#44: Naked Self-Reliance ☕️

quitting caffeine and alcohol

I quit caffeine a month ago. I used to be a daily drinker. Every morning, I’d wake up, brush my teeth, and obey the one-hour delay doctrine that the health science demigod Huberman and his disciples instilled in me. I operated on 23-hour days. The hour before I consumed my piping hot cup of happy juice was never to be counted as time that could be well spent. After all, I wasn’t “myself” yet.

I kept it simple. Black drip coffee was my drug delivery method of choice. I’d always feel a bit groggy even after eight hours of sleep, but once I took that first sip, my withdrawal symptoms started to gradually fade away. You would never think something so dark and insidious looking could turn out to be the sweet nectar of the gods. Once the caffeine was coursing through my veins, I was primed to do anything. Archimedes said “Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the earth.” I said “Give me my damn coffee and I will move the earth too.”

Once I recognized the power of this substance, I optimized my entire schedule around when I would be jacked up. I shifted deep work like reading and writing to the morning and left the things I could do with half-a-brain (like chores and emails) for the afternoon. But my competing desire to have great caffeine-fueled workouts jostled for position in my calendar. After a couple hours of being immersed in my intellectual work, I’d dash over to the gym by noon before my buzz wore off. By trying to cram everything that I deemed “hard” into this four-hour window of peak performance, I always felt rushed. Trying to write well or lift heavy outside of caffeination felt futile.

Independence as the Baseline

Whether it’s a person, place, or thing, being dependent on something is like outsourcing some amount of agency. Dependence manifests in long waits, blockages, and contingencies. To be a “dependent” means to still rely on your parents’ resources for survival. “Using it as a crutch” refers to dependencies beyond physical injuries and disabilities. The most extreme version is a crippling meth addiction that results in losing your career, family, and home. The seemingly trivial, but most popular version is depending on caffeine to be in a state of performance, both mentally and physically speaking.

Being independent isn’t mutually exclusive with interdependence. I’m not advocating for everyone to become a monk-mode ascetic. Community, partners, family, and friends are vital for wellbeing. However, things get dangerous when you rely on something other than yourself just to be at baseline. Cultivating self-reliance requires decoupling from dependencies.

Change of Scenery

Sometimes you have to step away from your usual environment to figure out what’s actually going on. This applies to many things. When you’re acclimated to your daily routine, luxuries become expectations. That’s why travel is the cure for ingratitude. I’m writing this from rural Maine and when no one is speaking and we stop crunching on the early fall foliage, stillness arrives. Back in Brooklyn, I sleep with earplugs, but even they can’t silence the subtle shaking of the building when the 18-wheelers zoom past. And when it came to caffeine, I didn’t realize how noisy my inner mind was until I quit cold turkey.

Today, the hyperconnected internet-driven economy is best represented in the physical world as Times Square. Everywhere you turn, there’s another screen demanding your attention. Or an overly aggressive Minnie Mouse person asking you to pay them for a selfie. Gone are the days of optimizing for survival through subsistence farming. Nowadays, people make money by figuratively shouting “LOOK AT ME!” in the loudest, most convincing way. In an era of abundance, knowing what’s important is more valuable than being efficient.

The metaphor of “separating signal from noise” goes beyond recruiting people, analyzing data, and investing capital. Discerning what’s important to you requires a certain stillness in the mind. We sometimes say “let the dust settle”, but what happens if the dust never truly settles? That’s how my mind felt when I was dependent on caffeine. Perhaps there’s a reason why we say we’re wired after slamming a double espresso. The tether of caffeine keeps us frenetically searching for the next task to check off instead of ever being able to unplug.

Learning to be by yourself, and only yourself (without the presence of other things) is vital. “Listen to your heart” and “Trust your gut” only apply when you’re in a pure, unadulterated state of being. I’m sure some people can maintain a healthy nervous system while daily dosing. For me, it meant I had to quit caffeine.

