Coffee and Asperger's Syndrome: A Recipe for Disaster
It took me many years to understand how badly Coffee was destroying me life.
Coffee is my kryptonite. Who would have thunk it?
The past ten years have not been easy for me. As each day unfolded I became more irritated; more frustrated; more willing to snap at the slightest sound. After about the eighth year I came to favor the sweet nectar of Tennessee whiskey and the cooling comfort of poisonous cigarette smoke.
In times of reflection I can remember that life wasn't always like this. I was an easy-going young adult.
Last year after my diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome (or "AS") I started to accept that my sensitivity towards sound and light were more than simple personality quirks. These extreme reactions to environmental stimuli are a result of the short circuiting that happens in an autistic mind.
I have at least a hundred points in each day where I have some kind of Asperger trigger. It can be a barking dog; a person chewing; a leg shaking or bells ringing at the church. Each episode is like somebody shaking my head so hard I can't concentrate. We all have some degree of difficulty with irritating sounds and sights. Still, with my own experience I can see how I'm extremely upset by these stimuli when others around me barely notice the issue.
What I just described is what happens to my autistic mind WITHOUT coffee. Now you can see how badly coffee worsens things.
But here's the kicker. Coffee also improves the autistic mind as long as you have a quiet place with no other people. This is why many people on the autistic spectrum make such good programmers. Your typical programmer is very reclusive, hates noises and works in dark hours.
A sound proof cell would be a great choice if I had one but I don't. I live in the real world as a freelancer so I have to occasionally answer calls and interact with people. Once you drink coffee for the day it takes at least 48 hours to reduce your sensitivity (it takes this time to not only drain out the caffeine but also getting proper sleep). We often can't anticipate what will happen in a day unless we live on a deserted island.
Obviously coffee makes you jittery but ...
There have been hundreds of times that I've had that sneaking suspicion that coffee was only exacerbating my existing condition. Still we tend to bargain with ourselves and think, "Ah one cup is OK." One cup turns into two and then before you know it you're sneaking in 40 ounces per day. The stuff is everywhere and commonly offered as a friendly gesture.
Man enters bank. "Good morning Mr. Wig! I'll get your check cashed right away! Have a complementary cup of coffee on the bank if you like!"
With me I learned that I had to stop as if I was in rehab. I really had to start treating it like poison. Even after quitting for good, it took weeks and weeks to get back to my childhood self. I studied hard and began to see a lot of different things happening.
Lets go down memory lane.
Harp music plays. "Do-do-do-little. Do-do-little. Do-do-little."
As a child I slept late and had the high-focus point of my day in the evening hours. I never was big on chocolate or cola. Then as I started into my 20's. I worked for over a decade in the restaurant business. This allowed me to continue my rhythm of sleeping late and working late so I still never had much of a taste for coffee. I enjoyed slow and relaxed mornings. Then at about 4pm I would go into work to roll silverware before the dinner shift.
Through my 20's I still had issues with what I now know is "Asperger's Syndrome" but I always knew how to avoid the situations quickly enough to avoid full blown episodes. People just called me "sensitive" or "weird" and that was it. I spent a lot of time in the woods and limited social interaction.
In 2001, I landed my first "computer job" at a real estate magazine. This was the first job where I had to show up at at 8:00 in the morning like normal people do. This is when my co-worker introduced me to this evil shit called "coffee". It's where all the trouble began.
At first life was great. I was drinking about 40 ounces a day and learning a great deal about how to operate a magazine. It was exciting to learn all the new Adobe software. I can clearly remember staying up one night and reading the thousand page Adobe Illustrator manual in one go.
As my computer job progressed, I was able to engage in a complex schedule that allowed me to guzzle coffee and yet avoid AS triggers. I can remember many triggers from that period. The air conditioner was 'too cold" and "too moldy". My coworker made an irritating "tapping noise" with her pen. The phone would ring "three lines" in a tone I did not like.
I began this schedule of 'coming in for the morning meeting' and then taking the rest of the daylight hours off. I would then return at 10pm with a huge cup of coffee to work into the night. This time was golden because the phones stopped ringing and people were gone. My boss was lenient with me and didn't care as long as I got the job done.
Looking back I must have known I was playing with fire but I kept convincing myself that this "was working". After all, "Why should I be denied this extra "powerful edge" that coffee gives you?" I needed to advance my career just like anybody else.
The seeds for disaster are now planted.
