Well, it’s been an interesting 3 weeks so far, interesting enough to write a little something about it.
Right before I started this stint, I experienced a turn of events that flipped my perspective on my own life and self on its head. Only briefly, however, and now I feel I’m back to my ordinary self. It did paint some interesting pictures for me during the first and second week, and shed some light on this whole drug issue. I won’t say what the turn of events were, but I will say that it had a lot to do with girls and love. As some of you probably know, I’ve been separated from my wife for about 2 years now, and up until the end of May, I’ve been thanking my lucky stars I’m single. Then things turned completely around and I started longing for love. A few days later, I started the current stint. The first week of caffeine abstinence is always the worst. It is utter boredom and exhaustion. You’ve become tolerant and now you have to suffer through withdrawal. This added to my longing for love a sense of despair that this is what it was going to be like, once I quit all drugs and alcohol in the summer of 2018, for the rest of my life.
Of course, I knew I just had to give it time. By the second week my natural body energy levels would come back. Well, my energy levels did pick up in the second week, but not to my satisfaction. It still wasn’t “fun” like my weekly caffeine days are. Still looked like boredom and dullness for the rest of my life. I’m used to the idea that it usually takes a good two weeks for my natural energy levels to kick in during a caffeine break, but I don’t remember ever reaching a level at which I feel anything remotely equivalent to a caffeine “buzz”–typically, I just feel “normal”.
This, to me, counts as a complete reversal on my life outlook: rather than being thankful for the things I have, I started longing for the things I lack. I lack love in my life, a girl, but there are definitely perks to being single–you are the master of your own destiny, your life is entirely yours to determine–and I absolutely love that–but nothing compares to being in love. Just a taste of it leaves you wanting more. It is literally like a drug–and no, this is not one of those misuses of the term “literally”–that experience of romantic love between a man and a woman is literally the release of chemicals in the brain putting you into an ecstatic frenzy; and I remember earlier in this thread telling Moreno that falling in love is one of the things I’d give up the drugs for. So after going through an experience like that, and then watching the bubble burst, leaves me feeling not so happy being single. I looked ahead to the rest of my life and saw a hole, a cold emptiness, thinking I will never experience that feeling again for anyone. That coupled with my impatience vis-a-vis my natural energy levels left me focusing on the things I lack in my life: love and natural energy.
As for the latter, there was so much I was looking forward to after the summer of 2018. I don’t expect to be fully charged up like the energizer bunny on June 1 2018–I expected to go through the same withdrawal symptoms–fatigue, boredom, some depression, general malaise–and given my past experiments with these caffeine deprivation stints, I know my natural energy levels will never match those of the caffeine buzzes I love so much on my Fridays–but I still figured the summer of 2018 would be the beginning of a period of great self-improvement and that getting through the initial withdrawal would give way to so many benefits worth looking forward to. I was excited for it. I wanted it. But at the end of May, beginning of June, I started looking forward not to these benefits or any self-improvement, but to the complete absence of fun, of meaning, of excitement. Never again will I experience the buzz of a good cup of coffee, the fuzzy warm feelings of alcohol, or the spiritual heights that a good joint can raise you to. And that to me, at the time, looked like a complete void.
I started reconsidering my whole goal–whether it was a good idea after all to give up all drugs and alcohol for a good year (most likely a year and a half), and caffeine, alcohol, and cannabinoids in particular forever–whether I was just allowing myself to be caught up in my own self-induced drug-free frenzy–and that the only reason I felt good about it, looked forward to it, is because it fueled me with a sense of dignity just to be able to say I was going to do it–but when push comes to shove, would I regret it? Would I give up, saying to myself: I only wanted to say I was going to do it, not actually do it.
