Slashdot Mirror
Best Way To Beat A Caffeine Addiction?
ethanms writes "I'm pretty sure that I'm addicted to caffeine... I get nasty headaches if I skip coffee and soda for a day. If I go even longer, then the headaches get worse and I start to become (even more of) a pain in the ass to those around me. Within five or ten minutes of a cup of joe or can of Mountain Dew the headache is gone and I feel fine... There's plenty of advice out there for dealing with addiction, but I'm really interested in how other /. users have managed and controlled their own caffeine intake, especially considering how heavily it is pushed by many development / engineering communities. 'Just drink more' isn't really the answer I'm after either."
Start smoking.
How about just stop taking caffeine, nicotine, or whatever it is you are addicted to (if you wish to stop that is).
Just stick it through and soon enough you'll be free. Learn to drink water instead.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
get yourself addicted to crack or heroin, or CmdrTaco's dirty underwear.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
1: coke
2: smack
3: weed
4: crank
that's fix your caffeine addiction.
The last time I quit caffeine (it only stuck for a few months), I killed it good by ALSO giving up cigarettes, sugar, and drinking at the same time It creates a situation where you feel so fucking miserable that really, you stop worrying about caffeine or really anything else, for that matter Anyways, caffeine exits your system after about three days. I suggest giving it up when you next have the flu, next have a really, REALLY bad bender, or next time you have a fever. The other feelings will be so painful, additional misery shouldn't bother you (much)
And don't suddenly stop your intake. Reduce it gradually, in transitional stages. This can be difficult, but it's worth the patience.
Slashdot: when news breaks, we give you the pieces.
Ask your doctor rather than ask Slastdot.
That would probably work.. have tubgirl printed at the bottom of a coffee cup.. after you drink your cup of BROWN LIQUID coffee, you see her and never drink coffee again!
You're a genius!
The best way I've found is to taper off your caffeine usage to maybe half a cup of coffee per day, then just stop.
Yes, it sucks. Yes, you'll get headaches for four to five days. And yes, you may end up with some weird flu-like symptoms after about a week.
But, after all the feeling-like-crap for a while, you'll be over it. You just have to deal with it.
"Caffeine is the Christian drug of preference. Drink a glass of red wine or light up a cigarette during Sunday Night Fellowship Hour, and you will be thrown out on your ear. But a two-hundred-gallon pot of black adrenal-rush will bring friendly smiles of delight. The meeting would not be the same with the absence of its nutty aroma filling the church basement. Little white Styrofoam cups floating in small clusters of heavenly conversation." link
Otherwise, I found this interesting: Scientists cast doubt on caffeine addiction.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Alternatively, dilute your fully caffeinated coffee with decaf. Start with a 3caf:1caf mix and then bring that down to 1:1 and then 1:3 and so on.
Good luck.
mix hard alcohol in with your coffee/soda. It might not help your addiction, but you won't be such an uptight asshole either.
You could always try medical marijuana. Odds are that'll get rid of the headaches.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Start running/jogging an hour a day, every day -- this should be enough to get you going when you feel sleepy or tired.
Just do it. I had headaches for a week, but I've been free 18 months now.
Some hints for this approach - drink a lot of ice cold water. Use pain relief without caffine (some pills have caffine in them) when you need to feel normal. Eat healthy and exercise.
I'll suck, but it'll end.
Drink lots of water.
Take Bayer aspirin (contains a little caffeine) or Aleve to help with the headaches. (Motrin didn't help - YMMV.)
Do not set your alarm - sleep as long as possible on the day you decide to quit. If I slept through the normal caffeine-consumption period (usually morning) I felt better. I don't know why.
Oddly enough, going cold turkey (vice gradually decreasing caffeine intake) worked better for me.
Good luck!
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
I'm curious about the other side of the coin. I do about a six-pack of Diet Coke a day, but I don't seem to show any signs of addiction if I don't get my caffeine. No headaches, no jitters, nothing. In addition, it doesn't seem to affect my ability to sleep. The only difference I can tell between the caffeinated and non-caffeinated versions is taste.
Granted that's my major source of caffeine (I don't do coffee or tea) so in any case I don't get a lot. I wondered whether other people have seen similar effects, and how widespread this might be.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Ibuprofen, lots of it! :)
Periodically I get hooked on caffiene, it is poor discipline on my part that I feel a need to develop a comfort habit. It takes me about two weeks to get through withdrawl and I am back to normal and I feel much better than when I ever started doing whatever.
My advice is take something that will reduce the symptoms that is not dangerous and only when you really need them. Eventually your body adapts to its new situation just don't create a new addictive situation! :) The question is can you hold out long enough for your body to make the adjustment. Just ask a smoker if he has tried to quit and how many times, it is not necessarially an easy thing to do.
Good Luck
Actually, you should be careful. Many pain-relief products include caffeine. If you do this, make sure it's just plain ole aspirin.
I quit just last week, haven't had any caffeine in six days. But I started a month ago by quitting Diet Cokes cold turkey. Switched to iced tea & regular cokes to kill my nutra-sweet intake (2 liters of diet coke a day just CAN'T be good for you). Guess that reduced my caffeine intake enough that I didn't really feel any difficulty quitting. (beware chocolate, too).
The funniest thing was after about 4 days I had a bad dream one night about opening and slurping down a giant can of coke & spoiling my caffeine-fast.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
It certainly did the trick for me!
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
JUST STOP DRINKING IT.
;)
Start drinking lots of water. If your water tastes bad, put a dash of lemon or lime cordial in it. Or get a water filter.
Coffee dehydrates you. If you can not stop drinking, always get a glass of water with every cup of coffee.
The soda drinks also have massive amounts of sugar which is by far the worst part.
So at the least stop drinking the soda drinks, and drink coffee without sugar.
Write down everything that you put into your mouth for a week. Then see someone about your nutrition.
You need to not have any for a month. Stick it through, and give up all caffiene.
Perhaps try drinking tea instead to start with. Or hot water with a little bit of ginger. That way you can still drink something warm.
The soda companies are fucking evil imho. They get kids addicted before they know what is good for them. Thier teeth rot, they get fat, they loose bladder control, and they buzz big time
Coffee/caffiene is one of the socially acceptable drugs that lots of people use at work to get through the day. It does *not* increase your performance, unless you always work whilst using it. You get used to working in the coffee hazed state, so you will actually work better that way. Only way to fix that is to stop drinking it entirely for quite a while. The first week will be hell, and you may get little done.
Have fun!
