What One Man Learned After Giving Up Alcohol and Coffee for 27 Months

What would happen if you gave up your morning coffee, along with your afterwork cocktail for 27 months? Could you survive and if so, how? One New Yorker took the plunge and stopped spending money on coffee and booze for over a year, and what he found was truly inspiring.

Tobias Van Schneider of New York set out on a mission to give up both sweet, sweet nectars for a little over a year, but it didn't come without struggle. Not the struggle that you'd normally associate with lack of coffee in the morning, or a nightcap sans the alcohol.

The struggle arose around one's social life, as a staple in everyone's seems to be the two liners of, "Lets grab a coffee" or "Want to get drinks after work?" Both of these come with the assumption that you drink either or, and for Van Schneider, it was neither.

The positive effects from not partaking in the cultural craze that is coffee and alcohol (yes, some bars actually do serve both, and we love them for it) far outweigh the negative, here.

After it all, Van Schneider realized he saved roughly 1,000 dollars per month by simply staying put and away from the coffee and alcohol craze that's swept over the nation. 1,000 dollars is a lot of money, and if that can be saved by simply cutting out two beverage categories; that's a victory for us all.

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Among the money he saved, Van Schneider found that the lack of coffee in his life actually made him less panicky and stressed out, something that avid coffee-drinkers would probably protest. But for Van Schneider, it was the opposite.

"This might be something more personal and not related to everyone. But removing coffee from my diet helped me become more relaxed. Coffee always made me stressed out. It increased my chance of having anxiety and also fucked up my digestion.

I found out that "Going for a coffee" turned out to be more of a social activity than the actual craving for coffee. Keep the social habit, replace coffee with something else."

Though he always loved the smell of coffee, he notes that it made him stressed out--hello, caffeine. Yet without it, he was singing a different tune.

As for the cocktails, Van Schneider found that by removing them from his diet, he slept through the night like a baby. Whereas before, he notes that sure, he didn't have a problem falling asleep, rather it was the quality of sleep he received which was the issue. After cutting out alcohol, he noticed a steady change of sleep pattern.

"You sure do fall asleep easier with 1-2 glasses of beer or wine, but the actual sleep quality might suffer. I sleep better, and I wake up with more energy. Before I always ruined my mornings, even if I only had two beers at night I could feel it in the morning."

Lastly, Van Schneider found that the gossip-y element to his life had diminished. Without the boozed out or highly caffeinated chat sessions amongst peers, there was hardly any gossip to gossip about, and Van Schneider likes it that way.

Check out his full story here.

Read More: The 10 Things Beer-Drinkin' Ladies Are Tired of Hearing

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