How I Quit Caffeine And Did Not Die In The Process
Oct 11, 2012
I’ve known Lindsay Jones for twenty years, and as far back as I can remember, he always had a bottle of diet soda in his hand. I mean always. So when he recently told me that he stopped drinking soda, I picked my chin up off the floor, gave him a big high-five, and then asked him to share his story with you.
Lindsay is a composer/sound designer for theatre, film and television. With over 500 shows to his credit,ย Lindsayโs work has been heard in most regional theatres in the United States, as well as numerous shows Off-Broadway. International theatre credits include: Royal Shakespeare Company (England), Stratford Shakespeare Festival (Canada), as well as shows in Austria, Scotland, South Africa and Zimbabwe.ย Lindsayย has scored many film and television shows including The Brass Teapot for Magnolia Pictures (currently in theatres) and A Note Of Triumph for HBO Films, which won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Documentary, Short Subject. Awards include: 5 Joseph Jefferson Awards (with 16 nominations), 2 Ovation Awards (with 3 nominations), LA Critics Circle Award, and 2 Drama Desk Award nominations. You can hear his work at LindsayJones.comย or check out his page on Facebook.
It was 2:30am. I had just driven 2 1/2 hours to my home after a 16-hour work day. I was exhausted, and as I walked up to the front door of my house, all I could think is that soon I would finally be able to sleep.
Thatโs when I saw this sign on my front door.
It said: New Rules
- No soda
- No going out of the house to buy soda
- Drink water or juice or milk
- If you drink soda, there will be a punishment
No. Dear god, no. This cannot be happening. Can it?
Let me back up for a second. My name is Lindsay Jones and Iโm a composer and sound designer for theatre and film. Iโm very fortunate to be working in a job that I love and constantly traveling all over the country to do it. I have an incredibly intense schedule that keeps me working around the clock every single day, and for the past 20 years, I have drunk an incredible amount of diet soda in order to keep up with that schedule. For about 15 years, I drank 8-14 cans of Diet Pepsi every day, and then for the last few years, I switched over to Diet Mountain Dew and drank the same amount.
Now, I know what youโre thinking: Wow, thatโs a lot of soda. Well, youโre right, it is. But, as I said, my schedule is extremely intense and I honestly felt that I could not keep it up if I didnโt have that soda. Besides, itโs my only vice. I donโt drink. Iโve never smoked a cigarette. Iโve never done any illicit drugs. Come on. Canโt I have just one vice?
I have two wonderful children: Huck, whoโs 9, and Sadie, whoโs 5. They have never been fond of my soda habit and if I ever try to kiss one of them after drinking soda, they would cry out โEW! SODA BREATH!โ and wipe my kiss off. All right, so drinking soda has its downsides.
Which brings me back to my front door at 2:30am. I stood there completely still, just reading the sign over and over. This is a joke, right?
As I walked in the door and turned on the lamp, I saw that it wasnโt.
Then I looked up at the window.
And over to my chair at the dining room table
The bulletin board where my daughter puts her artwork.
Under the TV.
The refrigerator.
The kitchen trash can. (Really, the trash can?)
They were EVERYWHERE. What happened here? All I wanted was a day off, and instead Iโm getting an intervention from a 9-year-old and a 5-year-old!
The next day, I sat down with my kids and asked them why they did this.
โWell, we were talking to Mommy at dinnerโ Huck said, โand Sadie asked her why she didnโt drink soda any more.โ
โAnd Mommy said she didnโt because it wasnโt good for her to drinkโ said Sadie.
โAnd I said that you still drink soda every day, and how come you still drink it all the time if itโs not good for you?โ said Huck.
โAnd thatโs when Mommy said weโd have to ask you thatโ said Sadie.
Aha. Yes, well. I meanโฆ I drink soda becauseโฆ I need it. I mean, I donโt NEED it, I guess. But it really helps. I mean, I like it.
โBut itโs not good for you.โ
Well, no. I mean, itโs not BAD for you. I mean, OK, yes, itโs not great for you and there are a lot of things out there that say itโs bad for you, but those studies are not totally conclusive and the people who make the soda seem to think itโs fine for you.
โDad.โ Huck said. โCome on. Itโs not good for you. Right?โ
There was a long silence.
No. Itโs not good for you.
โAll right! So, no more sodas for you!โ
WAIT A MINUTE, WAIT A MINUTE. Itโs not that easy. Quitting caffeine is extremely difficult. Iโve only tried to do it once before when I was in the hospital with pneumonia, and to this day, I canโt tell you which is worse: having a 105 degree fever with pneumonia or quitting caffeine.
