The End of Caffeine
I believe it was Mark Fisher that once said, “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.” I am not here to analyze this quote in relation to political economy. Much smarter people have already done that and arguably, way too much. Rather, what I find interesting about this quote is how the cynicism it refers to could easily be found in any number of situations.
Most of us on earth today will spend the majority of our lives in an altered state. A state which we may not even realize is the product of a drug. The name of this drug is caffeine. Commonly found in plants such as camellia sinensis and coffea, or produced synthetically for pills or energy drinks such as Monster, 1,3,7-Trimethylpurine-2,6-dione is the most widely consumed recreational drug in the world.
And that’s a great thing! As lame as drugs may be, they possess a wide-range of potential for our lives. Not the least of which is pleasure. Provided that you read the manual. Read the fucking manual.
Provided that you have, you will be, at least tangentially, aware that caffeine fundamentally changes how we perceive the world. I must say tangentially here because few people remember what their life was like before consuming caffeine on a daily basis.
Being someone who did not begin consuming caffeine daily or even consistently, until I was 19: I am in a unique position. Particularly now that I have quit. Perhaps if I started a little earlier, it may have been easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of my caffeine consumption.
I remember exactly where I was the first time caffeine “worked” for me. I was 18. Holed up in the upstairs section of my friend Judith’s house. I say, “upstairs section” because while I had my own room, it is more accurate to say I had my own floor. No one was up here but me. A fact I quite enjoyed given the extreme amount of anxiety I had felt up to that point around both her and her roommates. After a years staying in my old room, I wasn’t ready to say a word to anyone.
I used to drink alcohol to make the words exit my mouth more easily. It was, in fact, the only drug I would ever let myself use consistently. I’ve never even gone through a daily weed phase, such a thing would violate sacred principles of mine. But at a time when I was afraid to talk, even to friends online, alcohol felt like a blunt instrument I could apply to my problem. In absence of other solutions, it would have to do.
The withdrawal both physically and psychologically was an aggravating factor in the anxiety plaguing me, during this stint at Judith’s house. I was more than nervous. If not having to talk to anyone meant not eating. I would elect not to eat. In fact, I did. To the point where I’d have one meal (or less) a day. Some days. It didn’t matter. As long as I didn’t have to face the physically painful scenario of being in a room with another person. It was a strange world.
I was jubilant to finally be on my way home. With only a few days before the trip commenced (or ended, depending on how you look at it), my friend prepared me a proper gaming PC. Which was, to this day, one of the nicest things any person has ever done for me. I played on that thing like crazy. With this hardware, all of those steam games I bought during sales, expecting to play at an unknown date could finally get some action.
It was during this period of time, after her roommates left, while she was working on vehicle to take me back, that I would come to meet a new type of drink. A type of drink that would get revisited many times over. On that fateful day, the inner-workings of a beautiful kind-of matrimony were set in motion. I was introduced: to the energy drink.
But not just any energy drink. What I drank was a full-blown bang energy. 300Mg of caffeine. And I drank it fast. While talking to my friends, N0THANKY0U, Dotesmite, and Plunder, I felt that my gameplay was better than I knew possible. The euphoria was palpable, the rapid speed of my cognition was visible.
I doubt Judith had known it would have such an effect on me. I imagine she was simply concerned about how often I was “sleeping”, assuming that I had a major caffeine habit prior to this. In reality, I was not actually sleeping all the time. But rather, pretending to be asleep to avoid social interaction. Needless to say, I had quite the night ahead of me.
Yet, I did not believe this was a result of the drink. I had been convinced that caffeine was a mere placebo, at least, for me. I did not believe it had effects. Because I had never noticed effects any of the times I attempted to consume coffee. As such, I never sought to consume it. Why bother if it doesn’t do anything? In this case, however, the effects were clear. Whether I belived in them or not. Much to the chagrin of my friend N0THANKY0U, with whom I would continue to argue on this subject for at least another year.
That would experience would go on to be a fluke in my mind, a mere coincidence that I wouldn’t give much thought to. Until later.
Fast forward one year, and I was not consuming any drugs. Certainly not alcohol. That was well-out of my system, for good. By then. One day, I decided to try out “Pink Monster” after seeing Dotes meme about it so consistently in our chats. I wanted to see what the taste was like.
What I got was more than just a taste. It was irrefutable proof that caffeine did, in fact, have “effects.”
Over the next several years, I would lean on caffeine. I would lean on it to think quicker on my feet during internet debates, to wake up faster and with more energy, to study, to write, and to game better, much like how I started. It even made me motivated to make YouTube videos, at times.
Although, as the years went on, the less I could stand the daily reality of caffeine’s clear and unpleasant side effects. Caffeine darkened my mood. It made me more prone to stress, it gave me panick attacks that I would’ve never consistently gotten before, and it made me a much more angry person. All for an energy high at the beginning of the day, that would inevitably end during the middle of the day. Leaving me more susceptible to fatigue than I was before, with energy less evenly spread out throughout the day.
The insidious thing about this anxiety is, it is not consistent. It comes and goes. Leaving you to wonder, how much of the anxiety caffeine is to blame for. At the same time, you always feel more susceptible to it than before. Always a fair-bit more on edge than you were before you started. You may not even be aware of this contrast if you’ve been consuming caffeine your whole life. Perhaps the major anxiety problems you’re having today, are almost entirely a result of this one compound. It certainly feels like for me now that I’ve stopped.
I’ve gone from being a severely anxious and paranoid man to a fairly unanxious but relatively strange man. I have quitting caffeine to thank for that.
Don’t get me wrong, I love caffeine. But it’s best when used in serious moderation. I don’t want to have any tolerance if and when I ever use it again. In the same way that I could handle other stimulants making me more susceptible to anxiety, back when I experimented with drugs, I can handle that with caffeine, too. That doesn’t mean I want to experience it every day!
