coffee

I drink coffee almost 24/7 and according to a recent Vanderbilt University study I am not alone as far as recovering alcoholics go in my penchant for a good cup of joe. The study states that almost ninety percent of all recovering alcoholics drink coffee, and usually in larger amounts than the rest of the population of which a little over half also imbibe coffee.

All one has to do is take in the clutter of coffee cups at AA meetings to see truth in the study’s numbers. Everything from the well traveled travel mugs of the old timers to ubiquitous styrofoam cups of the newcomers with their oft chewed brims will grace the table of almost any type of recovery meeting. Dr. Peter Martin, a VU professor of psychiatry and pharmacology, thinks there may be a link between coffee and successful sobriety.

"This study leads us to believe that there may be something in coffee that may facilitate the abstinence of alcohol,"… adding that identifying such a component could lead to the creation of a medication to treat alcoholism. ~ WBIR.com

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Coffee and cigarettes. Recovering alcoholics, especially newcomers, will cling to these vices as if they were (and they may be) the last redoubt of sanity in a no longer safe because it’s sober world. The twitchy chain smoking alky/addict trying not to crush a styrofoam cup of cheap coffee decorated with tooth indentions on the back stoop of a church before a meeting is usually thinking in terms of quantity not quality, but this will change in time.

In my case, I was able to drop the smoking habit and even though the quantity of coffee consumed never tapered off I guess you could say that my bean preference did become slightly more refined. At the moment I am almost exclusively buying my beans from Peet’s Coffee and Tea; traveling often with my work I lower my standards and grab what’s available but always jump at the chance to sample the atmosphere and brew of a local independent coffee house. I spend too much on coffee but it is one of my creature comforts, however I doubt that I will ever get to the point of dropping $50 for a cup of kopi luwak.

I will let Jack explain:

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