โBut you canโt drink soda. And you hate coffee and tea.โ
I KNOW, I know. OK, look. Give me a week, OK? Give me one week to start drinking less soda and figure out some way to do this. Thereโs gotta be a way. Right?
The children agreed to a week and that night, I started to do some research. All right, thereโs got to be an easy way to quit caffeine by now, right? I mean, itโs 2012. We can do anything now. So I get on Google and type in โeasy way to quit caffeineโ. This is what came back:
ONE ARTICLE. ONE! And guess what it says is the easy way to quit caffeine? DRINK LESS CAFFEINE! You have got to be kidding me, man.
Look, quitting caffeine is impossible! Itโs like weeks of incredible headaches and falling asleep during the day! Iโll be in such a bad mood that no one will want to come near me! Iโm in the middle of rehearsing three shows at the same time, and Iโm working an average of 18 hours a day! I canโt deal with quitting caffeine while doing that! Iโll never make it!
I decided that I needed some help. I was convinced that I was seriously risking my health by trying to do this. Quitting caffeine would be such a huge jolt to my system, who knew what would happen as a result?
But who would I call? I mean, no one seemed to have any answers as far as caffeine. And then I started thinking about it. Maybe it was more than just caffeine? I mean, I eat almost every meal on the run, a lot of it being really crappy food, and thatโs not exactly good for you either.
Suddenly, it hit me. Ifย Iโm gonna change this soda habit that Iโve had for 20 years, I might as well change the other habits that go along with it, and thatโs the food I eat. Otherwise, itโs just gonna feel weird eating the same stuff I always do, and not having the drink I always have with it. I did not want to get halfway through this and then give up.
So, I did some more research and found the Akasha Center For Integrative Medicine in Santa Monica. Itโs a place where theyโre all doctors who have PhDs but they also have a background in alternative medicine as well. Most importantly, they have this cleanse diet that they sponsor, and I thought AHA! This is what I need right here! A change of diet with actual adult supervision. And Iโll betcha a hundred bucks that theyโll know some holistic way to kick caffeine in no time flat. Right?
So I made an appointment, and met with this very nice doctor, and I came right to the point when he asked me why I was there.
โIโm here to quit caffeine.โ
โOooh, really? So, what, you have like a lot of coffee?โ
โNo. Diet Mountain Dew.โ
โAnd coffee?โ
โNo, just Diet Mountain Dew. I drink it all day and all night.โ
โWow. OK. So, like, how many do you usually drink in a day?โ
โLike 8 to 14.โ
โWOW! SERIOUSLY? WOW. 8 TO 14! Wow. (long pause) Jesus. Really?โ
โSome days, more than that.โ
โOK, STOP! Just stop. OK? Wow. I canโt. I canโt even.โ
(long silence)
โUh, so anyway, Iโm here to quit.โ
โRight! Right, sure. So what brought this on? Were you feeling ill?โ
โNo, I feel ok.โ
โSo why do you want to change?โ
โMy children posted signs all over the house telling me that I had to quit drinking soda.โ
โYour children?โ
โStaged an intervention. A Mountain Dew intervention.โ
โThese are adult children?โ
โNo, theyโre 9 and 5.โ I show him the pictures of the signs. โThe ones with the stars on them were drawn by my daughter.โ
โI need to sit down.โ
So, after he pulls himself together, we start talking about the cleanse diet.
โWill it help me quit caffeine?โ
โWell, it will definitely help. I donโt know anyone who has ever done it before specifically to quit caffeine, but it can only help.โ
โIs there anything that will work better?โ
โNot that I know of. You kinda just have to get through it.โ
โAll right, tell me what I need to do.โ
He went through it. He gave me two huge jugs of powder that I was supposed to mix with fresh fruit and some almond milk to make a smoothie: one powder was made of rice protein and one was made of green vegetables. Some probiotic capsules to help with digestion. C seeds that would also go in the smoothie to act as fiber. Two of these smoothies a day, and a sensible meal for lunch or dinner. Then he listed off the things that I couldnโt eat: no red meat, no dairy, no gluten, no soy, no alcohol and no sugar.
โAnd no caffeine.โ
โDEFINITELY no caffeine.โ
So what could I eat? Fruits, except strawberries and tomatoes. All vegetables. Fish, as long as they were low in mercury. A handful of raw almonds. Lamb and chicken occasionally.
