I have given up caffeine and alcohol again.

I’m eight days into this experiment, and it has been interesting to see that I’ve already passed through a few phases. Perhaps people give things up for different reasons, but I always give up caffeine and alcohol because I’m feeling lousy — keyed-up and exhausted, creaky and tight, flushed and unwell, with a fluttering brain and a cloudy head and a fragile stomach and a general sense that I can’t seem to live without these substances but they seem, month by month and year by year, to be doing me down.

So the first phase is the detoxification. I feel pretty bad during this phase, but because the precipitating sensation that drove me to abstinence in the first place was always a very recent experience of lousiness, and because the experience of withdrawal is always so concrete, it’s not too hard to persist through this phase. My head hurts, I feel tired and thinking of most any sort requires a very acute effort. But I expect to feel bad and for thinking to require particular effort so it’s not too hard to summon up this effort. And I know that it takes 72 hours for the body to re-equilibrate to caffeine deprivation, for your brain to begin maintaining appropriate amounts of alertness-generating neurotransmitters in the bloodstream once again, and the feeling of adjusting to a new homeostasis is quite tangible and even satisfying. You feel the serotonin re-uptake sites in your brain shrinking and there is the sensation of healing as this happens, of becoming more fit, and that feels good.

The second phase is boredom and dissatisfaction. This comes after the first three days, when your body is not actively adjusting to its change in circumstances any longer. Instead, I just … feel tired, or dull, or inadequately relaxed, or generally in need of a pick-me-up or a let-me-down, and my instinct is to make a cup of coffee or reach for a beer. There are a couple of interesting features of this phase. First, you realize how much you had been relying on caffeine and alcohol to add color and pleasure to your life. It is surprising to see that not only do I derive enjoyment from caffeine and alcohol in the moment, but they are an integral picture of what I imagine when I envision pleasurable experiences. Sitting by the beach — at a cafe, with a macchiato and a book. Talking with a friend on the front porch — with a glass of whiskey. Having your infant son — once he’s all grown up, on some sepia-tinted date in the future — come by and take you out for an afternoon, and a cup of coffee. Taking up residence in a far-away land, and finding a local bar at which to bend the elbow. Having a free morning to write, and feeling the words flow with a nice cup of java and a brownie.

Second, you begin to invent plausible rationales for why this experiment in abstinence is a waste of time. Plenty of people consume plenty of caffeine and alcohol and still are able to be fit and sturdy and easy-minded and productive. Alcohol has brought so much pleasure and relaxation to your life, and without caffeine you’ve never been able to work. How are you going to get along without them? Isn’t the desire to get along without them an instance of your desire for self-perfection, and isn’t that vain and frustrating aim the real problem with your life? Isn’t there a way to just go about this moderately? Do you really want to be a teetotal-ling stick-in-the-mud? Do you really want to feel slow-witted and thick-headed? Do you really think you can give these things up forever? If not, why give them up at all?

One thing I learned from The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield — and there’s a lot of good stuff in this book, which is short and punchily written and full of earned and reassuring wisdom — is that whenever you try to do something challenging and positive, you will find reasons not to follow through on your resolution. Except Pressfield doesn’t say that you will find these reasons; he says that they will be furnished by an impersonal, malevolent force, which opposes all creation and progress and beauty. Pressfield names this force Resistance. And an important theme of the book is that you cannot trust Resistance, you cannot give it any quarter, for it will speak with a forked and honeyed tongue and its words would seem wisdom except Resistance is an asshole and what it is trying to do is destroy you. Whenever Resistance speaks, you need to slap it in the face with a cold fish and get back to your work.

Personifying the negative self-talk you engage in when you’re trying to do something positive as originating not with you, but with an external force worthy of contempt and disrespect, really helps in resolving this self-talk. Or, not in resolving it, but in dispelling it. Because your instinct, when you start explaining to yourself why something is foolish or silly or too difficult or going to hurt too much or not going to work anyway, is to try to engage with your own arguments. But because these arguments have some reason, plenty of reason, behind them, your efforts to negotiate them away will weaken you and pre-dispose you to failure. It’s better to think of this self-talk as originating with someone else, with someone you know wishes you no good, so that you can meet it not with negotiation but with dismissal: “Screw you, Resistance, you’re up to your usual tricks and I’m not going to listen to you.”

I don’t know if I’ve passed through the second phase fully yet — it will probably come back again and again, for as long as I keep at this, which I’ve told myself will be a trial period of a year. This is a feature of Resistance: it is never defeated, and if it slinks away like a beaten cur, you can be sure that it will lunge at you with bared teeth as soon as your back is turned. I can say that I’ve been feeling pretty good for the past day. There is a sense of clarity to my mind, a bell-like resonance. I still feel tired a lot though. And I’m writing this at half past midnight, when I can be sure at least one of my boys will be up by six tomorrow.

So tomorrow may bring another battle. We’ll see.