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The Agony and the Ecstasy of Quitting Caffeine
Who do we become without our small pleasures?
“Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.”
― Mark Twain
It’s been six days since I decided to quit caffeine for a month and I feel like I have been to hell, wrestled with an angel, had a Cronenberg-esque transformation into a monster, and been sucked out of my body into a swirling dream of coffee grounds as my head pulsed to the rhythmic demands of withdrawal.
Strangely, the decision to quit caffeine came to me in a dream. I was slipping in and out of sleep at around 4 in the morning, swirling in a cascade of anxiety when the random thought popped into my head: I should quit caffeine for a month. I had been steadily drinking coffee for ten years and by that point, I was consuming 1000mg a day easy from all the Redbull, americanos, diet cokes, and iced coffees. Which is far over the recommended daily intake. But I’d never considered quitting before.
This was as close as I was going to get to wrestling with an angel and having it whisper in my ear after I’d won. So I decided to try 30 days and see what would happen.
By the first day, I was already regretting my decision. I realized that I used coffee as a kind of pause button. A spacer within the day. A point of interest. Years ago when I was miserable in…
