Quitting is for Quitters

All my life I’ve been quitting stuff. I quit horseback riding lessons when I was 8 because I fell off the horse (the old adage about “getting back on the horse” does little for an 8-year-old). I quit dance classes when I was 12 because I had to have surgery on my foot and I was embarrassed to go back. I quit the Academic Decathlon when I was 17 because one of the topics was religion and I knew it would cause arguments that I didn’t want to have with my friends. I’ve quit jobs for silly, childish reasons like “everyone fights too much” and “the boss and I just don’t ‘gel’.” My desire to throw in the towel has caused me some problems.

Fortunately, it’s also been beneficial. It was helpful when I quit smoking marijuana. It was quite useful when I quit drinking all forms of alcohol. I was very thankful for it when I quit smoking cigarettes last September. When, in January, I quit eating meat I found it incredibly comforting. Finally, I stopped drinking caffeinated coffee a couple of months ago, and so far I’m having more trouble with that than with anything else I’ve tried quitting in my life.

Yes, quitting coffee is harder than quitting cigarettes.

I know, I know…go online and you’ll find study after study that “proves” that caffeine sharpens your focus and improves your output, that it can guard against certain diseases and disorders, and that it’s a “healthy” stimulant. But the nature of a stimulant is not healthy…caffeine’s purpose is not to be good for you. Caffeine’s purpose is to unnaturally alter the way your brain works so you can push your body harder than it needs to be pushed. It’s like a gun; yes, it CAN be used for self-protection, for recreation, and for brandishing in a threatening way to get what you want, but it only has one real purpose in life, which is to kill living things.

I did my research; I found neutral articles (like Wikipedia and HowStuffWorks) that explained the chemical nature of caffeine. Now, it’s been a while since high school chemistry, so some of it was over my head, but the general idea is this: caffeine is not natural, and it does sly, manipulative, unnatural things to your brain and your body. It’s addictive as hell, and it is, to echo the sentiments of many strongly disliked anti-caffeine criers in the scientific community, just as harmful as any other psychoactive stimulating drug. I’ll even stretch my neck out a little more and say that the reason it’s even legal is because the very large majority of the decision-makers in the world are addicted to it.

I thought coffee would be enough, so I started there, gradually reducing my intake like many articles suggested. Then I was drinking only tea, and I was very self-congratulatory about that. I thought, “Later I’ll get rid of all caffeine. But drinking tea is fine for now!”

This morning, I overslept. When I woke up, I frantically called the office and explained that I had slept through my alarm and I would be in ASAP. When I got to my desk, I was still exhausted. I immediately rushed to the break room for a cup of tea. Upon slogging it back like a maniac, I began to feel the effects of the caffeine right away. My heart began to race and my muscles began to twitch, but I noticed something very strange. Even though my body was going like I’d just run three miles, I was still sleepy. The caffeine had done nothing to actually give me that “woken up” feeling. And I further realized that I always felt this way about caffeine. So why was I still drinking it? The answer: addiction. Plain and simple. Clearly, as described in above paragraphs, I have an addiction problem. Perhaps I’m addicted to addiction. Whatever the case may be, I was continuing to ingest a substance that does me more harm than good simply because I am addicted to it.

So I made the decision, at 10:15 this morning, June 3, 2009, that I would quit caffeine cold-turkey. I washed out my mug and gave it away, retaining only my thin plastic cup (insufficient for the hot caffeinated beverages found at work). That cup will come in handy when I’m tossing back glass after glass of water as I frantically try and flush this nasty caffeinated feeling out of my system.

Sudden? Sure. Rash? Maybe. But every other time I’ve successfully quit doing something I didn’t want to do, be it reasonable or not, it was because of a sudden, rash decision I made based on current feelings. Everyone has their own method for quitting stuff, and I say if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

For a Total Change of Heart: Identify your addictions, then figure out whether they are actually benefiting your life. Research the hell out of them, and decide if you really want to spend your time/money/energy supporting those addictions. Ask yourself if you could live without them, or if you actually need them in order to survive. Be realistic and reasonable about it. Cancel out all that unnecessary shit you don’t need.