One unexpected side effect of quitting is that my contact lenses work better. Coffee had the effect of dehydrating me to the point where my contacts would dry by two in the afternoon.
Good luck. The first few days are the worst.
"Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me."
Cut the amount you drink in half every other day. So if you have a normal mug you fill up only drink half that tomorrow. Do that for a couple of days and then cut that in half as well. When it gets ridiculous switch to green tea for a while. After a couple days of mild headaches you should be good to go. Takes a week or two depending on how bad your addiction is. The hardest thing was how tired I felt after quitting. That lasted for a week. Somebody said it was because adrenal function gets screwed up by coffee but I don't know. At least it's easier than cigarettes. I quit smoking 8 years ago and it is still hard to control my impulse to grab a smoke.
I've withdrawn from both fairly recently. My advice to you is, just deal with it for three or four days, then no more problem. That even applies to going cold turkey off cigarettes.
I experienced headaches from the caffeine withdrawal, so I took ibuprofen. Drinking lots of water helps. Like, one to two gallons a day. You'll urinate a lot, but there are worse things that can happen.
Nicotine withdrawal was...interesting. First you have to be serious about wanting to quit. You are going to feel like crap. But, truth be told, having a common cold feels worse. So just be prepared to deal with it. I went cold turkey. I couldn't sleep on the third night, so I felt extra crappy on the fourth day. But by the fifth day there were no more symptoms AT ALL. For this reason, and because every single other person I know who quit smoking did it by going cold turkey, I strongly advize not buying any nicotine gum or patches. Just show the guts it takes to freaking quit, and do it.
I feel that most addiction withdrawal pains are psychological. I still think about lighting up every now and again. But it's not a craving -- it's just a little part of my years-long habit poking its head up out of the hole I buried it in to say "hi" every now and again.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
Some doctors have considered prescribing nicotine as a cure for a variety of ailments, including schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, attention deficit disorder and colitis.
I'm thinking about it!
Get rid of everything Micro and Soft: Buy Viagra and/or Linux
I was drinking a pot or more of coffee each morning with a couple of cokes and shots of espresso in the afternoon. I was getting light headed and would get tired randomly throughout the day. I decided it could be the caffeine so I tried to quit cold turkey and had similar problems quiting. The headaches were the worst part for me. My solution turned out to be a new blend of beans.
I'm a Peet's Sumatra fan so I went to my local Peet's and had them blend a 50/50 mix of decaf Sumatra with a regular Sumatra. This alone cut my consumption by half and I didn't even notice the missing caffeine.
I also dropped the espresso in the afternoon and I drink about half the coke that I used to.
I'm thinking about dropping to a 25% caffeine blend of Sumatra and brewing two pots a day. It still will be less caffeine than I used to drink and it gives me something to drink in the afternoon.
Good luck. Be happy you aren't trying to quit crack. My half crack plan doesn't work as well as this.
He is asking what worked for people in
Nutshell version: Lighten up, Francis.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Do you think about drinking coffee / dew when you are masturbating? I didn't think so.
Really though, what causes the headaches (my most hated withdrawl symptom) is the capalaries in your head constricting back a bit after the caffine caused dialation and thus the headache (same w/ other headaches, just not caused by caffine).
Sex (and thus masturbation) releases natural chemicals that can reverse some of those effects.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
The trick I found was to swap in a cup of hot tea to replace a regular cup of coffee, every now and again. Continue this until you feel your intake of caffeine is right. One cup of coffee, on average, has about 130 mg caffeine. The same amount of hot tea has about 40 mg caffeine. While you are trying hot tea, make sure to sample various different flavors of tea. Of the teas that are readily available in most American supermarkets, the brands made by Bigelow are very good samples.
My personal favorite, also very common in Europe, is Earl Grey. Lipton makes a fairly decent pre-packaged variety of this tea.
Switch to Yerba Mate.
.@.
I finally broke a caffeine addiction that I have had since University a decade ago. Just get sick so bad you are near death. You won't want to eat for days. Don't worry about the craving beacuse you will be only semi-conscious anyways and the kitchen, Bridgehead, Starbucks, etc will all be too far away. Even the smell of food, will make you run for the loo. When you get mobile, you will be dehydrated. You will probably prefer to drink water as it hydrates you, I mean it is its job. By the time you are feeling better, eating, moving, breathing, your body will have forgotten about coffee. Drink another one at your own peril and don't get a flu shot.
I make a reasonable middle-class wage by going to work and not spamming blogs with scams.
The DSM is a changing animal...Wasn't it in the DSM III where homosexuality was considered a disease?
My mother was a serious caffeine addict, but didn't know it. She did know she was consuming a lot, and decided to stop. When she stopped, she started getting really bad headaches. It didn't take her long to figure out that caffeine made the headaches go away and not taking caffeine would invite them back. Her solution was remarkable for its simplicity and ingenuity. It was true nerd solution, but not produced by a nerd (I think the nerdiness alleles passed to me by my parents were recessive, but got the chance to shine and show what they could do in me).
Here's what Mom did...
She was buying coffee beans and grinding them herself. She got some decaf beans. She started with almost all non-decaf beans and just a little bit of decaf, ground them together, and made her coffee normally. After that, over the course of a few weeks, she ramped up the decaf percentage (ramping down the caffeine-filled beans at the same time, of course). After those weeks were over, she was drinking almost pure decaf, and then the transition to 100% decaf (or thereabouts-- the decaffeination process is not perfect and is probably worse in whole beans than in grounds due to the relatively low surface area) was easy.
Mom's body apparently reacted to changes in caffeine dosage like the famous frog in a pot of hot water. I've been told (usually in the context of a discussion on eroding civil liberties) about an experiment that showed that if you put a frog into a pot of really hot water, the frog feels the high temperature and just hops out. On the other hand, if you put the frog in a pot of cool water and start gently heating it, the frog does not notice the gradual temperature changes and ends up dying when the water gets hot enough. Similarly, when Mom tried to go from lots of caffeine to zero caffeine, her body freaked out, and she had to suffer through splitting headaches. On the other hand, when she gradually ramped down her caffeine dosage, the body was able to adjust to the small changes, and she was able to go to full decaf without headaches.