โWhat about dessert?โ
โWell, fruit is dessert.โ
โYeah, but you just made fruit the entrรฉe twice a day. I crave chocolate after dinner, and thatโs another tough habit to break. Believe me, Iโve tried.โ
โOK, you can have an ounce of chocolate every day, BUT it has to be sweetened by agave nectar.โ
What is agave nectar? Never mind, itโs chocolate. Take what you can get.
I packed it all up and drove back to my job in San Diego. Boy, were they going to be surprised. For the past three weeks, I had shown up every day with a 12 pack of Diet Mountain Dew and a box of Pop-Tarts. Now it was a bottle of water and some seaweed.
My final stop before starting this cleanse was to appeal to my friends on Facebook, as well as my best friend Toy (who is a great resource of knowledge and support for things like this), and see if anyone had any other suggestions for quitting caffeine. They actually came through with some great information and so now, without further ado, I am now going to tell you how to quit caffeine in the easiest way possible. In fact, I know there are a lot of people out there looking for this information and since I need the Google bots to see this so that they will get the attention of those looking for this, I am going to write this title in big, bold, underlined letters (and Andrew Wilder, you should prepare yourself for the massive web hit count that is coming to you, when I write the following words):
THE EASY WAY TO QUIT CAFFEINE
Now, before we start down this road, let me just say that I am not a medical professional. In fact, I would say that Iโm about the furthest thing possible from a medical professional. However, I am a lifelong heavy caffeine addict and this is what I did to kick it, and it wasnโt really all that bad. Try finding that somewhere else on the internet. Go on, Iโll wait.
The first thing my friends suggested was:
1. Vitamins
It turns out that the powders that Akasha gave me were PACKED with vitamins and nutrients. I mean, you name a vitamin or a nutrient, it was in there and there was a lot of it. Plus, the food I was eating was also packed with vitamins and nutrients. As a result, I think my body was so distracted by the massive influx of nutrition that it was suddenly getting that it really took a lot of the edge off the caffeine not being there. Plus, it really cut down on the cloudy feeling that I remember having the first time I quit caffeine. Now, this is not to say that I did not get headaches for the first few days, which bring me to number two:
2. Ibuprofen
OK, you are going to need to take two of these every 4 hours that youโre awake for the first three days. You will have headaches but if you take the ibuprofen, it will be manageable. You can get done what you need to get done and not punch people in the face. You will want to take this with a good size glass of:
3. Water
When youโre taking in a lot of nutrients, I feel like itโs also important to take in a lot of water to keep things moving through your system. Especially if youโre doing a cleanse, which is all about changing how you eat food, drinking water keeps you from feeling hungry and keeps you from thinking about the other things that youโre trying NOT to drink. But the other really important thing you need is:
4. Sleep
You will be able to get through your day with no problem, even if your day is like mine which goes from 9am โ 2am every night. But, at the end of the day, you are gonna crash hard. Try to give yourself space that when you get home, itโs quitting time in a big way. You will sleep hard and you will fall asleep quickly. Donโt make any plans outside of work that doesnโt involve a pillow. And finally, for all you soda drinkers out there, thereโs one more thing Iโd like to recommend:
5. Kombucha
Wait, what? What does this have to do with caffeine? Well, nothing, really. But what it does have to do with is the fact that you are trying to get rid of a habit that you have had for long time. In my case, I really loved soda. Now, yes, I was reliant on the caffeine (or so I thought) but thatโs not really why I drank it. I drank it because I liked the carbonation, the sting of the chemicals and the slighty tart taste that I got from it. And thatโs where kombucha comes in. Itโs a somewhat tart, naturally fizzy drink that conveys an experience that is somewhat similar to drinking a soda. BUT! Hereโs the beauty of it: you cannot get addicted to drinking Kombucha, no matter how much you like it! The reasons for this are: 1. It contains a ton of natural probiotics in it, which means that if you drink more than two in a day, you are really going to feel it in your stomach, AND #2: it costs like $4 a bottle! Yes, thatโs expensive but expensive means that youโre gonna drink it more sparingly so you can enjoy it! Itโs just impossible to get hooked on it, like you can with soda. But the good news is that one of these a day feels like a real treat, and really satisfies in the way that a soda would. Plus theyโre all natural and kinda good for you! I recommend getting the GTโs Synergy line of Kombucha that mixes with fruit juices. Theyโre super-tasty and very non-threatening in flavors.
