“Coffee has no effect on me… I can have one at 10pm and go to sleep straight afterwards, no problem.”
Everyone
I’ve heard this line repeated many times, often by people who drink multiple coffees a day.
Yes this is called ‘tolerance’ and is related to ‘addiction’. Just because an alcoholic doesn’t feel drunk after six beers doesn’t mean that the drug isn’t having a (negative) effect on his body.
It’s also a little strange that these people would pay so much money and effort to repeatedly consume something that has no effect on them. Oh that’s right, they “drink it for the taste”.
That amazing taste
Do you remember the first time you took a sip of coffee? I do – I was probably 8 years old – I took a sip from a cup of plunger coffee my parents had left on the table, thought it was disgusting and didn’t think much more about it.
Unadulterated coffee tastes bad because caffeine is literally poison – poison that the coffee plant uses to stop insects (and other pests) eating it.
Of course through school I drank the odd Coca-Cola like any well-adjusted youngster but it wasn’t until my late teens that I revisited the bean and first got a taste for coffee itself. For me it was in the gateway-drug form of a pre-mixed ‘iced-coffee’ – the bitterness masked by sugar and a cocktail of who-knows-what other chemicals.
That virgin buzz
I can still remember how I felt, though. I instantly understood why adults were always drinking this stuff – I felt energetic, colours were brighter, anything was possible, and I even had a new found appreciation for the artistry of the icons on my computer. Any mild apathy and lethargy had disappeared from my body and I was just motivated to get stuff done.
Iced-coffee was soon supplemented with energy drinks and then whatever other caffeinated drinks I could find when those weren’t available. ‘Conveniently’ thanks to the extensive distribution networks of Coca-Cola, Nestle et al, these things were available almost everywhere.
Whenever I felt tired I would just have another caffeinated drink – why not? I was working two jobs and so it made sense that I’d feel sleepy in the afternoon. Anyway I was being productive… and I’m only having a few coffees a day anyway, which is normal range and I’m sure I read an article headline somewhere that said coffee reduces my risk of getting alzheimers or something.
One confusing day
I felt a headache building up one day at work – suspected dehydration – so I drank a few glasses of water which didn’t help. As it got worse and worse I put an ice pack behind my neck and lay on the floor with a towel over my face to shield the light.
I couldn’t believe how intense the pain was, and it was getting worse. I couldn’t remember having a headache like this in years, and was racking my brain for what could possibly be the cause… until it finally hit me – I hadn’t had any caffeine for around 24 hours.
I picked myself up, walked down the street and grabbed an ‘energy drink’ from the convenience store. By the time I walked back to the office my headache was already mostly gone, and I realised I had a big problem.
There was no free lunch
The ‘buzz’ I had been getting from drinking coffee was the emergency response that the body produces when dealing with a neurotoxin. Coffee doesn’t actually ‘give’ you energy anymore than using a credit card ‘gives’ you money. It’s a high interest rate loan that you will ultimately need to pay back later.
The adenosine clock
Without getting too technical, your body essentially has a clock or counter that starts ticking from the moment you wake up and keeps track of how long you have been awake. The idea is that after a certain period of time (e.g. 14 hours) it will start telling parts of your body that it is time to wind down and prepare you for sleep.
Enter coffee: caffeine interferes with the receptors for this mechanism, which causes your body to not ‘realise’ how long it has been awake, and as a result you don’t get the signals to start heading to sleep.
At some point though, the receptor-blocking caffeine is broken down by the body, which suddenly realises it’s way overdue for sleep. This is the afternoon ‘slump’. You can either do what the body wants and lie down, or drink another cup of coffee and trick those receptors again.
So it’s a scam?
Basically, yes. There is no magical liquid energy sold by Coca-Cola or Nestle. You will notice that the people who drink the most coffee are often the most tired and irritable. Similarly, those chain smokers who claim that cigarettes ‘help them relax’, don’t look so relaxed either.
Real energy is actually produced through natural processes like sleep and good nutrition. How boring and unprofitable.
The invisible addiction
Coffee is so ubiquitous, that most people have no idea they’re even addicted to it. There are 240 Starbucks locations in Manhattan alone. According to Yelp there are 3,890 coffee shops in New York City as of March 1st 2020, up 29% since 2017. This is of course not counting the convenience stores and bodegas with fridges full of caffeinated drinks.
In the modern world, caffeine is like air – and just like breathing, consuming caffeine is automatic. When a caffeine addict (ie. almost everyone) feels the urge, they will naturally pick up a coffee/red bull/coke/chocolate bar/whatever and have their fix before they even consciously realise.
Most people actually have no idea how addicted they are. Patients are often shocked at the intense migraines they experience when coming out of surgery – not from the procedure but from the pre-surgery fasting where they couldn’t consume their regular doses.
So why is coffee… everywhere?
Just imagine there exists a substance.. which when you add it to a product – as long as you mask the bitter taste – makes the customer:
- feel good (temporarily) when they consume it
- feel bad when they don’t
- feel like they ‘need’ to consume it regularly, and in increasing quantities
From a commercial point of view, caffeine is basically the perfect additive. Unlike other substances like alcohol or tobacco, caffeine regulation is extremely loose, and so it is conveniently added to all sorts of products you would never expect.