BTW, I was forced to quit caffeine toward the end of the Fall quarter of my 2nd year in grad school. At the time, I was drinking multiple 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke at home every day, plus several coffees and Diet Cokes on campus. I had to drink Diet Coke; if I'd consumed the same volume of regular Coke, I would have weighed about 900 pounds. Anyway, I started having serious problems with my stomach. Basically, my entire upper digestive system would convulse like I was vomiting, but nothing would come up. The Doctor asked me if this might be stress-related, and I laughed and told him I didn't know. He understood-- I was never NOT under stress, so I had no control for comparison. Well, he suggested a really bland diet, cutting out a whole bunch of things I consumed regularly. I looked at it and thought "I can either start eating like a very old man at age 23, or I can drop the one thing I know I'm abusing." I quit caffeine cold turkey. At the time, I already had a cold. The next week was a living Hell. I had headaches that made me want to scream, plus the symptoms of the cold, plus the lovely symptoms of the effects of the caffeine on my stomach. Oh yeah... and I had my final problem sets and the preparation for finals. Ugh. But I did get over it. The cold cleared up in the normal time for a cold, and the headaches only lasted a week or so. The symptoms of the damage to my stomach, on the other hand, lingered for years. I can now drink a guarana (Brazilian soft drink made from a berry that naturally contains caffeine) or really strong coffee and not have to heave and retch. But for years, I couldn't. Beware the dangers of caffeine, everyone.
Anyway, for anyone who doesn't HAVE to quit caffeine RIGHT NOW and can take a few weeks to try to do it right, I recommend trying my mother's approach-- ramping down the non-decaffeinated portion of your coffee from 100% to 0% gradually, over the course of a few weeks. It worked for Mom.
--Mark
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
I think the problem here is that you're not looking at the right problem. Caffeine is not so much psychologically addictive as it is physiologically addictive.
... oh ... six or seven cases (24-cans per flat) of soda a month. Generally more, if you count all the soda from the fast-food restaurants.
;)
I also seriously doubt that somebody who only drinks 3-4 cans of soda a day is going to suffer as much as somebody who drinks 6-10 cans a day.
As much as I'd like to give up caffeine, I do like the taste. Fortunately for my pocketbook, Wal*Mart sells their brand cheap, and it's justabout as good as the real thing. I tend to go through about
Yes, I'm fat.
The last time I tried going cold turkey I was physically ill for a week. The physical affects went away when I started drinking soda again.
Bah.
drink tea!
Im not kidding. Instead of giving up coffee completely..
substitute one cup(or 2) of coffee with tea the first week... and so on until you're drinking only tea.
And then gradually cut down to 3 cups of tea a day.
Look around for good quality tea). You might have to experiment a bit.
For caffeine and flavor, I'd suggest black tea. You can make it the same way you make coffee
but strain the concoction a second time through the filter.
Understand that caffeine and sugar are a killer combination. Both of
these(alongwith a sedentary lifestyle) accelerate the onset of diabetes.
Well, I gave up all caffiene about 4 years ago, and am very thankful. it has made my life a lot better IMHO.
I was at a dangerous point (unless people think a whole packet of nodoze-plus in one go is normal..) and just decided to stop.
Now I am ultra sensitive to caffiene, but just don't need it. It is a very bad physically addictive drug.
My advice - avoid sugar as a substitute - you can get diet caffiene free cock for example (well, here in NZ anyway).
Also avoid chocolate, coffee, many caffinated soft drinks, most energy drinks, tea, and any form of 'diet' pill.
decaf coffee and tea can help, but keep the amount down, BREAKING the addiction is the aim.
It took me about 3 weeks cold turkey to get back to 'normal'. Asprin and Neurofin in moderate quantities are your friends during this time (NOT paracetamol, it is bad for you!)
Don't try and wind down the amount - caffiene addiction cannot be addressed like that, the physical addiction will not leave untill your body is clean of it.
Once it's gone, it's not that hard to avoid.
Good luck!
I tried to taper off caffeene for about a year. I went from 2 20oz bottles of Mtn Dew to 1, then one half. Suddenly I was back up to two again. Finally I just quit cold turkey. It sucked mightily, I got the caffeene headaches, etc. After about a week I was ok. Now I just drink water or juice at work.
I've found that its much much easier to quit caffeine than nicotine or alcohol, because the withdrawal symptoms are not much more than a headache and they go away relatively soon.
A funny story, a friend of mine had a huge caffeine addiction (drank 20 or so cans of Coke a day) and decided to quit.... he was telling me about how he never has any caffeine any more while drinking his huge iced tea. I asked him about the iced tea, and he had no idea it was caffeinated. "Maybe thats why after I quit drinking Coke, I started drinking a ton of iced tea!"
So be sure to know that caffeine is found in a bunch of stuff, like tea and chocolate.
One day I just made the decision to stop. I went through about a week solid headache but after that the craving was gone, it really wasn't hard to get rid of.
A year later I couldn't find anything to drink but a coke so I tried one and couldn't stand the taste. At this point I don't think I could ever drink Coke again, the taste is just nasty.
Over time I finally moved myself to mostly water. Being a sugar addict also it took a little while to get used to drinking water. Water works well as an appetite suppressant as well as keeping you well hydrated. Your headaches may not be due to lack of caffeine as much as lack of water.
The downfall is that you run to the bathroom more than anybody you know. But to trade that for less headaches, a happier stomach, and overall better health was definitely worth it. You'll find that drinking water instead of anything else will make you feel better. I found that feeling better was a big contributing factor to me being more productive, both at work and at home.
Take a week and make sure you are well hydrated. WELL hydrated. A glass an hour. If your urine is almost clear you're doing well. If you get into too much water it may be good to replenish yourself with a sports beverage once in a while.
That's another issue. When I drank coke all the time I thought Gatorade was too bland and didn't have any flavor. After a few months of dedicating myself to water a glass of gatorade tastes like pure sugar to me. Suddenly I don't crave sweets as much. Cakes, cookies, candy - they all seem a bit overpowering.
All these positive things just from dropping the sugar and drinking water. Everybody was stunned when I first went to a restaurant and ordered water. Even I felt odd. Now it is just the obvious choice, everything else tastes far too sweet.
Give it a try and let me know how it works for you!
I was addicted to caffeine and sugar, big-time. Also I ate take-out every day and weighed 270lbs.
Solution:
- I stopped drinking 3 litres of pop every day. After 36 hours, the migraine went away and I had no more physical need for caffeine.
- I weaned myself off of sugar over a month by drinking Kool-Aid with gradually less sugar addedd. Once I could handle that, I switched to 2 litres of plain water a day.
- I learned how to make stirfrys (and a few other quick/easy things) and stopped eating takeout.
Result:14 months later I've lost 70 pounds, eat healthy vegetables every day, and no longer drink pop or coffee.
