Coffee, crossword addiction sure beats smoking

The question caused me to stop and think. I was asked if I had any addictions. I first thought to answer "No." Addiction has taken on such a negative connotation. People are said to be "addicted" when they can't give up terribly adverse habits; you know, things like drugs, tobacco, gambling, alcohol, soap operas and Sylvester Stallone movies.

I once had an adverse addiction: I was a heavy smoker. Unlike those smokers who, after a lifetime of smoking, sue the tobacco companies for billions because they didn't know cigarettes were harmful to their health, I took seriously the dire warning on cigarette packages and opted to keep on living. I quit, and have never regretted the move.

Until the moment I quit, I was definitely addicted.

Since I have never harbored any other of the aforementioned bad habits, I began to rethink the meaning of addiction. Removing the negative innuendo with respect to societal problems such as drugs, gambling and the rest, the word actually refers to a compulsive need for something, with no automatic negative judgments.

OK; when put that way, I gladly confess to two addictions: coffee and crossword puzzles.

I need them both, thus they must be compulsive.

On my biological stopwatch, an "instant" is the amount of elapsed time between the moment I am officially awake on my feet, moving under my own power, and the moment when the first cup of coffee is in my hand.

My day isn't under way until the first gulp of coffee.

My coffee drinking is sans frills: no sugar, no cream, no nothing but coffee, black. Plop that other stuff in and you have mocha, not coffee. There are some folks who can't handle caffeine, hence they drink imitation coffee decaf which is better than no coffee at all, but not much. And I have no interest in the trendy stuff like espresso, cappuccino, latte, whatever. To me, any concoction that takes a clerk in a coffee shop five minutes to prepare, culminating with whipped cream and a cherry on top, is such a distant relative of coffee that it should be illegal to call it coffee.

My addiction a.k.a. compulsive need for coffee is most conspicuous when I can't have it the morning. Any true-believer coffee drinker knows what it is like when preparing for a physical examination: nothing by mouth after 8 p.m. the night before an early morning blood test.

Me up and around with no coffee isn't a pretty sight. The drive to the doctor's office is one where road rage hovers near the surface and could rear its ugly head at any moment. In the interest of public safety, I should have a conspicuous sign on my car reading "The driver of this vehicle has not yet had his morning coffee. Under no circumstances should anyone do anything to rile him."

Nothing in paradise itself could taste quite as exquisite as the cup of coffee joyfully consumed at the coffee shop nearest the doctor's office once the test is completed. The world suddenly becomes a breathtaking place.

Compulsive need indeed!

My addiction to crossword puzzles is as deep-seated as that to coffee, and they often are enjoyed at the same time. After the first sip of coffee in the morning, I reach for the newspaper containing the puzzle. Headline news can wait, as can everything else in the paper, even the comics. The Rusty Saber philosophy: "The crossword puzzle exists, therefore, it is ... to be worked."

The very thought that an unworked puzzle exists someplace within my reach is a challenge that cannot go unmet. Some climb mountains because they are there; I work crossword puzzles for the same reason.

Like Pavlov's dog responding to the bell, I see a puzzle and I begin to salivate. All of this isn't to suggest that I am some sort of crossword expert. I'm not one of those showoff types who works the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle in ink. I just like to work challenging puzzles.

I feel about crossword puzzles the way I feel about coffee. Both help make life, I don't know, CONGENIAL, I think is the word I'm after. And unlike my former tobacco addiction, neither coffee nor crossword puzzles make my clothes smell like an ashtray.

(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury Un-iversity.)