Feeling the necessity for a caffeine hit even earlier than usual I headed out to Costa at 10:30 this morning. I don't think I am addicted to coffee as I don't feel a craving for coffee if I don't get it, but I do think that my (ab)use of caffeine is not far off that of people who snort the odd line of cocaine to get themselves going. For me its about helping my creativity when I have a lot of writing to do. Coffee has the ability to kick start my creative thinking.This reminds me of when I was at the height of my religious fervour and attending the most bizzare pentecostal church imagineable (including animal noises and women re-enacting labour and childbirth). I was never that much into it and it wasn't long before I realised it was all preposterous, but to do my duty as good happy clappy person I was forced to take two double espressos before the Sunday service. Its interesting how many churches these days involve coffee in their evangelism work so maybe I was just setting a trend with my use of mind altering substances.
So is the coffee culture a social habit or a clinical addiction? I think that, like the coffee of the 1970's, its half and half. Some people like to watch the world go by and some like to be seen. According to an architect friend this is why coffee shops all have big windows. To some it will be a true substance addiction, but I have yet to see mid afternoon queues at Tesco for pro-plus tablets.
