Alexander Pope, Insomnia, and Caffeine Addiction (24)

In Roger Schmidt's article entitled "Caffeine and the Coming of the Enlightenment," he discuses how Alexander Pope was possibly the first major author to be addicted to caffeine.  He illustrates how Pope stayed up night after night, continually writing and asking his servant for more coffee.  Schmidt writes, "Caffeine fuels insomnia as it simultaneously attempts to alleviate the symptoms:  the ceremony of tea and coffee becomes, as here, highly ritualized," which provides an interesting viewpoint on the subject of coffee and caffeine (Schmidt 137-138).  In the case of Alexander Pope, his supposed insomnia might be a learned disorder, but it is also related to his extreme intake of caffeine.  For example, his continual writing at night might have taught his brain to associate the bedroom or his bed as a place of work, not of rest.  Because of this, every time he was ready to sleep and went to bed, his brain possibly began to immediately think about many things instead of resorting to sleep.  As a result, Pope would more than likely begin to write in an effort to clear his head.  Once this became a learned behavior or habit, he viewed his writing time to be at night, which led to the intake of caffeine to stay awake to continue to write.  And like the domino effect, this led to an addiction to caffeine, which led to less sleep, which then led to more caffeine, and more addiction... It's a never-ending cycle once started, and it seems that Alexander Pope was one of the first documented writers in history to suffer from caffeine addiction.  
I find this entire assertion extremely interesting simply because of how it relates to what we've learned about insomnia and caffeine, and how it can greatly affect one's sleeping patterns.  Alexander Pope is obvious evidence of the severe effects both insomnia and sleep can have on a person.