But thank God that’s over. I’m a little bit passed my third week, and I actually feel really good. Part of that, I’m sure, must be my body’s energy still working its way up to higher levels (although I don’t expect that to go on indefinitely–otherwise by the end of my previous caffeine stints, I would have been crazier than the mad hatter), but part of it is also (I think) self-confidence (more on this below). I gave myself a good figurative slap a few days ago (maybe it was a week ago) about even thinking of giving up my goal: so you’re just going to let a few withdrawal symptoms, plus the dull boredom and feelings of nothingness (which you’ve always known will come), convince you to give up the goal you’ve been building up for years, the goal that will secure for you immeasurable benefits and forms of self-improvement? What were you nuts?! So yeah, I’m back in the saddle now. Happy to be single and generally enjoying life (not that I don’t want to be in love, but at least its absence isn’t making me depressed).
The confidence thing: one lesson I’m learning during this stint is to watch for the distinction between feeling good and being good. I’ve learned that just because I don’t feel a “buzz” doesn’t mean I can’t be on fire. In the past week in particular, I’ve been far more extroverted at work, and a lot more playful with my kids, than I thought I could be sans caffeine. This is not something I observed during my past stints–not that it wasn’t there, but I never really posed the question to myself: can you still be on fire without feeling the caffeine buzz? And I find it comes out when it needs to, when my brain and body sense that now’s the time to start churning out idea, expressing thoughts in a professional and intelligent way, to show people what you’ve got–and it’s there, it comes out when the occasion calls for it. I don’t necessarily have to feel it subjective, on the inside, for it to be there in reality. Whereas outside these stints, I’d derive the satisfaction of feeling like I was so frickin’ awesome, that I could be on fire anytime I wanted, through the drugs, but most likely, in the eyes of others, I was annoying and irritating (I actually got this kind of feedback a few times while drunk and caffeinated at the bar–despite how I thought I was coming across), and the lesson here is that this is to be contrasted with not feeling so awesome and on fire subjectively but it nevertheless comes out that way anyway when performing in front of others. And I get to have my cake and eat it too: once I start noticing this about myself, I do feel good about myself–so it’s more of an “earned” good feeling–I get off the drugs, I perform significantly better, people see this, I feel more confident in myself, I earn the right to feel good about myself–as opposed to a “cheat” feel good where I bypass that whole process by injecting a drug into my brain directly to give myself the illusion of being awesome and on fire (and maybe I am–drugs can be a performance enhancer–but I’m definitely of no sound mind to judge my own performance objectively, so you can bet the distortions are there in my self-perception). ← Summer of 2018 would definitely be a good career move.
As for the cannabinoids, they’ve been doing some good for me. Without the caffeine and alcohol, I feel like I’m in a bit more control of my trips than otherwise. They’ve also been good for reminding me of how I should be looking at all this. It’s like once the cannabinoids enter my brain, they shift my head and force me to look in a different direction, as if saying: “no, no, no, you’re looking at this all wrong–you’re looking over there–where you should be looking is over here.” ← Sort of being a kind of symbiotic coach, adjusting my thoughts and ways of looking at things such as to remind me of the more positive visors through which to be looking. For example, I was reminded on a few stoned occasions what one of the original goals to these exercises was: that of “letting go,” of learning the skill of detachment. It’s inspired by Eastern/Buddhist ideas that say that the happiest life is that of utter detachment from the material things of this world, of cravings and desires. While I’m not going the route of the devout Buddhist monk, these exercises have always been about letting go of the attachments in my life which aren’t doing me any good, which are holding me back, and could one day lead to my own self-destruction. Ever since I got excited about the prospect of taking at least a year off (maybe one and a half) starting summer 2018, I’ve been planning all the things I want to do once that starts–like taking my little contracting business and turning it into a small business, taking a Dale Carnegie course, getting a tattoo, and so on. But it’s not easy making all these plans for my life without them turning into just more attachments. Albeit, I would consider them healthy attachments, which is what distinguishes this path from that of the Buddhist monk, but attachments can be very tricky nonetheless, and one must be careful. In all this, I had forgotten for a good while that the whole point of this exercise was to free myself of attachments, at least the unhealthy ones, and the drugs helped me to remember that. I’m not rethinking my goals for post-summer 2018, but I need to be ready to apply one of the most valuable lessons these past few years have taught me: how to detach (if necessary)–otherwise I’d have to put myself through another 5 year plan like this one.
