Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

My caffeine addiction is not something I usually think about.  It is a rather automated aspect of my morning routine.  I fill my unusually tall coffee mug to the brim, and drink it first thing each morning—while checking my email and writing blog entries.  (In fact, I’m drinking some coffee right now!) I have been doing this for years.  And in the rare event that I allow myself to run out of coffee, or filters, here at home, I run up the street to the nearest gas station for my daily fix.  But yesterday, something happened.  For reasons I cannot explain, I did not fix my morning fix.  And the profundity of the withdrawal symptoms I experienced gave me pause.

Sometime at around 1pm, I became inexplicably tired.  Initially, I attributed it to the heat, and told my son we could no longer practice riding his bike without training wheels because I needed to cool off.

I sat down, turned on some television, and fell into a half-conscious stupor.  My son asked what was wrong, and I told him that I must have been getting sick.  I asked him to watch some television or to play in his room with his marble run while I got some rest.  He did.  My condition worsened.

When I felt the extremity of the headache hit, I was reminded immediately of the last time I had such pains—years ago, when I neglected to drink my morning coffee!  I was experiencing, in a severe way, caffeine withdrawal.  Half-asleep, with a pounding headache, and still feeling a bit hot, brewing coffee was not in my plans.  I fumbled in the medicine cabinet until I found the last two Excedrin (which contain caffeine), popped the pills, and slammed onto my bed for a nap.

An unknown amount of time later I awoke.  The headache was gone, but I still felt useless and fatigued.  I spent the evening in the recliner, in a totally mindless state, in and out of consciousness.  I went to bed at 9pm, and woke up at 7am this morning.  The first thing I did was brew some coffee, to avoid a repeat of the previous day, and then the seriousness of my addiction hit me.

I am physically incapable of functioning like a normal person without caffeine.

This morning, I started reading online articles about caffeine addiction, and when I got to this one, the following excerpt felt autobiographical:

I can’t ignore the energy boost and mental acceleration that comes from caffeine. But I do notice negative side effects when I drink coffee. Caffeine seems to make part of my brain overactive and another part underactive. I become really good at doing things, but very bad at prioritizing what needs to be done. If I drink a lot of coffee, I’ll often spend hours doing a bunch of low priority tasks, and I find that other unproductive habits are more likely to be done excessively. I become like a rat in a treadmill, doing more and more but not accomplishing what really matters. I find it very hard to focus on the big picture from a holistic whole-brain standpoint if I’ve consumed caffeine.

I also feel that caffeine blocks too much of my intuition and creativity. I miss subtle sensory input, and my thinking becomes too linear. Sometimes linear thinking is OK though. If I have a lot of menial tasks to complete, and I already have a clear to-do list to follow, drinking a cup of coffee can get me through them quickly. But if I have to sit down and do high-level work like developing my next quarterly plan, caffeine will make a mess of my thought process and dramatically reduce my ability to concentrate. My mind races too much on caffeine; it’s hard to stay focused on just one thing.

Additionally, caffeine definitely disrupts my sleep habits. Even if I have a cup of coffee in the morning and none for the rest of the day, I don’t sleep as well. I wake up in the middle of the night, or it’s hard for me to get out of bed in the morning. When I consume no caffeine, I sleep more restfully and wake up easily. I also don’t experience so much midday sleepiness.

And lastly caffeine makes me feel hotter than usual, including while I sleep. I need to turn the air conditioner up to feel comfortable, so that’s another hidden cost.

So I think I’ll try to break this one, to see what happens.  It looks like Teeccino is the preferred replacement for breaking the addiction. 

I’ve been addicted to this stuff for so long, it seems impossible to be ready to work in the morning without it.  But I guess that’s a sign of my addiction. 

Though I occasionally desire a cigarette, I guess life has improved since I quit smoking.  On the rare occasion that I have a cigarette while out with friends, I usually find the taste disgusting and I become irritated with dry mouth in the middle of the night.  These experiences serve as a nice reminder for why I quit.  But I don’t have the physical need to smoke anymore, like during the drive to and from work, or during my lunch.  And I can actually sit at a bar, drinking beer, without getting nervous over not smoking.  In the beginning, the idea of having a beer without a cigarette seemed impossible. 

So I guess I’ll be able to break this one, too.  I wonder how much it will change my life.

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