Life moved on and I bounced from one job to another but they were always IT jobs where I was often expected to work in the mornings. Coffee became a fact of life. As the decade moved on I found that I started craving alcohol more. I never though much of it until the last year when I was going through a half gallon of whisky every week. Cigarettes followed as the decade closed.
I had a couple embarrassing panic attacks where I nearly got fired. The worse one involved three phones ringing at once and 3 more people trying to get my attention during a magazine deadline. I was just not myself.
It wasn't until last year with the AS diagnosis that I started to see the awful pattern. I wanted badly to quit drinking and smoking but I just couldn't. There was always some kind of dog barking; a person chewing carrots or a loud TV. It became apparent that I was drinking and smoking to counter the combination of AS and the extra agitation from drinking so much coffee in the morning.
It sounds simple now as I tell the story but I realized that I had to quit coffee first and then drinking and smoking would soon follow. I was right about the diagnosis but following through was far from easy.
How do you quit drinking coffee...really?
I went through hundreds of "well obviously" moments where I would chant out, "OK, If I quit coffee, I'll reduce focus on sound and light. Then I'll drink and smoke less. Everything will be grand."
If only it were that easy.
Anybody has has quit coffee for a couple of days realizes how much better they feel but then you reach point where you have to focus on work and then it dawns on you how mushy your brain is. Working in the IT industry while drinking coffee was easy for me because the caffeine helped bring focus to my natural obsessive compulsive tendencies that are such an asset with programming, etc.
I once heard this anecdote about how programmers worked at night because they needed to "load" a problem into their brain much like you would load software onto a PC. Distractions of any kind are murderous. Computer problems are often complex and programmers need to be able to travel "up and down" the problem as if it where a long road. Coffee is this natural catalyst for solving the complex issues that required a lot of intuition. For me it was the glue that kept the problem loaded into my brain.
I tried to quit coffee and failed for many months. I got really scared because I could not finish jobs. I simply could not focus. My AS "stemming" would often take me over. Each time I picked coffee back up I would buy a jug of whiskey and a pack of smokes. I was living hard. If I had a job with "easy repetition" like washing dishes or waiting tables, then quitting would have been easier. Working with computer technologies often requires a lot of innovation, problem solving and adaption. You can't just pull out a repetitive process from your brain in order to get through the day.
Don't break the chain
I had heard about the "Seinfeld Calendar" and decided to give it a try. The idea is to draw a chain-link on each day you reach your goal. I modified the idea with numbers for each day I go without Coffee, Alcohol and Cigarettes. I didn't try to quit everything at once even though I saw the relationship between all three stimulants. I knew coffee had to go first so I wouldn't try to counter with the other two.
I spent about a week off coffee and continued to drink and smoke. As usual I came to the point of not having focus etc but I was determined this time. I also had the luck of a light work load so I could afford a lot of breaks.
About 3 days without coffee sent me into hibernation. I timed my quitting bid into the weekend so I had a good 50 hours to lay in the bed and sleep. It was during this time that I realize how much REM sleep I was getting. I even wondered if this also figured into reducing the Asperger's symptoms.
Finally after a week without coffee something odd started to happen. I was so determined to quit that I often spent the entire morning fighting it. Then I would finally get this burst of energy at night and be able to work. I had my Eureka moment and realized that I had re-adopted my childhood rhythm. Luckily at this point in my life I do freelance work so I can make my own schedule. I finally realized, "Hey, why not go back to a night-shift like the restaurant days". This time I didn't have to make the morning meetings so I could truly be in "mush mode" from waking up to around 2PM.
After ten days off coffee I was able to easily quit alcohol and cigarettes. It was easy this time. I just walked away like it was nothing.
These days I have to accept that waking up takes a full six hours each day. I can't cheat and guzzle coffee for the morning shift. It's a long process of learning to walk; learning to breath and learning to stand up without a stimulant. The end result is astounding. Asperger triggers bother me but not hardly like they used to. It's manageable. I treat coffee like heroin now. I just wont touch it; not a drop; not even decaf. I'm so afraid of it. It is that seed that nearly ruined my life.
Life is getting easier but the hardest thing for me to grasp is that I need to take advantage of my body rhythm in order to get the day's work done. I can't induce the concentration with coffee because that will also make me concentrate on environmental stimulus that will hurt me. Perhaps one day I can afford a sound proof room but for now I have to live a normal life with a wife, dogs, loud neighbors and helicopters overhead. Each day there will be a short window were I can program well and then it closes. Then sleep comes easy and you get another day to try again.