Not to be mean or anything, but I don't know that taking advice from someone who drinks 12 diet cokes a day on how to quit caffeine is wise. Since you keep going back to it, it's clear you've never managed to figure out how to really get over your addiction. Sure, you know how to get rid of the physical addiction, but the mental addiction still kicks your ass. Of course, in your case, you're probably not just addicted to caffeine, but also aspartame, which is well known to be highly addictive.
I quit smoking 3 years ago. I broke the physical addiction 3 or 4 times when I tried to quit in the past, but the mental addiction always caught up to me. It took a good year or two before I stopped getting "cravings," usually situational, but they did get much less severe after the first 5 or 6 months.
It's really all about willpower, and it is very very hard, especially if you have are naturally predisposed to addictions, but it can be done. For most people, it takes a major addiction-related occurrence, like cancer or diabetes, to give them the willpower. Luckily, that wasn't the case for me...my major motivation was cigarettes going past 2 bucks a pack.
isn't asking this question here like going to skid row for advice on how to kick heroin?
That's how you beat it.
:) I can have the occasional cola and suffer no ill effects the next day. Moderation is the key once you cut the ties. A little taste isn't going to kill you, but I know that if I put down a 2 liter in one sitting, I'd be back on that train again.
When my son was first born, my Mountain Dew habit went from a few cans a day to a few 2 liters a day (plus a few cans from the school vending machine, plus a Big Gulp on the way home...). After that, I got a job where one of the perks was a soda fountain - all the Pepsi / Coke products you could guzzle, at no charge! Geek heaven, it was... until I realized that not only was I an unbearable bastard on the weekends as I came down off of my buzz, but I'd put on another ten pounds. (My wife later informed me that she was getting ready to leave me, and take the kid with her, because of my non-caffinated attitude problem.)
So after sitting down and thinking about it one day and figuing out that I could cut over 1000(!) calories a day out of my diet by quitting the Dew, and make myself an easier person to be around on top of it, I quit. No coming down gradually, no easing off, I just stopped. In the middle of the week, at that. I made sure to warn those around me about it, to keep them clear of me, and I also made sure to replace the Dew with water - LOTS of water, since I got 90% of my daily fluids from that yellow nectar.
Holy flurking shnitt, did I have a doozy of a headache! Lasted me two days! But by the weekend, I was in pretty good shape. I made a few mistakes after that... like drinking it again about a week after I'd "quit". I got right back on the train with the very first drink; killer headache the next day. It took a few trips like that before I realized I couldn't touch the stuff AT ALL for a LONG time after I'd quit.
So now, 2+ years later, I can hardly stand the taste of Dew - something I thought I'd never say
Just quit the stuff cold turkey. Your body, and the people around you, will thank you for it.
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
I think it was a Saturday Night Live skit with Bob Newhart. Meant to be funny of course (and it was), but at the same time it's the single best piece of serious advice I've ever heard for anyone addicted to anything.
STOP IT.
That's it. Don't gimme all this psychobable, don't gimme all the physiological reasons it's not that simple, because it f'ing is.
JUST STOP IT. STOP, STOP, STOP IT.
If you don't want to drink soda any more...
STOP IT.
It you don't want to touch yourself 10 times a day...
STOP IT.
If your a crack whore...
JUST STOP IT.
Cigarettes shortening your life?...
F'ING STOP IT.
Your a 400 pound fat-ass that's about two porkchops away from a heart attack?...
Say it with me...
STOP IT!
Just stop being a weak-minded fool, deal with the discomfort that will probably result from going cold turkey, and get over it all. JUST F'ING STOP IT. NOW!!
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
Okay, so there isn't a patch, but there should be.
To keep myself from turning into a raving lunatic without my coffee, I make a point of drinking one less cup of coffee a day for a week. Saturday night I take an ibuprofin, and sunday I go without coffee (or other stimulating beverages) completely. No withdrawls.
Besides the fact that I'm incredibly poor and have a tendency to run out of coffee at the worst times, this is a habit I picked up when I was working 80 hour weeks. It had the added benefit of making the effects of my monday morning coffee all that much more stimulating. And of course, mondays were when I needed it the most.
The magic key to success here is to drink lots of water. The best habit I have is to keep a 1 liter bottle of water with me at all times. It helps a lot with caffeine withdrawls, but only if you start drinking the water well before you start getting headaches. (I'm talking days before hand)
Karma: 0 (But I wield a mean +10 Vorpal Apathy)
You fools addicted to caffine are weak! Weak I tell you!
Now excuse me while I go outside to have a smoke.
I had a stage where I was abusing caffeine. I would drink 5 or 6 mugs of strong filter coffee during office hours, and I would also make a coffee or two before bed, especially if I'd had a drink. So I would be wrecked every morning and need more stimulation to get going.
But after some health problems, I cut down. I don't enjoy my day as much with no coffee at all, and 1-2 coffees before mid-day seems to be tolerable, so my natural level is about 2 coffees before noon on average, with special dispensation for Friday and Saturday if I will be able to stay up as late as feels good, and then (and just as importantly) sleep in to make up.
Maybe absolutely zero coffee would be best taking the strict view, but, you know what, we'll still die anyway.
cold turkey worked for me when I was playing around with Atkins a bit - the first few days were pretty hellish, then everything was back to normal - energy levels were up consistently throughout the day.
:)
It stayed like that for several weeks...
Until I took a vacation to Vegas, had a few espresso drinks and got rehooked on it. Oh well. I suspect I'll be in and out of caffeine for the rest of my life. It's just so good.
Asprin should not be taken on an empty stomach. It should really be taken after meals (or food-like drinks). Paracetamol is better, but you had better minimise any alcohol intake as some paracetamol plus any alcohol inside a day is a problem for the liver.
See my journal, I write things there
Coffee and soda are nasty stuff, but there is nothing wrong with caffeine. You will feel coffee on a good long bike ride. Don't even try to slake your thirst with carbonated corn syrup. So the toxcity of these things is demonstrated. While you might not want a Penguin mint on a bike ride, it won't hurt your stomach or make you sick. I'm not sure why people villify caffeine. A search of JAMA articles turns up nothing harmful and the AMA family medicine guide only cautions against drinking multiple pots of coffee a day without saying why.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I understand wanting to cut back, but if drinking a moderate amount of caffiene a day will not cause any health problems for you, why give it up completely? It's not like crack. You can have a little each day and not risk your health.
