Member-only story
What no one tells you about quitting caffeine.
Why aren’t there better decaffeinated drinks?
91 days ago, I quit drinking caffeine.
It was a long time coming. I hadn’t gone more than a few days without caffeine over the course of fourteen years. It was hard to remember a single day that I hadn’t had a Diet Coke or a caffeinated tea.
But it was the mood swings that did it. The mood swings and my inability to calm down as a person in general.
I felt trapped in the body of someone ten years younger than me—in a terribly immature way.
So I decided to quit. 90 days of absolutely nothing, then maybe once a week after that.
Though I have to say, now that I’ve returned to having it in my life, I really wasn’t missing much. I’m so glad that I detoxed.
Caffeine isn’t evil. I’m not going to make decisions for the rest of my life when I’m through just over a quarter of it. If I want to be the yerba mate-jacked lady in the nursing home, I reserve the right to be that.
Overall, it’s been a universal net positive quitting caffeine. In fact, I can’t believe I didn’t do it earlier.
It is just as hard as people say it is. If not harder. But dealing with PMDD gave me some unique advantages in…