And more to the point, it’s reminded me that a lack of excitement, of meaning, of deep significance to my life–those things the drugs helped me feel–can be as much a peaceful quiet as it can an agonizing deprivation. That thought brought me some solace. It brought me a perspective that worked (at least temporarily), a perspective according to which this emptiness I felt, this nothingness, wasn’t a negative, it wasn’t some trial of agony, but just nothingness–neither good nor bad–just an empty neutrality. There was nothing to cry woe over. It was a peaceful calm. I didn’t have to worry about whether I was going to amount to anything, whether I’d find love, whether my life would be nearly as exciting as it is while high on drugs–just things the way they are, even if that’s just blah, is nothing over which to worry. It’s a platform from which to begin your life. Things can only go up from there.
That perspective lasted until the next day when my brain returned to sober reality and my usual thought patterns took hold again (old habits die hard), but at least from that point on I tried to look at things from that perspective. And I think that’s probably when things started turning around for me. That was about a week ago. And with all the ego-boosting performances I’ve displayed to others (at work, with my kids, at the bar, drinking virgin caesars) in the last week, and with my body’s natural energy levels returning (even to the point where, in the last couple days, I’ve felt the butterflies-in-the-stomach typical of a caffeine overdose), this stint has turned around and I’m liking the results. I do want to feel this way all the time.
Now what about the alcohol? ← Not much to say there over and above any of my past stints. The usual still applies: save on money, no hangovers means more gets done, it helps keep the weight off during my dieting months, and with my natural body energy levels returning, making me a bit more extroverted, I don’t need booz as much to socialize and be talkative. But definitely, caffeine is the main culprit in my life, holding me back physically, psychologically, and spiritually. The alcohol, of course, ain’t good for me either, and it’s gotta go too, but there’s a reason I call myself a conditional alcoholic: my alcoholism depends on caffeine–I really only get the urge to drink when I’m jacked. So, with the caffeine will go the alcohol. The cannabinoids, on the other hand, are a different matter. I’m not entirely convinced they’re harming me. They are, nonetheless, one out of the three I plan on quitting for good come the summer of 2018, but during my first two weeks of the current stint, and their tendency to shift my head in a more positive direction (at least when not drunk or jacked up), had me thinking that at the end of the 1 year stint of no drugs or alcohol (most likely a year and a half), maybe I should take up the cannabinoids again. But I’ve since tossed that idea and returned to the original plan–part of the figurative slap I gave myself. Nevertheless, I don’t think that would be such a bad idea as I do believe the cannabinoids are the least of my problems out of the three drug categories.
So why am I making such a drama out of these last three weeks? It’s not just the short period of feeling the pain of deprivation, not just my feelings of self-doubt and questioning what I’ll amount to, but in a weird way I sort of believe in what Terrance McKenna called “resonance”–that is, the theory that patterns in time repeat on lower and higher scales, like patterns in a fractal–and that these two months, starting on June 1st, are representative of my full year (most likely a year and a half), also starting on June 1st. It’s raised the dreading question: is this what it’s going to feel like? I can only hope, if this is resonance, that the first two weeks remains the first two weeks–that is to say, the representation is not to scale. I’d hate to think that the first two weeks of depression and deprivation of this stint is going to translate into several months of depression and deprivation starting June 1 of 2018. It’s really made me think about what I’m getting myself into, whether I really want this or not. And I know that no matter what I happens, the total lack of fun times on drugs and the addictive buzz I get from them will be the first thing to sink in, and it will probably hit hard. But this third week has really paid off, and I’m glad I pushed through it. If this continues on the upward path, then I also hope, assuming the representation really is to scale, that so too will be the rewards.