I drink 1/2 a cup of coffee a day and a can of soda. Yes I get a headache after a day or so if I don't have any caffiene. But I figured I enjoy coffee and I enjoy the soda, so I'll live with the small amount of caffiene. I guess I also enjoy the little pick me up from the caffiene too.
Caffeine is one of 3 methylated xanthines, the others being theophylline and theobromine. Taking the others can serve to reduce withdrawal. Caffeine is the most addictive because it's the fastest acting of these, just as crack is the most addictive form of cocaine. You can find these chemicals in:
. asp?ID=356). You'll notice it says "(nor)adrenalin" instead of (nor)epinepherine. Same chemicals, outside or inside the blood/brain barrier. Yeah, caffeine gives you adrenalin.
1. Chocolate. It has 10% of the caffiene of coffee, but contains these other also. It also contains PEA, "an endogenous neuroamine, increases attention and activity in animals" (http://www.chocolate.org/pea.htm). PEA may be the most neglected and useful of the brain amines. Chocolate makes many people just feel better; this may be why.
2. Guarana: An "herbal" (actually the inside bark of a tree) that contains all 3 of the chemicals, caffeine least. However, it can become a substitute addiction, and it costs more than chocolate. There was a soda that had guarana, but only as a flavoring, not a "suppliment". Some "power drinks" have guarana, but can also have ephedrine, which is not a good thing.
3. Foods: Caffeine acts by increasing norepinepherine (NE) levels in the brain. Take it away and NE drops. This is the mechanism of addiction. Any foods high in phenylalanine or tyrosine are good dietary precursors to replace the NE the body isn't getting now that caffeine isn't forcing its production. High phenylalanine or tyrosine foods are typically your high-protein foods, meats and fishes, dairy products, whole oats and wheat. Here's a picture of the metabolic pathway involved (http://www.life-enhancement.com/article_template
Caffeine truly is addicting. However, it is one of the weakest addictions. It's easy to break and the withdrawals are not bad. Also, it can typically be used safely by those previously addicted, without necessarily causing re-addiction.
I am not a physician. But then I'm not prescribing anything, and what I offer as suggestions are not controlled substances. I am, however, a professional neuroscientist with a fair amount of experience in psychopharmacology, and prior to getting my doctorate, worked for several years as a licensed substance abuse counselor.
Me, I'd go for the chocolate. Whether I need it or not.
Q: Why is there no twelve step group for caffeine addiction?
A: I DON'T HAVE TIME TO WAIT AROUND FOR THAT.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
you sound like someone who's never had a cup of coffee in his life.
if yr a caffeine addict (as i am) you know that during withdrawal you are too debilitated to type let alone exerise.
now, i've quit coffee twice successfully in my life (and returned voluntarily and deliberately) and have developed a "formula":
good luck!
2 1337 4 u!
I had a similar caffine problem for many years after I started drinking coffee while in the Navy. About five years ago I was on a business trip and got samonella food poisoning during the trip. I barely made it home and was down for six days. Believe me, I had no desire for coffee during that time. After I recovered, I decided that since I hadn't had any coffee for almost a week, I would quit. It worked.
I realize I'm late to this topic, but I figured I'd post my two cents anyway... This is slashdot, afterall. =]
Roughly a year and a half ago I was drinking anywhere from 12 to 24 12 ounce cans of MD a *day*. I never had any problems going to sleep at night but I had major problems waking up the next morning. I never drank MD for the caffeine; I actually like the taste of it. It never seemed to give me 'more energy' after I drank a can. It never helped me 'think more clearly' after a can. I just liked the stuff.
As time went on, I was having more and more trouble waking up in the morning. I was at a point where I was waking up more tired than when I went to bed. It was getting to where I'd get up and be at work by 08:00 and home by 17:30. I'd usually fall asleep on the couch by 20:00 (after having eaten something for dinner) and wake up to my alarm the next day, still tired.
I finally went to see a doctor by that point and found that not only did I have mono (which explains the seemingly sudden tired feelings I had right after work, no matter how much MD I would drink), but the amount of caffeine I was taking in each day was preventing me from getting the REM sleep I needed, if I ever entered REM sleep mode at all (or so my doctor told me. It's all greek to me). Anyway, I just stopped drinking anything that had caffeine. I took any of the 12 packs of MD I had back to the store and exchanged it for Caffeine Free MD. I now drink that, and many other caffeine free soads that are on the market (Pepsi's Nu Grape, Orange Slice, etc).
I never suffered from any of the headaches I was told I would have. After only a week without caffeine, I was able to tell a difference in the morning when I woke up. I felt so much better. After all this time (about a year and a half, or so.. time flies so fast these days) I might have one or two sodas a week that have caffeine, but no more. I've never been a coffee or tea guy, so I never had to worry about either of those.
I don't know why I didn't suffer the headaches. Nor does my doctor. I guess I was just lucky. Dunno.
Guess I'm done rambling now.. Thanks for reading.. =]
bork bork bork!
Drinking that much coffee is not good for the body. I learned the hard way: wore out my adrenal system.
It's not so easy to quit as some people suggest.
First time I quit cold turkey, spent three days in bed with wracking headaches and no appetite for food. The headaches became less severe after three days, but my body was not yet at peace. Suffered unproductively for the better part of two weeks and then started drinking coffee again to get on with my life. But a lot less than before.
Another iteration of quiting and unquiting got me down to about two or three large cups a day.
Then I had a prescription medication that interacted badly with caffeine and I had to quit again. Still had the headaches for several days, but this time my life didn't stall completely. A month later I still couldn't function at full intensity, so I started drinking one cup each morning.
At one cup of moderately strong coffee, I can quit anytime without a headache. At 1.5 cups per day, missing a day is risky. At 2 cups per day, I'm fully addicted. It can vary over a wide range from one person to another.
After many hard fought battles, I figure it takes the best part of three months for the body to fully adjust to a different caffeince consumption level. People forget that coffee has hundreds of other alkaloids, not just caffeine. Decaf coffee affects cognitive structure (not in a good way) without causing the same vascular effects.
Now I stick to about one cup a day, the level where I know I'm not addicted. Can miss a day with only a little blah to deal with.
Tea never worked at all as a caffeine substitute for me, nor do any of the colas. It's not just the caffeine you have to live without.
The best trick I learned was to change my brewing methods.
First, use a high quality dark roast with intense flavour. Dark roast has less caffeine, because some of the caffeine is destroyed in the roaasting process. If the roast is good, I find I'm less tempted to cheat on the ratio.
