Caffeine, My Problematic Friend
Why I quit
My story with coffee started in the second grade of high school when we went on a family skiing vacation with some other families. We kids stayed in a room of our own, and our only goal was to get wasted every single night. To hide the hangovers from our parents and stay functional on the slopes, we drank absurd amounts of coffee in the morning.
A few years later, I was already out of adolescence and somewhat sober, but as a student of architecture, I often had to push my drawing hours late into the night, sometimes even pulling all-nighters. Coffee felt essential.
At the time, I was also very unconscious about my eating habits. To save time and money (so I thought), my diet consisted of fast food, mostly pizzas and borek. Young bodies are very forgiving, but even then, one cannot push this type of lifestyle forever, so after a couple of years, I developed severe gastritis, which led me on a healthier path. Coffee had to go. I replaced it with green and black tea, which served my caffeine needs for the next decade and a half.
The first time I became conscious of the role of caffeine in my life was after a sleepless night in a loud Amsterdam hostel. At 6 AM, I went out to have a coffee to get back on my feet. I found a bar and ordered a latte that cost me 8 EUR. At the time, I had never paid more…