So, there you go. I did that, and a few days later, I was off caffeine. It really was that easy. Iโve kept up the smoothie regimen since then, although I use different powders now that you can find in Whole Foods. I try to get the vegan protein or rice protein powders, mixed with greens.
But you want to hear the crazy part? Just by changing my diet and quitting diet soda, Iโve lost 18 pounds in 3 months. Thatโs right. Plus, the thing that I was most worried about, which was: can I keep up my crazy schedule without caffeine? Well, the answer is yes! I DONโT actually need caffeine to work harder or stay up later. It turns out that I can do that anyway without any assistance. You can just do it, if you need to. What a revelation that was for me.
So, now, I feel better and Iโm eating more much healthily and I owe it all to my kids, whom I love very much. I never could have done it without them. But, believe me, if I can quit caffeine, anyone can. Seriously. Itโs just a matter of getting yourself ready and then taking good care of yourself when you do. You can do it. Some day, Google will be filled with millions of stories of how easy it was, and I hope your story is there too.
Thanks so much for sharing this great story! You really have two wonderful kids. I need to quit my sugar addiction… I don’t drink sodas or eat junk food but I really need my chocolate and my (usually homemade) bajed goods.
I once tried thr first phase of the south beach diet for 10 days and my family nearly through me out of the house I was so irritable all the time without my carbohidrates.
Maybe someday I will find a way too.
I also gave up caffeine completely, although it was more than 20 years ago. Headaches, yes, although I was drinking a lot less per day than you, Lindsay. I found the easiest way to do it was to dilute gradually – half a cup instead of a whole cup for a week, then a quarter of a cup, then nothing.
Those photos are awesome!!! What a great support system you have.
After about 5 years of drinking a sugar free energy drink every single morning, I decided to quit. It wasn’t affecting my health by any means, but I decided I wanted to save money, I was starting a Strike Sugar challenge, I was starting a Paleo challenge at my gym, and I wanted to truly live the Get in Shape Girl lifestyle, so if I tell people not to do it, I should be heeding my own advice.
I hate coffee so in place I started adding a scoop of Ultima Replenisher (all natural, vitamins and electrolyte with a light flavor via Stevia) to my water every morning.
Now I have just as much energy as I ever did with the caffeine! I don’t feel any different, but my wallet is a little heavier ๐
This is awesome and hilarious. As a recovering stage manager who quit coffee (?!?) I’ve helped several former coworkers reduce caffeine dramatically and improve their diets. They said tech is so much better when they’re eating well! Amazing. =)
Great work, Lindsay! And gold stars to your kids.
Great story, but, um, kombucha has caffeine. It’s made with tea. Granted, it’s far less caffeine that you were drinking. But, it does have caffeine (as does your ounce of chocolate).
I really enjoyed reading this. I loved the details down to the google search. thanks for sharing. loved all the pics and signage. kids r amazing.
Well done, indeed! If I regress and have a diet coke, it now tastes of chemicals and I’m repulsed…I got off it by making a huge pitcher of iced tea every day. I throw in a mix of different herbal tea bags and never know what color it will be. But it worked for me.
I loved reading this! What great kids to have staged this intervention; and good for you for taking on the challenge. It’s so hard to change our diet if we’re not (yet) feeling negative effects from it. I used to have a soda habit too until I realized soda was great for removing bumper stickers from my car. It really made me wonder what the hell it was doing to my stomach ๐ Later I went decaf on my coffee, and now I feel so anxious if I drink caffeinated beverages. Now I just need to find decaf chocolate.
Thanks for telling your story! Your kids deserve a lot of credit for providing you the motivation! I quit caffeine several years ago after giving soda up for Lent. I realized that I felt much better without it – more energetic, less anxious, and I had STOPPED BITING MY NAILS for the first time in my life. Once Lent ended, I cut out caffeinated drinks altogether, and within the next few years gave up all other sodas too. I know I am a happier, healthier person without those chemicals – especially the caffeine – in my system. Now I’m so sensitive to it that eating a bar of chocolate will get me jittery, and the occasional reminder of that anxious, fluttery feeling from the chocolate confirms my intention never to go back to caffeinated drinks.
Wow, Lindsay! What an amazing story! I’ve already given up soda, but I sure enjoy my morning coffee and an occasional iced tea. I do feel like I’ve had too much caffeine once in a while. I think I’m becoming more sensitive to it as I age. Your story is very encouraging. Thank you for sharing it.