Don't use a French press. I love the body of a French press, but it comes at the price of extracting in triplicate. I switched to drip, which was (un)depressing at first, but I got used to it.
Grind your own beans. Some roasts can be ground a lot finer without losing flavor or becoming bitter. A fine grind with a quick brew cycle will extract more flavour relative to the amount of caffeine. Don't ask me about the physics, I don't understand it either.
Brew in smaller batches. I used to use brew length as an indicator for the quality of a roast. If the roast can be extracted in a French press for more than four minutes without becoming nasty, the roast is really good. With a French press, the coffee tastes better if you pour from about ten inches above the top of the Bodum in a slow drizzle. I could never figure out why this worked, but then I learned that this is just enough time for the water temp. to drop below 200 degrees. Water right at the boiling point does something nasty to coffee beans. But, oh, I was saying don't use a French press only the memories are too good.
Even with a drip, the extraction cycle is important. The problem is that if the coffee tastes like crap, my first instinct is to fix the problem by tossing twice as many grounds in the filter basket.
Drip coffee makers don't scale: the length of the extraction cycle varies with the amount of water processed. Shorter extraction cycles are better for getting good coffee with less caffeine.
For my small Braun drip, anything over half a pot creates difficulties with balance. I drew a black line at the fill level which produces an optimum exrtraction cycle: it works out to two 10 ounce cups.
Even with the black line, I had a constant battle with an expanding miniscus. Some days I could make that miniscus so large, I could squeeze an entire third mug out of the deal.
The stroke of genius was to throw the caraffe away. Now I brew my coffee
For example:
"How do I foo?"
"Ask the foo mailing list, or hire a foo consultant, you moron!"
There are no trolls. There are no trees out here.
Oxygen is a poison. Acetone (which is one of the first in line on the "bad things in cigarettes" ads) is naturally produced in plants which we eat regularly. But people see acetone and think paint thinner. There are genuinly bad things in cigarettes. Acetone isn't really one of them. But the ones that are really bad no one recognizes.
Natually occuring tobacco is much healthier (relativly speaking) before the cigarette manufacturers get to it.
Like all things you need to know the limits. It's not what you eat or drink that matters but how much.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Rather than switching to decaf, I'd recommend switching to black tea. Tea contains a special chemical (the name illudes me at the moment) that slows the absorbtion of caffiene into your system. This is why tea gives a long, mellow stimulant effect, and coffee gives a strong buzz followed by a "down" period.
Worst case just quit and deal with the side effects. Headaches and irratability are pretty tollerable considering the withdrawls from other substances (opiates, for example: muscle spasms, stomach cramps, projectile vomiting, dilusions, loss of bowel control...)
Chances are you're more psychologically addicted than physically -- though this is nothing to laugh at, as psychological addiction is what keeps heroin users coming back (after they've de-toxed). However, realizing that it's all in your head is a great step towards ignoring cravings of addictive substance/activity.
> There's plenty of advice out there for dealing /. users have managed and controlled their
> with addiction, but I'm really interested in how
> other
> own caffeine intake...
I had to give up a 10 cup a day habit last spring for health reasons. I tapered off over three days. I had a few minor headaches, but nothing serious.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Most problems like that come from too high standards - or even just having standards. Just stop saying "no" to that nice 400lb borderline retarded girl. JUST STOP IT!
Everything will be taken away from you.
since I am a doctor, and have a caffeine addiction of my own. Like many geeks, I've come to love that particular methyl-xanthine, and have a weaknesses for it (a hankering for mountain dew, to be specific).
There's no easy way to go off caffeine... there's no magic, or I can assure you I'd use it on myself. I've found the gradual wean to be the best route (speaking only for myself, of course).
Mostly, I live with my caffeine habit. It comes from years of working night shift, and it helps me to function and take better care of patients. If it helps you, and you're not going nuts with it, why not keep using it? It's really a fairly harmless drug in moderate doses (DO NOT take too much... I've treated caffeine-induced illnesses including supra-ventricular tachycardias, seizures, etc, in my ER... even sent a few to the ICU... moderation is key). Women seem to have more problems with caffeine, primarily related to fibrocystic disease of the breast. We sometimes use caffeine theraputically... post-lumbar-puncture headaches, and migraines are often curable with caffeine. Feel a migraine coming on? Try slamming a 20oz dew; patients have reported success with that trick. Again, YMMV.
So anyway, that's the extent of my caffeine knowledge, free for the digesting.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
It's not specific to cola.
In Canada, fruit flavoured juices are not allowed to have caffine added.
On the other hand, vegetable flavoured juices are. Thus cola's (flavoured from the cola nut, which is, apprently, a vegtable), and Irn-Bru (ordiginally a Scottish concoction, various vegetables) are avaialble caffineated.
Mountain Dew is the only well known fruit flavoured normally caffineated soda. (Well, I've never seen any others, and I'm a label reader to a freakish extent).
Then I worked from home one day and was out of both sugar and milk (yes, I'm a wuss). Meant to go out. 1.5 blocks to my coffee shop, back when they were manned by cool people with good music who made a decent wage. Never got there.
Spent from 4:30 on in bed with the shades drawn and a headache and "extreme stomach discomfort". (this is a family site.) Decided enough was enough. Got some mountain dew to at least ween off it. (I was drinking 4-5 espresso's/day).
I now generally stop drinkiing it in July. I get righteous and mock my friends who need coffee. But then, Aug 1, I make a tripple dose latte and enjoy that rush that's been missing for a year. Woo Hoo! That's the payoff
So:
Reduce intake - duh. Unlike cigarettes, you don't have CRAVINGS for coffee. You have a headache and feel like crap - for a day.
Drink water (not soda, not beer, just plain water). it's good for you in general. I keep a nalgene bottle by my desk. It hydrates you.
Caffeine opens blood vessels. Drink water, pop a couple asprins.
When you really cut off, do it on a wasted saturday (rainy, useless, no thinking needs).
A Week!? I suppose if you drink 8-10 cups a day. On the other hand, cut back first. My boss switched to decaf in the afternoon. Then started cutting his post-10 AM coffees with half decaf. Ended up with 2 cups of caffeinated per day.
A day is quite reasonable cause you'll be fuzzy and might feel like crap. And suck it up, this ain't morphine or nicotine. It's freaking coffee. If you're addiction is soda, then it's about sugar.
Oh, if you're in Europe (france, italy), the above applies less. My french friends mock american coffee. They make me coffee and pass me a glass of water to dilute it to "american strength". (I just dump 2-3 sugars in instead).