Full-spectrum normalisation
“I’m totally useless without my coffee in the morning”
“Don’t even try to talk to me until I’ve had my coffee”
The sentiment above is so common as to be cliche. If we replaced the word ‘coffee’ for ‘heroin’ or ‘meth’, would it still be so socially acceptable? Probably not.
Why are caffeine addicts with a daily habit – who by their own admission can’t function without their drug of choice – allowed to refer to themselves as “coffee lovers”? Heroin addicts don’t have that privilege.
Why the double-standard? Why is this drug which gives you bad breath, destroys your adrenal system and makes you perpetually tired, along with a host of other issues you can learn about in the book Caffeine Blues, a perfectly acceptable substance to be hopelessly addicted to?
Well, because coffee has been promoted and normalised in one of perhaps the most widespread PR campaigns of all time.
Coffee in entertainment
The drinking of coffee, along with all related paraphernalia like cups on tables, coffee machines and cafeterias as scene venues, is perhaps the most pervasive theme throughout all film and television entertainment. The reason cited for this, is that is a convenient crutch for writers and directors since the usage of coffee helps ‘ground’ the scene in a ‘normal’ context. The question is, why is this a normal context?
Just some friends hanging out drinking coffee in a coffee shop.
Edward Bernays, considered a pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda (two terms for the same thing) claims to have successfully convinced women in the 1920s to start smoking by re-framing the death sticks as “Torches of Freedom”. Would you put it past Edward and his ilk to not do the same for coffee?
Edward Bernays - this nice old man wouldn't lie to you... oh actually he would.
The perfect corporate drug
How many people across the world, if it weren’t for coffee, would have to quit their mind-numbing office jobs out of sheer boredom? A lot. Very few workplaces permit drinking alcohol or smoking cannabis on the job, but good luck trying to find an office without some form of coffee machine.
We think of the coffee break as a workplace ‘perk’ for the employee, but really it is a necessity for the business owner. They need to ensure their underlings maintain (artificial) motivation to continue working throughout the day. Being able to act like they’re doing you a favour is just a bonus.
So coffee keeps the cogs churning in the big, boring corporate machines, but is this all really about money? No, not really.
The owners of the system like you weak
Turns out, people who are mildly poisoned on a daily basis (to be weak, rather than dead) form populations which are much more compliant and easier to rule. This is consistent across the animal kingdom.
As an example: when a wolf is healthy and strong, he feels confident to go out and make his own way in the world. Conversely, when he is weak – sick, poisoned or injured – he intuitively knows that he cannot survive on his own and so he naturally moves closer to the group and closely emulates the behaviour of those around him. The same goes for us.
A woman in a wheelchair is much more likely to vote for high taxes and a strong government, compared to a young healthy man who thinks he can survive on his own. And so on.
The international bankers who print money out of nothing and own everything (see The Banking Scam) are well aware of this sociological mechanism, and use their various modes of influence to push people towards self-poisoning on a mass scale.
So the evil genius of the world, is investing in coffee.
The British ruled India with tea, they brought China to its knees with opium, and they rule the world today with coffee. How convenient that people now voluntarily go out, pay for the poison with their own money and self-administer.
Brave New World
Jason Christoff made an interesting observation which I will paraphrase here: in the society of Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, the population is lead not by threats or fear (as in George Orwell’s 1984), but rather lured into compliance through hedonism and self-gratification. Group sex and polyamory is encouraged, monogamy banned and so on.
When a citizen has any kind of mental discomfort – boredom, frustration, dissatisfaction, whatever – they are encouraged to take the fictional drug ‘soma’. This drug is short lasting, totally socially acceptable, and you can take it at the office for a brief ‘soma holiday’, before getting back to work, refreshed.
When you get bored at your futuristic 'look into a microscope' job...
Quite clearly – the drug they are referring to is coffee.
So what’s the answer?
Well, stop drinking coffee. Easier said than done, perhaps.
In my experience, quitting coffee cold turkey results in:
- A couple of days of feeling sleepy
- A week or two of excruciating migraines, exhaustion, nausea and irritation (prime relapse time)
- A couple of months of lethargy and mild depression (very tempting to have a coffee here since it will be the second best coffee you ever had)
During the third month is when your natural energy, mood and vitality gradually return and eventually you’re left with your childhood energy and motivation levels… if you can keep from going back that is.
While some people have success coming off coffee cold turkey, I would suggest lowering your consumption first over the course of weeks to make the transition less abrupt. If you gradually reduce consumption every day and then start switching to tea (lower caffeine content) then you should find you can shift away from all caffeine consumption without suffering aggressive withdrawal symptoms.
If you want to read an exhaustive list of the negative health effects of consuming this particular poison (good for maintaining the motivation to quit) you can read Caffeine Blues by Stephen Cherniske.
Personally, I found a noticeable disappearance of baseline irritation, lethargy and non-specific anxiety from simply removing this one thing from my life. I do believe Cherniske when he says that the vast majority of people lining up for anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication would not need the drugs and find their problems disappear if they simply dropped coffee. Who would have thought that no longer pouring poison into our bodies every day could yield such benefits?