Quitting Caffeine

The actual quitting process wasn’t as bad as I expected. I set my last day of jitter juice to be Friday, September 1st because I was due for a 13-mile run and going to my friend’s wedding in the evening. I knew the first day is always the hardest so I lined it up with a Labor Day camping trip. Throughout the day, I was noticeably more irritable and had lower energy. Fortunately, I evaded the infamous withdrawal headaches. After crossing the chasm, the rest was smooth sailing. I never even bridged the two-week withdrawal period with any milder caffeine sources like tea. Like my friend Jake said “You literally don’t have to do anything to quit caffeine. You just have to not do one thing (ingest caffeine).”

I’m now one month into sobriety (that seems like a weird way to put it). I’ve been sleeping better because I actually feel tired when I am tired. So then I just sleep. It’s been nice to just roll out of bed and do hard things like go for a run instead of waiting to be caffeinated to do anything mentally or physically strenuous. The best part has been observing my afternoons become equal to mornings in terms of potential. Without any more caffeine crashes and stabilized energy levels, I can now do hard things in the afternoon. I don’t need a pick-me-up because I can just pick myself up.

Quitting Alcohol

I might as well mention quitting booze too while I’m at it. This felt much easier because it naturally happened whereas quitting caffeine needed to be highly intentional. As I’ve become more drawn to things that aren’t compatible with being hungover in the morning, like surfing and skiing, I simply started to care less about going out. It’s honestly pretty easy to not care about drinking if you’ve ever experienced surfing at sunrise or first chair on a powder day.

The stoke-driven abstinence spilled over even when I’m living in NYC. At first, I was worried about my social life degrading, but once I realized I could just talk to people at nighttime without being buzzed, I just kept going. Of course, it took some getting used to. I asked for sparkling water at my friend’s birthday at Dave & Buster’s even when it was open bar. For another birthday, I asked my friend if I could avoid paying the $75 open bar fee since I wasn’t going to drink. To my relief, he said it wasn’t a problem at all. I got to participate in the festivities without feeling guilty or being drunk.

When I say “I quit alcohol”, I don’t mean I’ll never have a sip ever again. Thinking in absolute terms can actually be dangerous. I’ll continue to avoid drinking at networking events, dinners, and honestly most birthdays. That said, weddings are an exception. Celebrating my friend getting married with a champagne toast feels important to me.

Naked Self-Reliance

Although I want an arsenal of resources at my disposal, I also want to be comfortable with having very little. I want a nice, cozy home one day, but I also like knowing that I can survive in the backcountry. While I wish for loyal friends who have my back, I don’t want to feel lonely when I’m alone. This throughline of self-reliance also implies performance without dependency. I’m sure I could’ve maintained my one-cup-a-day routine of coffee without any major repercussions, but there is no magic pill. Whether it’s ozempic, zoloft, adderall, or caffeine, we trade improvement in one category for detriment in another. Until recently, I used caffeine to gain short bursts of intense energy, but I was also left with feeling persistently scatterbrained. On the surface, decoupling this dependency has brought me better sleep, a more flexible schedule, and a quieter mind. On a deeper level, it’s strengthened and sharpened my ability to rely on myself. The fewer things you depend on, the more you realize all you need is yourself. The more you realize how powerful you already are.

I need your help! 🏃🏻‍♂️

I’m running the NYC Marathon on November 5th! And I’m raising $3,000 for Organization for Autism Research. It would mean a lot to me if you donated 🙏.

Currently, I’m on week 10 of training which includes the following four runs this week: 5mi, 8mi, 5mi, 18mi. I’ve never considered myself a runner (and still don’t) so it’s been an interesting process to see how my body has adapted over the past couple months. I’ll be sharing what I learn from this training process as well as the reason for why I even decided to run a marathon in the first place. It goes beyond just wanting to do something hard.

Whether it’s because you want to support autism research, help me out, or just feel warm and fuzzy about doing something good, I hope you contribute to the fundraiser, even if it’s just five bucks!

P.S. Thanks to Jake for writing How & Why I Quit Caffeine and Alex for writing 90 Days Off The Sauce.