I swear french coffee is:
- Make 2 espressos.
- change the grounds
- dump the 2 espresso's back into the machine through the fresh grounds.
No needle? Use a cup to injest it.Drink less of it
Drink more water.
Repeat until no caf.
The problem with water filters is that, while they do filter out anything which might taste a bit odd to you, they actually remove a number of helpful things from the water, which are added by your local water department (e.g. vitamin B, and fluorine, the dental benefits of which are substantial and documented), and some things which aren't (the amount of iron accumulated in processing and pipes is well within the range of useful to your body). Other sediment picked up along the way isn't particularly harmful either, although it does nothing for you.
So really, if you drank nothing but fresh and clean, pure water from day one, you'd have awful and horrible teeth. Ask your local dentist about the benefits of fluoridized water if you don't believe me.
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
I get up first in the morning and make the coffee. She asked me to get her off of caffeine without the headaches, and I did it. It took about three weeks.
I simply mixed decaf beans in with the "leaded" beans gradually over time until they were 100% decaf. Like I said, I did it over about three weeks, maybe 80:20 for 5 days, 60:40 for 5 days, etc. The day I told her she was completely decaffeinated, she was surprised. No headaches, no side effects.
Please don't flame me immediately and gripe how this is so stupid. I'm just going to propose something that really isn't scientifically based...just based soley on observations of people I know who complain that they must be addicted to caffeine. So, just take it for what its worth, and if it is nothing to you...then no worries.
Now that the disclaimer is there, what I wonder is if there is really such a thing as caffeine addiction at all...at least not with the caffeine consumption level that the grand majority of people have?
Someone else must of shown this already in a post, but from poking around other caffeine content studies I found that the following drinks (in ounces) have the amount of caffeine (in milligrams) in them listed after the drink:
I put the "~" or approximately in there just because some brew tea weaker or stronger depending on what they like. Same with coffee.
But what that means is that the 16 ounce glass of coffee I buy from my local coffee shop in the morning has approx. 330mg of caffeine in it...assuming that I drink the whole cup. That is like drinking SIX cans of Mountain Dew, except for one thing......no sugar.
The USDA recommends that the average person have no more than 10 TEASPOONS of sugar PER DAY (40 grams). But look at the sugar content in these drinks and food items:
So by drinking ONE 12oz CAN of Mountain Dew you exceed the USDA's recommendation by 1.5 teaspoons of sugar. Most people that I know who drink soda generally have two 12oz cans or even two 16oz plastic bottles of soda per day. Or others even have those 24oz "refill" cups.
Now for me, even though I have ~330-660mg of caffeine in my one or two 16oz cups of coffee each day...I can easily take a weekend off without coffee and suffer absolutely zero side effects. Now...this wouldn't be the case for my mother, as an example, who drinks FAR more coffee per day than I do. She drip-brews fresh ground coffee all day long...so she might have 32-64oz EVERY day, and she does get headaches if she goes without, unlike myself with my intake.
So, what I'm suggesting is that most people who claim they are caffeine addicted are more likely addicted to the sugars they get with their soda, or the sugars that they get with their "treat" they have with their coffee, since the body can become addicted to sugars as well far more easily than caffeine.
Thoughts?
Disclaimer: I'm an ER doc, and I treat several migraine patients a day.
The origin of migraines is incompletely understood, and the vascular theory is only one of the hypotheses that are used to explain the origin of migraines. In addition to the vascular theory, some evidence points to serotonin and dopamine receptor involvement... the truth of the matter is that nobody knows.
However, that said, read this thread and you'll understand why an entire industry has grown up around migraine treatment... everyone's are different. There are entire clinics and centers that do nothing but treat migraines... do an internet search and you'll find some. There are neurologists out there who make a good living treating nothing but migraines.
If you read the list of medications that are used to treat migraines, it reads like a pharmacy inventory... everything from cardiac medications to anti-seizure medications, sedatives, steroids, anesthetics, narcotics, anti-psychotics, and everything inbetween. If a person has migraines long enough, they eventually find out something that works for them, primarily through trial and error... once you go through the common drugs with no relief, there's almost no other way to find a treatment for refractory migraines.
For my own part, I've found one thing that almost universally relieves migraines: sleep. Sometimes the treatment of a particularly severe migraine involves nothing short of knocking a person out with drugs so that they can go home and sleep it off.
Back on topic, however... caffeine is an effective treatment for migraines, particularly in the early phase of the headache. Keep in mind, however, that one man's meat is invariably another man's poison: caffeine relieves migraines in most people, but causes them in others.
All I can say is know your triggers, avoid them, and treat EARLY.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Yup. After pretty much living on Pepsi and then Coke for my high school and college years (though I was never a coffee drinker), I stopped cold turkey in January 1992. I had a headache -- constant, low-level, not piercing -- until that April. Then my head was fine.
What amazed me most was that my digestion improved dramatically. After about a month, I realized with great surprise that my whole food tube worked smoother than ever; my colon had been virtually tied in a knot for years. This may seem excessively prosaic, but believe me, well-working innards are an unfathomable blessing.
A couple of years ago, in my usual post-prandial sleepyheadedness, I decided to try a Frappuccino. BAM! I was awake! I was mentally productive! I was ON! And, very shortly, my abdomen was vaguely crampy and bound-up. I tried it again the next day: The mental effect was far less pronounced, but the digestive malaise was back in full force. That was the last experiment I needed.
After quitting, I did have a more pronounced fuzz in my head in the morning, much harder to shake off. But I've found that an all-night decongestant removes that and lets me bounce easily out of bed in the morning -- it seems to be breathing-related, not a matter of caffeination (though the two may be linked somehow; IANAMD).
It's hell for a while, but if you stick with it, you may find that quitting caffeine (and paying separate attention to your other problems) makes you a lot healthier in the long run. Did for me.
Summary: I kicked the caffeine addiction. The lack of caffeine had me sleeping incredible amounts of time during the withdrawal. Tylenol kept me functional for the months of headaches. I substituted other drinks with varying degrees of success until water became my main drink.
---
I was a major caffeine addict. I sometimes drank a few pots of coffee at night, but my major addiction was to Pepsi. I drank at least a gallon of Pepsi each day for 8 years, and sometimes finished 4 2-liter bottles in one day. Sometimes I drank Jolt instead, but still in large quantities. I usually slept about 2 hours per day, with a crash for 12 hours of sleep once a fortnight.
