For my tea friends living and thriving in sobriety.

As tea has become so important to me and I have 'switched' (as I like to call it) from any type of booze to every type of tea with the same passion I once had for sake and vodka gimlets, a very wise person said something to me I want to share..... hope this person doesn't mind, s/he will remain anonymous but deeply appreciated by me for taking time to write me, a veritable stranger some thoughts..... it goes like this:

"I know we don't know each other well yet, but I want to lay something on you directly, and I hope you take it with an open mind. When we are getting clean (I quit partying about 13 years ago, it was a mess), we have to understand that the nature of addiction is not only about our substance of choice, but is also tied to the way we think. Tea is a very good and healthy beverage, but if you take it too far, it does have detrimental effects on the health. Tea can cause kidney stones if you drink too much, and can also be long term bad for your kidneys. As someone who has been clean for a long time, I want to suggest that one of the best ways to deal with cleaning up is diversifying behaviour. Tea was a great start, but you also have to go even further. I originally cleaned up by doing tai chi, later got into the tea thing as a result. It has been an amazing journey, but there are so many areas of life outside of those hobbies, and a lot of them were really hard to face. Remember that caffeine and L-theanine are drugs, and that over indulgence in them isn't a viable way to cure the problem of addiction, which starts and ends in ourselves. Keep drinking tea, keep blogging, but also, I want to really encourage you to open up other doors too, have a good hard look inside, and enjoy your newer, cleaner, better, and happier life!!!!!!"