The 18-Year Addiction I Didn't Know I Had
How Quitting Caffeine Can Transform Your Energy
I started drinking coffee at 12 years old.
Translation: My developing brain became best friends with a powerful stimulant before I even knew what its default state of functioning was.
Because let's call coffee what it is—a drug.
A socially acceptable, widely celebrated, aggressively marketed drug. And just because your grandmother drinks it every morning, doesn't mean it's healthy.
Still, it became my academic secret weapon. It gave me a competitive edge through a relentless career of study—first powering me through exams, then helping me churn out research papers.
It was a relationship that worked beautifully. Until it didn’t.
Now, I've realized my entire life has been shaped by its influence in ways I'm needing to untangle without letting my strung-out brain and professional obligations crumple into a heap.
I'm in the middle of a messy but well-overdue breakup with the brown stuff. And like any breakup, it's coming with a mix of fresh possibilities and the sharp sting of letting go.
Here's how it all started.
The Mysterious Case of Morning Panic
I'd taken every possible step to maximize my peace.
I quit my job. Gave myself permission to rest. Started getting my toenails painted. But no matter what I did, I kept waking up anxious.
The anxiety was in my body, not my head. It would hit me before I'd even opened my eyes and let my first thought of the day enter my mind. It made no logical sense, and it was becoming maddening.
So, eventually, I did what I always do when I get stuck in life: I asked the universe to show me what I was missing.
Two days later, I got violently sick.
Whether it was food poisoning or a bug, my body was in full evacuation mode. My stomach was too sensitive to drink much of anything—let alone coffee—for about five days.
The twist?
Somewhere in the middle of that horrible, dehydrated, cold-tile-on-the-bathroom-floor experience, I noticed something I didn't expect.
Peace. Deep, deep peace.
It turned out that just one cup of coffee a day had been silently stoking my nervous system like a fire poker for years. And when I removed it—even unintentionally—the difference was undeniable.
I was shivering, sweaty, and down to my last two electrolytes. But I wasn’t anxious.
And that was wild to me.
My Daily Coffee Hangover
My morning routine was predictable:
Wake up anxious
Project that anxiety onto my to-do list
Drink a coffee to give me the brain power to defeat that to-do list
Regain a sense of control
Repeat
The cruel irony? I was drinking coffee to help me function through anxiety that was primarily caused by... yesterday's coffee. It was an anxiety hangover that greeted me each morning before my first conscious thought.
My nervous system has been perpetually activated, like an engine running hot with no cooldown period. The baseline of my existence had become a low-grade emergency state that felt completely normal.
And while it's a relief to have figured this out, giving up the daily brew hasn't been entirely easy because it's forcing me to let go of things I didn’t even realize I was clinging to.
Who Even Am I Without This Drug?
Stopping coffee triggered an ego death I wasn't prepared for.
Within days, my worst professional nightmare unfolded: I was on a client call, staring down a complex problem that, under normal circumstances, should have been well within my skillset.
But for the first time, my brain flatlined.
As I looked at the project—the one I'd helped design—it felt alien, like someone else entirely had built it. Someone smarter. Someone caffeinated.
Foggy-brained and slumped in my chair, I shrugged. "I don't know how to fix this," I said. "My brain doesn’t have the answer." And I wanted to add, "It barely knows what it’s looking at right now."
That moment of professional helplessness was sobering.
It made me confront a brutal truth: I’d been outsourcing my cognitive clarity to caffeine for years. My ability to perform—hell, my entire professional identity—was tangled up in a stimulant I thought I had under control.
Now, without it, I feel like a toddler relearning how my mind works. What it's capable of. What it needs. It's humbling and a little terrifying. But it’s also revealing something new.
It turns out, the real me is a lot more "chill" than I ever realized.
She loves to relax. She trusts slow mornings and deep exhales. She’s been buried under espresso shots and urgency for far too long. And now? She’s finally stretching out her limbs.
The Hidden Connection Between Coffee and Feminine Energy
Here's something they don't tell you at Starbucks: Coffee is not a feminine plant.
Any experienced shaman will tell you that plants have energetic qualities. Cannabis and ayahuasca carry feminine energies—they invite introspection, receptivity, and circular thinking. They encourage you to spiral inward and explore. Cannabis, in particular, also brings about the feminine states of rest and relaxation.
Masculine plants, like coffee and tobacco, direct energy like an arrow—linear, focused, achievement-oriented. They propel you forward with intensity and purpose.
For all my research into plant wisdom, I completely missed how I was sabotaging my own goals. By routinely ingesting a masculine substance every morning without thinking about it, I was creating daily obstacles to accessing my feminine energy.
What does this mean practically?
Since quitting coffee, I'm quickly discovering a depth of relaxation I knew existed but always felt beyond my reach—like buried treasure I've been seeking out for years.
But now, I've finally found it.
My body is remembering how to truly rest. Not the caffeine-crash collapse, but genuine, restorative stillness. The only appropriate words to describe it are words like “heaven” or possibly “post-orgasm bliss.”
So, yeah. The tradeoff in mental sharpness has been 100% worth it.
The Challenge: Quit Coffee, Meet Yourself
When coffee becomes your daily companion for productivity, questioning its presence feels unnecessary. Because what's one cup going to do? Everyone has their morning ritual, right?
But for me, it was a very big deal. Which is why it's important to question everything about your lifestyle when you're trying to "do the work" and improve your mental health.
If you've been drinking coffee for years and struggle with:
Persistent anxiety that seems to have no clear cause;
An inability to fully relax during downtime;
Digestive issues that come and go mysteriously; or,
Feeling wired but tired most days.
Try quitting for just five days. I felt a dramatic difference within that timeframe.
The first three days might be rough (headaches, fatigue, irritability), but push through. What awaits on the other side might surprise you—it might be the real you, the version that exists beneath the stimulant haze.
Silence the Stimulant, Hear Yourself Again
The most valuable discovery wasn't just about what coffee was doing to me, but what it was preventing me from experiencing. My natural energy patterns, my authentic thought processes, my body's true signals—all had been masked by the constant stimulation.
Coffee had become the background music I'd forgotten was playing. Only in the silence of its absence could I hear myself clearly again. So question your habits, especially the ones that seem too ordinary to question.
Your wellbeing might just depend on it.
Thanks for reading. If this post made you spit out your coffee—in laughter, shock, or suspicion—it did its job. Subscribe to The Aussie Mystic for more psycho-spiritual deep dives, caffeine comedowns, and consciousness upgrades.