What I Didn’t Learn From Quitting Coffee For a Week

At this point in the semester (read: election year, life, all of human history) I imagine I’m not the only one on campus considering adding vices, not subtracting them.

But, alas, for the sake of comping The Crimson, I persevere.

I originally pitched this idea with the confidence that I would, by the end of it, have some sage advice to pass along to fellow haggard and sleep-deprived students and professors. I sincerely believed this would lead me to some incredible Reason Why You Need to Quit Coffee Now, some discovery that made me Done With Coffee Forever — you know, one of those things that makes a good headline. At the very least, I figured it would give me something to brag about while the semester took its toll.

I also desperately needed to stop buying my four-, five-, six-, seven-dollar (depending on the dealer) daily latte. Oh, the amount of money I have lost to these corrupt cafes taking advantage of my desperation is enough to drive anyone insane. Insane enough, even, to give it all up and tell you all about it.

But I must admit to you, Dear Reader, that I write this now with both hands encircled around a freshly brewed, steaming mug of my magic elixir. I have found, at the end of the week, that coffee is, most likely, the only way to get this article about Quitting Coffee done.

Do not judge me. All I promised was a week of coffee-free torture. And a week I made it. And torture it was.

I started drinking coffee in my senior year of high school. It was innocent enough at first. My dad bought himself an espresso maker for my parents’ anniversary and would fashion us honey-sweetened lattes before school, babbling joyfully about the blend he used that day and how his latte art skills were developing.

What a life-changing time! When that rush of caffeine coursing through my veins was still so fresh, so exhilarating. My daily espresso put the mornings into focus, and I was suddenly sharper in class, chattier (God bless my classmates), and readier than ever to Take On The World.

Now, it’s hard to say whether the drink does much of anything anymore except drain my savings, upset my stomach, and quicken my heartbeat so much that I fear for my life. And, whereas in high school I felt in control of coffee’s powers, coffee has now taken control of me. A couple hours without it each morning, and I am punished with a pounding headache and a brain fog so bad I’m unable to speak intelligently in class.

So I decided to quit for a week, with the hope that a week would turn into a month, a year, a life without this crippling dependency.

Initially I tried to go without any caffeine at all but ultimately swapped coffee for free dining hall black tea. And all week I have been met with two reactions when I tell people this. Those free from the clutches of caffeine addiction, looking down at me from their insufferably-high horses, tell me that it doesn’t count, that I am a fraud, that there’s no way to truly be clean unless you’re 100 percent clean, and blah, blah, blah.

On the other side, my coffee-addled friends respond gravely, “Oh, no… that’s not enough.”

And it is very different. Going from a latte to tea means going from 128 mg of caffeine — the amount in a doubleshot of espresso — to a measly 47 mg in a cup of black tea. The way tea is absorbed also means that I didn’t get my typical jolt of caffeinated energy.

To make this all as painful as possible, Day One was the day after election day. I woke up with a headache, depression, and one-on-one office hours with my French professor scheduled for 10 a.m. After running into her office five minutes late, I proceeded to stutter and stumble gracelessly through thoughts about my final project as her head cocked slightly to the left and her eyes squinted in perplexity. At one point, I spent two minutes trying to remember the word “representation.” And we weren’t even speaking in French.

Day Two was, somehow, worse — worse headache, worse sluggishness. In my film class, we were screening a classmate’s project. My teacher dimmed the lights. As her film began to play, it seemed as though the projector light was pulsing gently, trying to hypnotize me, and suddenly my head felt too heavy for my shoulders. I thought, “It can’t hurt to just close my eyes for just a moment while the movie gets going…”

I woke with a start twenty minutes later as the teacher flicked the light back on, and I straightened up, pretending I saw one moment of the project.

By the next day, I was sure I was losing my mind. Desperate to find anyone to talk to, I thought maybe Havard’s Psychology Department would have some helpful advice about handling withdrawal. After a 16-minute walk through windy, frigid Cambridge, I arrived at the department’s building. The woman at the front desk asked what she could do for me, and I word-vomited my idea into her lap, half-expecting her to turn me away or admit me somewhere a colleague worked. But I think she could see the desperation in my bloodshot eyes.

After extensive Google searches and questions to colleagues, however, we discovered that no one there seems to study or teach about addiction, except maybe one lecturer whose Harvard page is devoid of any way to locate or contact her.

Throughout the week, I will admit that I did not miss my usual 3 p.m. post-coffee crash, but I also wonder if I just felt crashed out all day instead. Never have I felt so wholly rundown.

A Sunday morning hangover severely tested my dedication. Needing to board a flight back to Cambridge that day, and fighting a headache so bad I thought I might pass out, no one could have blamed me for having one teeny little coffee. So I got in line at an Ann Arbor cafe, mouth watering at the thought of what I would order. Maybe I’d add a shot of vanilla, try something seasonal, or even leave my beloved beverage unsullied by my other, more potent addiction — sugar. Oh, how I missed the smell, the taste, the comfort of a hot latte.

Four people were in front of me, then three, then two. All I could think was what an impossible line this is to stand in, and they are taking so much time to order, and I have to hold myself back from scrambling over the counter, ripping into the bag of coffee grounds and pouring them down my throat, when finally the last customer-shaped obstacle in front of me moves to the side.

But when the barista guarding my prize asked me her riddles-three, I heard myself ask for a tea.

Yes, for you, Dear Reader, I held out. I took my tea and an Advil and embarked on one of the worst flights of my life. All for you. So positive I was that mere days stood between me and that Reason To Quit Coffee that I could not possibly let you down.

However, by the end of the week, that Great Secret was still not quite discovered. Maybe I didn’t give myself enough time, but in all honesty, I had no more time to give. All I did this week was not drink coffee.

Was the quality of my sleep better? Maybe. But working so much slower during the day meant that each night when my eyes could not stay open, my brain continued flipping through my ever-growing to-do list. Each morning, I jolted awake hours too early, heart pounding from the thought of falling behind, but too tired to get ahead. My next piece should probably be called “Going to Therapy for Anxiety.”

So as the week closes out, I return to my old ways, grateful for the free coffee in the dining hall and the luxury of a hot latte to fight particularly frigid days. I walk away from this experience knowing that coffee, caffeine, whatever — it’s not really waking me up. It is, however, masking sleep deprivation to a point where I can continue to swim in the never-ending stream of responsibilities. Yes, it may be lowering the quality of my sleep, ultimately raising the mountain of fatigue I must pedal up each day. And, true, it makes my heart pound like I’m running the mile. But in the triathlon that is college life, until I find a couple quiet weeks to catch my breath, coffee feels like the only way to stay in the race and continue pedaling on.