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“If you can do this, you can goddamn-well do anything.” -Me to myself while quitting coffee.  photo by illuminaut “If my heart stops, these teenage lifeguards will pull me out... right?...right?” I thought, moments after getting into the pool at my gym. I told myself I would swim every day that week--I hadn’t taken into account that drinking two cups of coffee before 2pm might hinder this endeavor. I got about halfway through my first lap and really felt like my heart was going to stop. I don’t think I can fully describe the feeling I had in my body, it was like having the flu and yet being really energized at the same time. Not fun. I did about 10 extra slow lengths of the pool before calling it quits. I still felt a little crazy, but I had definitely enabled my body to re-balance a little.
Caffeine: The Juice of Creativity. Right? Or is it? I was never a coffee drinker until about three years ago when my girlfriend introduced me to Philz Coffee. I remember being a kid and not being able to understand how grown-ups drank that stuff. So, at first I wasn’t convinced--don’t get me wrong, it was fucking delicious. It was a mocha, and let’s be real: anything with chocolate, caffeine, heavy cream and sugar is going to be great. I think I drank mocha for about two weeks as we started dating. I had my reservations about being a ‘coffee-drinker’ but I also had very little knowledge of how coffee would make me feel in the long run. It wasn’t hard to justify feeling amazing every single morning for a couple hours, So it wasn’t long before I graduated to coffee and a year later, I was drinking it every day. Besides--everyone else is doing it right? Enjoyment Turns to Need I found myself going to bed thinking about coffee, and like pretty much most of the world I started needing caffeine to feel “normal” in the morning. Some people claim it’s harder to quit if you’ve been drinking coffee for your “whole life.” By that logic, since I started drinking it later in life, it should be easier for me to quit--I call BS on that. I think that if you’ve been drinking coffee for 2 years it’s not much different than 17 years. After a certain point, a long time is just a long time. How to Quit and Why to Quit Let’s get clear here: I’m not a professor, doctor or psychologist, I share my experience in hopes that it may enrich yours. Remember this as you look at my methods. It’s really hard to separate the how and the why in quitting coffee. You need to know why you’re doing it. I’ve heard it said that if you have enough reasons you can do anything. What follows are some of the reasons that I had to quit and chose to quit.
Both psychology as well as tactics are important, here are the tactics that have worked for me. Straight up Tactics: Do not try to go cold turkey My nutrition professor in college said the only way to quit something is to go cold turkey. I couldn’t DISagree more. I’ve tried this. Caffeine is a drug and going off drugs causes withdrawal. The first time I tried to quit I started on Monday morning. I walked right past my favorite coffee shop and went to work. I lasted till about 3 pm when a sense of doom set in accompanied by a HUGE headache cycling into a bigger sense of doom. I don’t know what work I got done that day, but it wasn’t a good one. Instead: Start with a half caff-- If you’re up to 3 cups a day? Go for 3 half caffs. Be consistent. Also know that you’re going to have to start getting your energy and optimism from somewhere else--coffee masks your symptoms so if you’re usually depressed in the morning/all day? Well that’s going to surface and you may need to consider that if you’re unhappy when you’re not on coffee you may have a bigger problem than just your energy level. The rest of the world phenomenon: If you need validation for your choice... don’t expect much support-- from the wrong people at least. Those who support you will be obvious because when you tell them you’re cutting down on caffeine they’re not going to blow their tops, they’ll probably just say “oh, that’s cool.” Or they will be genuinely interested. Whenever I say, “Oh, I don’t drink coffee,” people just nod, BUT If I say “I USED to drink coffee,” people give me a look of awe, their faces react as if I just told them “I quit showering!” or “I decided living in an apartment was too boring so I’m going to pitch a tent on the sidewalk!” or “ Thumbs are stupid! Thumbs down to thumbs! I cut mine off!” You get the idea. America is obsessed with coffee like it is obsessed with TV. Everyone participates and those who don’t are on the fringe. So remember that to a lot of people, quitting coffee is going rogue--If you are crumbling to every other persons argument about why you NEED coffee to survive, you may NEED TO develop your sense of self and wave their protests aside like you would a mosquito. Think about the big picture A downfall I faced when quitting coffee for the first time was this realization: I wasn’t trying to change one habit, I was trying to change my whole morning routine. I loved going to my favorite coffee shop, taking in the smell of the beans, seeing the awesome people who I’ve become friends with, and doing my work like a real Bay Area remote digital nomad. I was “soooo cool”. So I tried to quit the coffee while still going to the shop. That’s like saying you’ll just stop talking to your best friend with words but you can still hang out everyday. Or going to the bar when you are a recovering alcoholic. Try it. If you’re on drugs and you say your quitting--well it’s hard to keep partying and not do drugs when everyone around you is getting cracked out all around you. Luckily for us there is a non drug version of coffee, you may have heard of called Decaf. This may seem obvious but think about it: I switched to decaf after a week of half caff. EVERYTHING else was the same, the only difference was that I changed my drink order. I still got to see my friends and enjoy the smell of beans and be moderately productive in the noisiest friendliest coffee shop EVER, but I also learned to avoid having a 1pm freak out/nap attack every day. Visually measure your success/your ability to change: Give yourself a way to see your success and reinforce your good feelings about your progress. Whenever I look up at April 2013 on my year-long wall calendar, I see the letter ‘D’ marked on every single day, which was my way of noting that I had Decaf that day. I went for way longer than April but that month was a great way for me to see my progress and whenever tempted, say to myself “Hey, you’ve come this far! why go back now?” So these are a few of my tactics that I’ve used to go off of coffee Relapsing and Re-upping OR Hitting Rock Bottom. I did relapse once--why am I sharing this? Because you might too and here’s what to do. You might find yourself being tempted, I’m not going to tell you not to indulge. I totally did, I was on vacation and I gave myself a free pass to do whatever I wanted--and yeah, I paid for it, and I also really enjoyed it. I drank coffee for 3 months, I would feel great for 4 hours or so and then I would hate my life--and so now I’m back off coffee. I realized that I was letting myself stay in that vacation mentality and that drinking coffee was part of a bigger problem of letting my good habits slide. So I found myself relying on coffee to feel “normal” again, and realized it was time to go off of it again. I let myself hit “rock bottom.” I mean, I wasn’t lying in a ditch whoring myself for coffee, but again, I would feel pretty shitty every day around 3 or 4 and wouldn’t really bounce back without some serious exercise and motivational speeches from friends. So I took this shitty feeling and I put it on my list reasons to quit, it was mainly a mental list. Lately, when I think I might want some coffee, I choose to eat a large amount of protein instead. A recent example: This morning, I ate 2 eggs and 3 sausages; 2 hours later: another egg and 2 pieces of chicken. Then, I took a 3 hour nap. Turns out I was just really tired. No amount of coffee would have fixed that and it actually would have made the feeling worse for me--being tired and then pouring coffee on top of that isn’t a fix. You can only fix a lack of sleep with sleep. Having a lack of energy is a different problem altogether which coffee can temporarily fix, but won’t go over well in the long run. Bottom line is that coffee isn’t natural, in the sense that getting high every morning isn’t necessarily natural--coffee is a socially acceptable drug. Sleeping well and eating well and exercising are natural--a sense of wellbeing and balance is natural. Yeah being tired in the middle of the day and maybe a little bit low energy is natural. Getting high every morning feels natural to us when we do it everyday. Had any struggles with coffee/caffeine? Had any successes? Comment and share. Good luck
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