Drugs of Choice

“Coffee black, cigarettes. Start this day like all the rest. 

First thing every morning that I do… 

Is start missing you.”- Some Broken Hearts Never Mend by Don Williams 

Two things help me start my day. Then they stay with me until I go to bed at night. The only reason I don’t do them in my sleep is because I haven’t figured out how to do them when I’m unconscious. Coffee and cigarettes. The legal drugs that make the world go around. The two things that aren’t people that I’d definitely miss if they weren’t around.  

Around 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed daily worldwide. That equates to over 815 billion cups a year. I’m pretty sure I’m responsible for at least ten percent of that. There are around four trillion cigarettes consumed yearly worldwide. That’s a lot of smoking while you’re sipping on that cup of joe. I know, because I do it every day. It doesn’t get me high, or even raise my levels of productivity or make me happy. It just keeps me from yelling at people during the day, and has most likely kept me from committing quite a few assaults and battery, and maybe even the occasional murder. So, that’s a good thing, right? And, thankfully, it’s totally legal.  

There’s evidence of tobacco use as far back as twelve thousand years ago in North America. No wonder the American Indians use it in spiritual ceremonies. The whole peyote thing never really caught on, but not every drug can be as cool as tobacco. It’s kinda hard to sell the “cool kids” on a psychoactive cactus that grows near buffalo turds, when tobacco is much simpler. Harder to act cool when you’re being chased by pink elephants, too. Let’s just stick to the smoke that causes slow death by lung complications and cancer. That’s cool enough all by itself.  

If you don’t start a drug, you don’t have to worry about getting addicted to it. That’s great advice. Just say no. Remember Nancy Reagan’s famous anti-drug slogan from the eighties? It does work. If you can do it. It applies to coffee and cigarettes, too. If my Logical Self dared to think about it, I’d deeply regret ever having consumed any caffeinated beverage. That includes soda. I have no idea how big of an impact caffein and sugar has had on the health of the average human over the past thousand years, but I’m guessing it hasn’t made us healthier. Ever since a goat herder in Yemen watched his goats act funny when ingesting a cacao bean plant way back in 574 AD, we’ve been chasing that buzz.   It’s the no-calorie drink that keeps giving. It’ll wake you up in the morning, most definitely. Caffein is also one of the few legal stimulants we regularly give children.  Add some caffein to a soda, with thirty-nine grams of high fructose corn syrup (read “sugar”) and can you really wonder why we’re getting fatter and dumber as a species? It’s the Big Gulp’s fault. Totally. 

Except it’s not. It’s our own fault for telling ourselves that, so long as a drug is legal, it’s okay. It’s not. Not with marijuana, cocaine, meth, alcohol, caffein or cigarettes. The benefits that we experience, mostly temporarily, with any of these drugs is heavily offset with all the adverse immediate, and sometimes long-term, side effects that follow. Being legal just affects who profits and who pays. So why do we keep taking all of this stuff? 

Because we started. We liked the way it made us feel. It gives our brains and hands something to do that’s not work, and feels fun at the moment. Hey, wait. Maybe we need to classify cell phones as a drug, too.  

Wish me luck this year as I attempt to slow down my caffein and tobacco addiction to a manageable rate. I might even quit. I try not to say that out loud, because I might hear myself. I usually use coffee and cigarettes more when I’m thinking of quitting. It’s like my brain knows what I’m up to! Naw, can’t be. 

Y’all pray for me. 

God bless Y’all!