Beer is a Problem, Why Not Coffee?

(This is part of a series of short, exploratory class writing from students at the University of Minnesota enrolled studying the Sociology of Drink. When student authors have given consent for me to post their names along with their essays, I will do so.)

by Meghan Schmidt

What struck me as  fascinating in chapter two of Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s Tastes of Paradise was the speed at which coffee was implemented into European diets. Here was this new substance that made people feel energized and productive, which was in stark contrast to the homebrew commonly consumed by most people. Coffee seemed the perfect complement to the lifestyle of the time period. For those who did not drink, for religious or other personal reasons, coffee became a beacon of opportunity to excite and enhance the human experience. This new, mysterious drink gained popularity so quickly it had become a normalized expectation that people consume it to stimulate their minds. Schivelbusch writes, 

“And inasmuch as time is money, to quote Benjamin Franklin, coffee indirectly proved to be a productive resource, or what we today might call a first-rate efficiency factor. In this sense, not to drink any coffee would be almost as great a sin for the puritanical bourgeois as wasting time itself” (39).

This particular quotation caused me to think a lot about our society and our coffee habits and expectations. When someone says they are tired or are running late, it is often suggested they grab a quick cup of coffee to help boost them up. We generally expect people to be running on all cylinders and maximizing their productivity all day, every day and tend to blame workers rather than systems for inefficiency. That may be more of a criticism on our capitalistic society rather than the effects of coffee. I digress.

What I am interested in discussing is how we have become so blasé about caffeine addiction and why and how people choose to drink coffee. Did people have a natural curiosity or craving for a buzz, or was there some sort of external factor?  I am also curious to know the speed at which coffee is implemented into people’s lives. How long does it typically take for someone to start drinking coffee on a regular basis?  In my experience, it has become perfectly acceptable to use “I haven’t had my coffee yet” as an excuse for being absent minded or inefficient. I have also heard, “I can’t function without having coffee everyday” or “I’m not a real person until I’ve had my coffee.”  Being an occasional coffee drinker myself, I can understand the sentiment behind what I have heard people say. And while many of the people who make these comments may be dramatizing or embellishing their feelings, caffeine certainly is an addictive substance of which a lot of people have some level of dependency on. If someone discloses that they feel they cannot get through their day without drinking alcohol, many people would see this as a cause for concern and would probably encourage the person to seek help. I recognize that alcohol addiction and caffeine addiction are not comparable in terms of the physical and mental health concerns that come along with them, but why do we turn a blind eye to addiction of any kind? Where do we draw the line for acceptable addiction? At what point do we consider something to be a harmful addiction? And why has frequent, if not extreme or excessive, coffee consumption long been accepted- basically since its implementation? These are the questions that plague my mind. 

I recently watched an episode of the show My Strange Addiction in which it featured a man and a woman who were addicted to using coffee enemas. Yes, you read that right. Up to five hours of their day were spent administering themselves with coffee enemas. Now, I understand that this is an extreme and strange addiction (it’s right there in the title of the show!). But it did cause me to think-what is it about coffee that makes it such an acceptable addiction to have? How often does it get out of hand or out of control? The coffee enema folks’ addiction began when they became regular coffee drinkers. Eventually they were seeking a stronger caffeine high, because conventional coffee consumption methods were just not giving them the buzz they longed for. So, their addiction escalated to an unusual and potentially very dangerous level. This caused me to wonder: when it comes to coffee, how much is too much? Is having too much cause for concern, as it would be with any other substance?