6 Months of No Coffee or Alcohol
Why I was forced to quit my favorite drinks and why I don't regret a thing (burnout, part 12)
Last week I spoke about a few of the unexpected side effects from all of that silence and meditative bliss, and how this caused me to take a few u-turns that probably caused more suffering in the long run. After making the decision to leave my startup and after weeks of silent meditation, I was surprised to be still experiencing burnout symptoms like anxiety and shortness of breath. It was time for more drastic measures.
1/ Six months sober
I stopped drinking alcohol and coffee six months ago. I feel more balanced, less fatigued, and have more natural energy than ever before. My creativity did not decrease — if anything, I became more productive. I'm less anxious and my body feels lighter and freer, like when I was a kid. And, I'm happy to report that I no longer have a big stain on my front tooth.
I've been consistently drinking both for at least the last fifteen years of my life. There were times where I'd stopped coffee for a couple of weeks, and once I stopped alcohol for four months, but never both alcohol and coffee at the same time, and never for this long. My twenty-five-year-old self would probably throw a hissy fit if he saw me today. Seriously, dude, you're going to give up the two things that give you so much pleasure, confidence, and fun? Are you absolutely insane? ...Yep!
There was nothing herculean or particularly difficult about quitting. It didn't feel like a Stoic feat, like trying to eat 1,000 less calories every day, running a marathon or being in silence for ten days. Those are way harder. But I'm not being nonchalant about it. I know it's a big deal for most people, and withdrawals can be pretty brutal —headaches, nausea, muscle pain and being super cranky and tired.
But in my case, I felt like I didn't have a choice. You see, the last time I drank a beer, I had a hangover for three weeks. Yes, you read that correctly. Three weeks. A single beer. Headaches, anxiety, and an overall feeling of "meh." And the last time I drank coffee for three or four consecutive days — just one cup a day – I became extremely irritable, scatter-brained and collapsed in exhaustion on the couch. Perhaps if I'd drank five cups this could be understandable, but after drinking only one daily cup it seemed like an extreme reaction.1
In a way I was forced to quit both alcohol and coffee. Other foods and drinks didn't do this. It might've been easier for me to quit compared to someone who has a normal reaction to coffee/alcohol and then decides to make the brave decision to quit both.2 Also given that I'm not working at a company and I'm meditating a bunch, it's arguably easier for me to sustain my sobriety. True.
But when it comes to the long-lasting benefits and returning to a new life without them, there's not such a big difference. I felt an inner freedom from letting go of a dependency, a resurgence of my body's natural energy reserves, and the realization that we've all been told a lie. This is what I want to talk about — what we think these substances do, and what it's actually like to live without them.
2/ The alcohol myth
The alcohol myth is a belief that "alcohol helps me with X," even though there is little, no or contrary evidence to these claims. The most popular ones are that alcohol helps you sleep, even though it actually disrupts sleep patterns. Or that it helps you relax, which is true in the short term but false in the long term, as it increases anxiety and stress. And of course the belief that alcohol is safe in moderation. However, every individual is different and there is no agreed upon "safe" level of consumption that can be applied to all people.
Most people don’t see occasional drinking as a big problem. It's socially acceptable and ingrained in society to the point where not doing these things makes you seem like an outsider. I know this firsthand living in Japan, where nomikai or drinking parties are rites of passage for new employees and very sadly one of the few ways people express their true emotions. Japan also has some of the highest rates of depression, suicide, and work-related burnout in the world, so while alcohol could be helping in some situations, it’s clearly not any sort of real solution.
But the danger in believing these myths and going with the crowd is a lot more subtle. I wrote previously about my journey to stop drinking alcohol and why I saw it as a distraction to achieving my goals. I still stand by what I wrote. Many people disagreed with my claim that alcohol was a "distraction." Alcohol could also be a social lubricant, a stress reliever, a tasteful journey for connoisseurs, or even a form of rebellion to the establishment. I obviously realize that there are different reasons people drink. The problem is that most of the time, at least in my case, I was unaware of the real reasons.
For example, I consciously acknowledged that alcohol was a type of social lubricant. This is harmless in moderation. However, why did I need a social lubricant in the first place? I was afraid of being judged, had low self-esteem, and didn't know how to feel comfortable in social situations. The root causes of these stemmed back to situations in my childhood and emotional immaturity that I didn't work through until much later. Isn't it better that I work through those issues instead of covering them up?
Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort. — Jean Cocteau
Here's another one you might be familiar with: I used alcohol as a stress-reliever. Again, there's nothing wrong on the surface, especially if it's not habitual. Beer after work, no big deal. But the question is: why am I constantly in situations (a job, or otherwise) where I am so tired that the only source of stress relief is ethanol, a liquid that is linked to cancer, liver and brain damage? For me, it was because of my lack of ability to set boundaries at work that led to fatigue and little time for better options. Later, when I discovered hobbies I loved and experienced a pouring out of creativity, alcohol became a hindrance.
I'm not here to demonize alcohol (or coffee), or to claim there's a right amount to drink, or even that you should stop drinking. Heck, I'll probably drink the stuff again one day. My point is to say that even if we are aware of the reasons we drink, these are usually surface-level. When you peel the layers, there's often a goldmine of opportunities to become better people. And, isn't it worthwhile to work on those issues — to solve those fears, insecurities, traumas, to build those skills — even if it requires changing some habits?
3/ The coffee myth
Everyday 2.25 BILLION cups of coffee are consumed and every year over 500 billion.3 If the below symptoms are representative at all of the general population, then hundreds of millions of people around the world experience symptoms like insomnia, headaches, and stomach issues thanks to our “mild addiction.” All in the name of, what exactly? Getting an edge, feeling good, being more productive…or simply staying awake to make it through the day.
Caffeine stays in your system for roughly 12 hours, meaning if you drink a cup in late morning it will likely impact your sleep. This messes with your circadian rhythm and your ability to wake naturally. Since quitting coffee, an interesting “super power” that I’ve gained is that ability to wake up by setting an intention to wake up at a certain time. I get up at the same time before my alarm, or without an alarm. I think many people have experienced waking up right before their alarm, but the frequency of this happening has increased drastically since I quit coffee. There is some science to this.
There's a podcast episode with Joe Rogan and Michael Pollan, the author of How to Change Your Mind, where Michael talks about his experiment with quitting coffee for three months. "It was terrible," he said. He experienced all the common withdrawal symptoms from drinking coffee, like headaches and being cranky. Once that subsided he felt better, but found himself not as productive as before, which was problematic since he's a writer. So he started drinking coffee again.
I believe Michael when he said that he felt less productive, but I'm skeptical about the claim that coffee was the main culprit. Was he exercising, sleeping well, and eating well? Was he meditating? Creativity doesn't come from coffee, it comes in spite of it. At least from my personal experience. All of the 10's of thousands of words of Substack newsletters that I've written in the last 6 months were produced without any caffeine. My good friend who quit coffee writes and makes YouTube videos prolifically has had the same experience.
Writing as we know it was invented at least 5,000-6,000 years before coffee was discovered. In fact, some of the most creative people in history didn't drink coffee. William Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Michelangelo all lived long before coffee was widely available in Europe in the 17th century.4 It was pretty unlikely they drank coffee, or tea for that matter. If you go back further, Homer (The Iliad and The Odyssey), Confucius and Rumi definitely didn't drink coffee, which was discovered in Ethiopia in the 9th century.
And if that's not enough, here are a list of famous people today who don't drink coffee:
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