cup a day, so I wasn’t addicted.
So I thought.
Last week was a rough week. Not only was it the worst week to cut coffee out of my diet due to my schedule, I didn’t realize that I was in fact addicted. A friend passed on a website that has information about Caffeine Withdrawal. Holy cow, I was experiencing many of the symptoms. I was irritable, tired, I had a ginormous headache and I felt like passing out or throwing up whenever I worked out. Unbelievable.
How did I get from being a non-coffee drinker to a cup-a-day-sometimes-more coffee drinker? The simple answer is slowly. Slowly over time, my body became accustomed to the caffeine and it wanted more. It needed it every day to function “normally.” This is so much like sin. A huge affair doesn’t happen over night. It starts small and slowly grows into something that cannot be contained. You grow into a person you don’t recognize. You look into a mirror and say to yourself, “How did I get here?”
Satan is crafty. He’s conniving. God said to Cain, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7). James tells us that “Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death” (James 1:14-15). Sin is crouching. It’s hiding. It’s waiting for the opportune moment to pounce. It entices and then drags us away. It’s like Satan is setting a trap. It looks all glamorous and glorious. At first, it’s not a big deal, but before we know it, we’re wrapped up into something we never thought we would be involved with. This is why we need our Band of Sisters. We need them to see the slippery slope we’ve stumbled upon when we don’t even realize we’re on it. Sometimes we need them to pull us off the slope onto solid ground (2 Timothy 2:19).
Be careful of sin. It is everywhere. It is enticing. It is waiting.
Great reminder! I sent the link to this to a friend who has recently been getting addicted to caffeine. Satan is definitely sneaky these days on getting us addicted to things which we could easily dismiss as nothing. It’s definitely making me wonder about some of the things in my life.
Oh my, I remember when I gave up Caffiene last spring… I thought I was going to die. I could hardly function, all I could think about drinking mountain dew! It did get easier after about 3 weeks. It is so nice now that I don’t craze caffiene anymore and when I do have a glass of pop it is a total treat! And as an added bonus I lost about 10 pounds just by cutting out pop (I sure wasn’t complaining about that)!