A Break from The World's Most Beloved Drug
Here's what the first month without caffeine has been like
In an earlier episode of Heal with Sushil, I spoke with Dimitri Douchin about the taboo subject of porn addiction. At the time, what Dimitri said about addiction stuck with me.
Addiction is a window to an underlying problem, not the problem itself.
Within a week of the episode airing, a video made me aware of a socially acceptable addiction in my life; Caffeine. In a chat with Joe Rogan, Michael Pollan expressed how quitting caffeine for a while made him realize what his relationship with this powerful plant was.
Due to the lack of test subjects, I chose to run this experiment on myself. 90 days without caffeine. What could go wrong, right?
Today was day 31 of this challenge. Here is an account of what happened.
I Didn’t Die
I have been drinking coffee since I was 10.
And it has been a constant fixture in my life for over 23 years. Prior to this, the longest I have been without coffee is three weeks. Also, it did not seem obvious at the time but it would also mean no chocolate for 3 months.
Life without coffee and chocolate seemed unlivable. And yet 30 days on, I have continued to draw breath.
0 Focus
The first week was the worst. I had no idea how I was ever going to get anything done. The entire week was a blob of wasted time. Each day I would show up at my desk and stare into the abyss.
It did get easier but a month on, it is still challenging to overcome procrastination.
Full disclosure: I have even procrastinated writing this article until the last minute.
A Replacement Addiction
Something had to fill this void left behind from a lifelong addiction. It was at this opportune moment that a Breaking Bad parody, which is (and I don’t say this lightly) God’s gift to the internet.
Watching this video resulted in a Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul rerun binge. Pro Tip: You can run through it a lot faster by watching it at 1.5x on the Netflix mobile app.
Over a hundred hours of TV show binging in under two weeks.
Impact on Sleep
It was impossible to stay awake during the day during the withdrawal phase of this challenge.
Over time I have realized that this break has been immensely beneficial for mitigating some chronic sleep disorders. Earlier, it would take anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours to fall asleep.
The sleep latency has drastically gone down since I started. The sleep quality has improved significantly as well.
Greater Awareness and Openness To Change
You can’t fix a problem that you cannot see.
This last month has made me hyper-aware of (anti)patterns in my life. This was the biggest takeaway from this experiment. The caffeine addiction was a window into the lack of focus, procrastination, and obsessive behaviors that have been around for as long as I know.
But the best part was the realization that most of these are learned behaviors that can be managed or even unlearned. When you remove all the crutches from your life. You will begin to see who you really are right now and this would be an unsettling and unpleasant experience.
But how would you get to who you want to be if you don’t know who you are right now?