Ironical title, I know.
This Guru Purnima, I wanted to make an offering. A hard offering which challenged my limitations. So I picked caffeine. You can get a ringside view of my
travails with caffeine here. I still could not come to offer the entire addiction. So my offering was to be away from one mandala from caffeine.
The rules were simple. No cheating. Which means no caffeine. Only exception was chocolates which may or may not contain caffeine. That was because I never ate chocolates for the caffeine. It was for the sweet tooth. No caffeine in my life means no tea (including green). No coffee. I don't drink Red Bull or any cola. I also made the decision to not wean off gradually but bite the bullet and go through hell. Madness of AdiYogi? I do not know. So starting 9-July I went off caffeine.
I also did not want to proudly announce about my decision here. I know public accountability is supposed to be a big thing and is supposed to strengthen your resolve. Going by my history, it was very probable I would be stupidly writing a well thought out reason about why I started again. So I wanted to write about it after the mandala period was over.
So, now that one Mandala (48 days) is complete, I am writing about how this period was.
Day 1 and Day 2:
Excruciating headache. I do not know if you've experienced withdrawal headaches. If you have, you probably do not need an explanation. This headache was one reason I could never abstain for good. In ER in the US, they usually ask the patients to rate the pain on a scale of ten. It is subjective, but it is also a good indicator of how the patient is feeling. Caffeine headache rates at 8 for me. You might think I am exaggerating. I am not. I've been through some conscious body injuries myself. The hand fracture with Devi was a 7. The time I fell from a two wheeler and had to take 14 stitches in the hand rates a 7. So you get the idea. So what is 9? Probably if I lose a limb when I am conscious and similar. I don't want to think what 10 is.
This is the kind of headache that takes hold of the inside of the head and never lets go. The only relief is sleep. But day time sleep just postpones the headache and it starts again. Night sleep takes off about 50%. The rest continues the next day. So it was practically 2 days of hell. One recommendation was to drink a lot of water which I did. And it did help. I will put the alleviation from water at about 30%. The other was to use a placebo. My placebo was sukku coffee. It did not help, but during the drinking, it felt good.
The only way out was to tough it out. I am not a big fan of painkillers so I usually let it be. Almost all activities come to a standstill. So this was the case day 1 and day 2.
Day 3 and Day 4:
This was a bit of a surprise for me. It was excruciating body pain. Rating oscillating between 6 and 7 in terms of pain. I read up on why this happens and it turns out this is a withdrawal symptom as well. I don't recall having one earlier. Definitely not this prolonged and intense. The feeling was like random muscles on the surface and inside being jolted with not so strong, but sharp electric shocks. The feeling was much pronounced near the shoulders and the hip sides.
Day 1, 2 and 3 was chutti for all practices (SCK and Shoonya don't count - they're on always). Day 4, I added Shambhavi and Surya Namaskar. During Surya Namaskar, when doing position 5, it was like I found where the source of that electricity was. About 4 inches above the tailbone. The Surya Namaskar definitely helped but not to the extent I hoped.
This pain basically brought my activity level down to about 50% of usual amount. I had about 3 cups of sukku coffee each day.
Day 5:
The first rays of light from the other end of the tunnel. There was still some hangover body ache from the earlier two days. There was also the tendency for the body to sleep longer through the night. I am assuming that the body realises the regular 'jolts' it was receiving from caffeine had gone missing. So the body was confused about whats going on. After 4 days, it probably realised it needed to rebuild again. (Very very sorry). I still had to have about 3 cups of sukku coffee. I had no regrets. This placebo will be taken as and when necessary until I am comfortable enough to let it go. Besides, the weather was cool and something hot to drink was good.
Day 6 and 7:
These days were when I first experienced normalcy. That was how I used to feel after my body had my caffeine fix earlier. I was still having about 3 cups of placebo coffee. I don't want to take that off yet. Too much too fast. That is anyway a health drink. Restarted all Yogic practices!
Days 8 through 48:
Largely uneventful where I drank either 1, 2 or 3 cups of sukku coffee a day. Mostly 2. I also tried the herbal tea Isha makes and I liked that too. I found out in this period that there are times in the day when the body asks for something
hot. So it was not just the caffeine. However, this hotness requirement can well be taken care of by just... well hot water. But right now, the sukku coffee is doing this job well. I also had some
signs, were coffee just magically presented itself about three times just ready to be drunk.
Warding that off wasn't that hard either.
Analysis:
What the body went through the first five to six days were clear signs of long term abuse. That little looking innocuous seed is a
very potent drug. I am not using the word 'drug' for dramatisation. My definition will be - if some substance provides a disproportionate result compared to its quantity intake it is a drug. If I take 10 grams of groundnuts, it takes three hours to turn into energy. And the energy quantity is proportional to 10 grams. 10 grams of coffee wakes you up from nowhere. So it is clearly messing up with some body systems.
The brain carefully maintains checks and balances of various (thousands) of parameters. Now, the coffee molecules come in and override and provide a different set of instructions. The brain has no choice but to comply because its boss (you asshole) decided to ingest this bean. It is akin to a complex traffic system in the city managed carefully by signals. Suddenly, the country's prime minister is coming so everything is haywire. The traffic stops until the convoy passes. Now if the PM comes once a month or once in three months, it may be ok. If the PM comes thrice a day, what will be poor citizens do? The body thus starts realigning itself to this overriding influence choicelessly.
When I suddenly pulled out, I experienced the effects the drastic undo of the realignment the body had made.
There is a reason why even someone like Sadhguru decides to write an ode to coffee. You simply cannot ignore its widespread influence and impact on people today. More than habit, it is a culture and borders on an art form. I've been a coffee drinker all my life. While I have not really experienced a telling negative impact because of this, the symptoms I went through clearly show this is no innocuous drug. Perhaps it doesn't do long term body damage because millions of coffee drinkers have died "normal" deaths. But for those who wish to build vibrant bodies and take up serious Sadhana this is definitely a serious crutch.
What was the exact trigger that led me to decide to quit? During Guru Poornima, Sadhguru said, the Yogic culture has maintained whatever you do, you don't mess with two memories. Neural memory and genetic memory. That set the alarm going because I knew coffee messes with the first. So I bit the bullet. A side note - but worth noting, is the fact that being immersed in an environment that pushes you towards your growth is important. I am not necessarily referring to spirituality though that is my core focus. What I mean is, I've known for a long time that caffeine in general is not good for the body. In my mind and my earlier blog posts, I've always referred to it as a "drug". Sheldon Cooper copied that from me. Not the other way around. I've read enough articles and a full book to go with it about it and its side effects. My Guru has spoken about it enough. Being immersed in this environment, you never know which reminder will give the "click". This is why immerse yourself in that environment that aligns with your long term goals.
Here now, I guess I can safely say, I am "technically free" from coffee. The one mandala should have cleansed the coffee. What should I do now? Half my life has passed by as a coffee drinker. And I would have loved to say "I love coffee". I am really a keep-calm-and-drink-coffee guy. I am happy I am free from a major limitation now and sad I may no longer have coffee for company.
I still need to make a long term decision about caffeine.
Is this a new chapter in my life? Why don't I feel like celebrating?