Have you tried quitting coffee, though?
I realized enough was enough when I almost decided to quit Substack.
Why hello there. I’m back from another mini-spiral into the void of intangible sadness. It’s lovely to be back. I stopped posting—but kept writing, it’s worth noting—because I didn’t like anything I wrote, and all the metrics on this platform (the downward slope and digital crickets, to be more accurate) only seemed to mirror my slow slide into that place of woe and dread that my strange head still believes is my comfort zone.
I stopped posting and debated quitting this whole endeavor just as quickly as I’d begun, afraid it was all too much and my writing was going nowhere, so why bother? I went about life and my business, walked my dog, and generally attempted to be a functioning human despite the invisible rock saddled squarely on my back—depression, am I right? Which made me think about quitting, why I quit things, and why I start things, one ending inevitably leading to a beginning. Most importantly, I realized I’m now one of those people who thinks—I don’t ask, I promise—thoughts like, “Have you tried quitting coffee?”—when I’m talking to someone expressing emotional lows.
To date, I have quit eating disorders, alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, caffeine, and Instagram. Despite the rousing burst of positivity I briefly felt and wrote about here, I have quit Instagram indefinitely, too.
I love quitting. I love believing it’s a boundary, that it allows me to be in control of the ending. Quitting makes me sparkly-eyed and frenetic in my hope for a beginning.
Ending Instagram = beginning of self-esteem.
Ending alcohol = beginning of mood-swing-free Savannah.
Ending cigarettes = beginning of smelling like a regular person (not ashtray smell).
Simple, right?
Wrong.
Except for cigarettes. Now that I’ve quit those, I truly don’t know how my husband handled it all those years. **Pause for applause.**
But the other ones? False equivalencies.
They were a beginning, but not shiny car, new journal, or tags-still-attached jeans beginning as I’d hoped. Not Savannah 2.0 new.
More like adjacent. New road, same driver.
Each quitting inspired a fresh promise of, “Here it is! I’ve found the thing that will make me the integrated, self-actualized superstar my shame says I am incapable of becoming! Look at me now, shame.”
And I ride high on the wave of how much calmer I am sans caffeine, how much more alive I am without alcohol and cigarettes sucking my life force away, until the day when the fresh view’s luster goes dull when beginning becomes middle. The glow of quitting Instagram turns into fear that I should get back on Instagram because how else will I grow my business and my Substack? People probably think I’m insane if they see my account because I didn’t do a goodbye post. But I can’t get back on now—that’s way weirder and …
I hunt for another thing to quit, to feel good about and in control of as the other quittings wear away into normal.
Which, for a moment, seemed like it would be Substack.
I started this Substack to write. I vowed to myself I wouldn’t get so caught up this time in the algorithm and whether it liked me or whether my content sucks or whether I just suck. Just write. Once a week, how hard could that be?
Not as easy as I thought, TBH.
The final push I needed to quit Instagram came from this community and knowing it existed.
An ending for a beginning. New road, same driver. And the me sitting there, holding the steering wheel, was PUMPED. “Look at me now, SHAME! I have a place again; I have arrived.”
“Wherever you go, there are you are.”
~ Wayne W. Dyer
Here I am, again, contemplating quitting, running from and toward another place, asking what’s next. Don’t get me wrong, quitting is an important thing. It’s a tolerance assessment, declaration, and willingness to step away from that which causes suffering.
Yet my kind of quitting has become a get-outta-jail-free card. A bypassing of self—quick and not-so-quick—ways out of being here. I don’t regret quitting, but I realize I’ve sized it incorrectly, expecting the leaps (wild and vast as they are) to be even wilder.
No cigarettes to incredible, talented surfer.
No Instagram to vivacious, confident, screen-free princess.
No caffeine to high-vibe, chill, and easy-going.
I simply believed quitting these things could make me the inverse of who I am, and then became highly disappointed that I still wasn’t a confident, high-vibe surfer princess because goddammit! I did the thing.
And I’ve become the person who thinks, “Have you tried quitting coffee,” because I really, really, really want it to be just that simple.
