A Story of Recovery:

Coffee Break No More

I think the fact that my mom’s side of the family is Norwegian has something to do with the fact that my family approaches the morning coffee break with an almost religious dedication.  In the historical life of my family, no matter what’s going on, when 10:30 comes around, an internal alarm clock goes off saying that it’s now time for “coffee break” – the perfect combination of caffeine, flour, sugar and fat.

Weight has never been an issue for me.  But then I started living with chronic illness.  With the onset of the illness, I went from being a cross-country cyclist and a long-distance runner to being someone who couldn’t run across the street without exacerbating unexplained symptoms of exhaustion, weakness and fogginess.  For lack of a better term, I identified as someone living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  Early on in my health challenge, I became convinced that if I could follow the perfect cleansing diet that I could return my body to its previous state of optimal health.  No matter how many times I vowed to cleanse my body’s “toxins” with juices, blended foods, organic foods, sprouted foods, enemas and colonics, I always found myself falling back into my true comfort, my best friend, my religion, my medication — my 10:30 coffee break.  For an addict like me, morning doses of caffeine, flour and sugar was a gateway into a full day of self-medicating.  Hundreds of times, I found myself in a hot bath at two o’clock in the morning vowing that tomorrow was gonna be different — day one — no coffee break.

Then my health took an unexpected turn for the worse. Once again, I attempted to change through the “living foods lifestyle.”  I bought all the books, the juicers, the grow lights, the wheatgrass racks, the colonic appointments and the yoga memberships.  I was on week 4 of a raw food and juice fast. My three sisters and their families were home for our annual family reunion. One morning, I showed up at my mom’s house at 10:30 with raw juice in hand.  As would be expected, my family was enjoying the smells, the tastes and the buzz of our traditional coffee break.  I on the other hand, was filled with self-pity.  I thought, “…everyone else in my family is healthy and they can just enjoy coffee break and then move on with their healthy lives.  I have to be always struggling with my health and never making any progress.” Later that afternoon, I pulled my sister aside and started crying.  “I can’t believe that you guys just flaunted your coffee break in front of me like that.  Don’t you realize how much I’m struggling and how much I need support right now.”  I felt so alone drinking my raw juice while everyone else was partaking in the family ritual.  Couldn’t they have found a way to include me?

At some point, during the following week, my raw food fast came to a dramatic end.  I remember driving to a fast food joint late one night and binging on processed meat, flour and sugar.

On the last morning of our reunion, I returned to my parent’s house at 10:30 with great anticipation. I had a powerful physical craving and a mental obsession for the perfect combination of caffeine, flour, sugar and fat. When I arrived, I was shockingly welcomed by a beautiful spread of raw food and juice. My dear sisters had taken my plea to heart and had created a special coffee break just for me – free of all the things I was craving. “You have GOT to be KIDDING me!”

I ate a little fruit, but quickly excused myself to go on another lonely mission to get my fix.  Once again, I had failed the experiment to improve my health through diet. It was right about then that an old friend introduced me to FA.  She said, “If you want to address ALL your addictions, FA is the place to do it. I was intrigued.”  Within a few weeks, I jumped into FA and experienced freedom from addiction.  I followed the simple directions of this program and the lifelong chains of coffee break were unfettered.  I began to experience the blessing of neutrality around food and other addictive substances and behaviors.

There’s a lot more to the story that I’ll save for another time.  But I’ll say that when 10:30 comes around these days, it rarely occurs to me to want caffeine, flour and sugar.  I’m grateful for my three simple weighed and measured meals.  I rarely feel hungry. I don’t crave foods and when I join my family for “coffee break,” I enjoy drinking herbal tea.   Thank you God for this freedom.