Article March 1, 1999 Issue

Breaking an addiction to coffee

How I stopped rationalizing my habit

By David Newbern

I never liked coffee as a teenager, but when I started my first job as an adult, a morning cup of coffee with my friends became an important part of my routine. As the years went by, my coffee drinking increased to the point that I got headaches if I didn't start my day with a cup of Java. In fact, I was rarely without a cup in my hands.

Why was this a problem? Isn't drinking coffee an activity millions of people all over the world enjoy? True enough, but there's not always comfort in numbers. I'd read in a book, whose ideas I deeply respected and tried to live by, that one could have a "depraved appetite" for coffee and other substances. Try as I might, I couldn't get that phrase out of my thought. Here's what the book, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, says: "The depraved appetite for alcoholic drinks, tobacco, tea, coffee, opium, is destroyed only by Mind's mastery of the body. This normal control is gained through divine strength and understanding" (p. 406).

For years I felt that this statement, written over a hundred years ago, didn't apply to the modern world, where drinking coffee is so widely accepted. I even wondered how coffee could be relevant to my understanding of God. So I rationalized: drinking coffee couldn't really be as depraved as drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, or using opium—none of which I did. Besides, those were obvious addictions, and I wasn't addicted to coffee, so I told myself. I just liked sharing a cup with friends. Why should I give up such an apparently harmless social experience? Also, I wasn't aware of any serious health problems associated with drinking coffee, so I figured it couldn't really hurt me.

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