Michael Pollan quit caffeine for 3 months… and realized his “normal” self was just caffeinated.
First week: “Felt like I contracted ADD. Couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t write, veil between me and reality.”
Month 1: Functional but miserable.
Month 3: “Slept like a teenager… but I was still a mess.”
First cup back:
“Waves of well-being → euphoria → like cocaine for 20 minutes.”
Then: irritability, compulsive cleaning, unsubscribing from 100 listservs, reorganizing sweaters, plotting the next dose.
Classic addict behavior — even he admits it.
Chronic caffeine lowers adenosine sensitivity (your brain’s sleep-pressure signal). Withdrawal = fog/ADD-like symptoms. Re-dose = euphoric adenosine clearance after 24 hours of buildup. Baseline becomes caffeinated baseline.
Pollan’s takeaway: “Yourself is caffeinated… and that is baseline for many of us.”
Ever quit caffeine cold turkey?
What hit you hardest — the brain fog, the irritability, the insane euphoria on return, or something else?
Your stories 👇