Huge strides. False equivalencies. New road, same driver.
I acclimate and adjust. My first year of sobriety made me feel unstoppable. By my second, I took it for granted, almost forgetting the meaning of two years. Now, as I head toward my third, I struggle to remember just how vital this quit was, shame inching back in about something else as my 28th birthday looms, and anxieties about how far behind I still am slink in (even without caffeine to give them the extra neurochemical boost).
There’s nothing morally superior or inferior in quitting or not quitting. My ego wants to believe there is because then if I could just quit enough things, I’d be enough, that each quitting elevates me to some higher plane of consciousness so I might be free, once and for all, from the emotions and sensations the thing I’m quitting evokes.
But wherever I go, there I am.
No high-vibe, mega-chill surf princesses here.
Just me.
Without bronchitis, with empirically less anxiety and zero days of zombie-watching T.V. due to the depressive aftermath of a drinking bender.
But me, nonetheless, and the feelings still rise. I look for another thing to quit, remove, eliminate, begin, commit to, and choose, so I briefly regain my sense of control over the whims and nature of a mind that occasionally doubts, demeans, and demoralizes.
Just me, so intolerably fallible and human.
I forget that quitting has given me enough already, that I am asking too much of quitting when it’s already given me almost 800 days of showing up as myself without alcohol. Quitting has given me more time off-screen, free from fretting over likes and views. It’s given me lungs that breathe deeply, countless breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and holiday parties where I’m present with the people I love—grateful for my meal rather than afraid of it. It’s given me a (mostly) higher frustration tolerance to make (mostly) kinder, more thoughtful decisions.
I haven’t lost faith in the meaning of quitting, but I was reminded, as that thought to quit this, too, sparked, that quitting has its place … it’s not the place. Some desires are a sign to persevere, not turn away, and quitting can become a kind of end rather than a means.
I need to remember why I quit.
Not to be perfect. Not to be a surf princess. Not to be the best, because it will eliminate shame, or for the sake of believing, even just for a while, that I will become someone I’m so desperately afraid I can never become.
Not quitting to raise the bar ever higher, but quitting so I might care a little less about the bar at all.
Let’s about it.
If you’d like to, share with me in the comments:
What are you most proud of quitting?
Is there something you quit that you now regret?
What’s your relationship to quitting like? Do you wish it were different?
Hello Savannah, it is great to hear from you again. You say you are just 28, l am just coming up to 62. The insecurities and doubts you feel are just as real for me today as they were when I was 28. You have achieved an enormous amount by controlling those things in your life that lead you from your path, and you will continue to have to be vigilant along your path in life. I to quit Facebook and Instagram as I found the platforms toxic and time consuming. I could not justify the good over the bad so I quit. Substack on the other hand is a place I can express myself and also educate and help others, but as I am new to writing I find it difficult to motivate myself but I persist.
What you having done quitting is great, and keep it up, but like learning a new skill or activity, the initial learning curve is great. After 2 or 3 years you feel that things have flattened out bur in reality those new skill you learn are probably greater than many of the initial basic skills you initially learnt. You build on past experience, and it can seem like small incremental gains but in reality every after 2 years those new skills will be valuable to you.
Last words I promise, you are doing very well, your writing does have an influence on at least one other person and I would be saddened if I thought that you would stop. Wishing your the very best for your future, and as always looking forward to your next offering. Phillip.
I honor your authenticity — and how you weave humor into your writing too, Savannah. Your voice matters, and I can hardly believe you’re going to be in your Saturn Return shortly. It’s an honor to witness your blossoming — the truth —the courage — the grit and the grace— your sharing of you matters.
As for what I’m most proud of quitting? I’ve quit outsourcing my health care to people in white coats. I’ve found balance to utilize their tech and testing, yet the benefits I’ve gained in life from quitting the standard American food supply, antibiotics and cable tv — I’m proud to have grown to know my heart’s wisdom more and more. Life is a beautiful tapestry with highs and lows—I don’t come onto this platform much, yet I still appreciate your efforts to keep writing and sharing you.