Pepsi destroyed my stomach. I did not have an ulcer, but I did have constant acid reflux. This may also have become a problem because before the support job, I rarely had to speak much. As phone support, I was talking for 10 hours per day. The new pattern of my mouth constantly moving may have caused my stomach to believe that food was coming, and I rarely ate while doing support. (Anybody doing phone support should have some kind of snack to keep the stomach happy. If you are over-weight, make the snack something like Pirate's Booty that has no value except to give your stomach something to work on.)
I was transferring from support to administration. My first day as an administrator would not be for 2 months, but I definitely had the job, so I was not worried about my performance in support. It seemed the perfect opportunity to kick the addiction.
I first switched from Pepsi to Mountain Dew, thinking that the lemon-lime drinks had less caffeine. (You can laugh now.) After reading the label and realizing my mistake, I switched to Gatorade. No caffeine, but tons of sugar to match the Pepsi.
I slept 10 hours every day during withdrawal, and woke up still tired. I had headaches for the first time in my life. I learned the joys of Tylenol, which was necessary so I could think while learning my new job.
Withdrawal lasted almost 3 months. After the first 2 months, the sleep I required started to reduce until by 6 months I was sleeping 4 hours a day, which is what I needed before the addiction.
After about a year, I switched from Gatorade to Sprite. That lasted another year, then I switched to water. I actually overdosed on water. The lack of sugar meant that my tastebuds did not recognize that I was drinking, so I was constantly thirsty. After pouring about 4 gallons of water through my system in 5 hours, my throat was stripped (and I was sick of running to the bathroom every 20 minutes.) I had to alternate Sprite and water for a week. Then I managed to stay with water with an occasional Sprite until this April, when Tropical Sprite (sold under the silly name "Sprite Remix") was released. I really like it, and it became my primary non-alcoholic drink for the Summer, after which I switched back to water.
---
After-effects:
If I have any caffeine, I feel it immediately. About half an hour afterwards, I crash; it becomes almost impossible to stay awake. I will not drive a car for the hour after I have caffeine. (This happens because many restaurants have awful-tasting water and do not serve alcohol or Sprite, so I try the root beer. Waitresses usually insist it is not caffeinated, but they are often wrong.)
---
The parent post's advice seems good. I wish I had read it before my attempt. One week was not enough for my withdrawal, but YMMV.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
When i stoped drinking all caffine and switched to water. I was drinking a pitcher of water atleast every day and I still had a 3 day headache. I find it hard to accept that that headache was caused by lack of hydration and not by quitting drinking all caffine containing drinks.
I had a bit of a wise word from an old work colleague concerning addiction to caffeine, among other things.
He said that if you get really sick, you can quit almost anything you're addicted to.
So, follow the advice above by tapering off to a point that you are confortable with. Then, the next time you get really sick, decide to go cold turkey and not pick up the habit again.
I got kidney stones, partly from drinking 6-8 Cokes a day (full of caffeine, carbonated water, and sugar -- lots of diuretics), and partly from not drinking enough water. I spent three days in the hospital for that one. After that, I really dropped off the Cokes and increased my water intake.
The only other time I got a kidney stone was just before I finally decided to really cut back on caffeine. Fortunately, I didn't have to go to the ER with this one....
I'll tell you that caffeine withdrawal doesn't begin to compare with kidney stones!!!
So, scale back now, and quit the next time you get really sick....
I now drink Coke ONCE a month.... (I never liked coffee or tea, though.) I may drink a hot chocolate once or twice a month during the fall/winter months. I occasionally eat chocolate. I drink lots of water, instead.
I don't get kidney stones any more, either....
From http://www.cdc-cdh.edu/hospital/cardio/art44.html
Now before folks call me alarmist, this is not true of everybody. I happen to be someone with a very high sensitivity to caffeine, and one of my brothers has this too, though interestingly neither of my parents do. I discovered how sensitive I was to caffeine after it put me in the cardiac wing of a hospital for a day and a half with an atrial fibrillation, even though I am fit and don't smoke.
That experience has left me thinking that people are awfully blasee about using what can be a very strong stimulant for people with certain biochemistry. So let me add that to all the other excellent advice about getting used to drinking water.
One other thought:
If you don't have hypertension, you might try snacking on sunflower seeds periodically. The salt gives you a wicked urge to drink water, and the seeds take enough work to crack that you don't really go through that many calories.
You've never been addicted to caffine have you?
I would get headaches, irratablity, muscle spasms, and stomach cramps. I would also feel just plane drained and I felt like I had not energy what so ever. This was if I didn't drink any caffine for the day. A can of pop would clear them up in about 5 minutes or so.
The way I got off it was just go cold turkey. Be sure to drink lots of water, and juice also helps. In about a week your body should have all the caffine flushed out of it and any withdrawls should be completely gone.
An interesting side effect I had way that after about 6 months of no caffine just drinking a can of Pepsi gave me a major buzz. I'm not currently living caffine free but my intake is down to one 20oz a day with lunch, any maybe a glass or two with dinner when I go out to eat once or twice a week.
This is one of those damned interventions I've read about. GET AWAY FROM ME...I can handle it...it's not a problem, I don't want to stop...NOOOOO GIVE IT BACK...GIVE US BACK OUR PRECIOUS SODA...it's ours and ......WE....wants it!!!!!!!
Possibly, the stupidest statement I've ever read on Slashdot. If you can't see why, then, well, wow.
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
I recognize that I'm not everyone, but I kicked Coffee last week and only had mild headaches that were easily managed by hydration and NSAIDS (aspirin, acetominophin). I was a fairly heavy coffee drinker, but probably not as bad as many here, consuming 4-6 strong cups a day.
I gave it up because I thought it was contributing to my IBS after reading an article on self-care for IBS. Stopping the coffee has helped a lot. I still get some caffeine in sodas, but I typically choose non-caffeinated drinks now, and the problems have greatly alleviated.
Look, I know how condescending it can seem to be told that "it's all in your head", but if you admit the possibility that it just might be and apply a positive attitude you might find you'll have an easy time of giving up coffee. Just have some aspirin handy, get plenty of water to drink and try to increase your exercise level and you should do fine.
Ahh.. yes.. Back when I first got into caffeine overdosing. lol...
I would drink coffee for much the same reasons that people would drink alcohol - when depressed, down, sad, etc go out and drink.
When my girlfriend at the time dumped me, I headed straight to the coffee shop. Ordered "Walk the Plank". This is 24oz of concentrated espresso, as the sign on the coffee shop wall calls it. And then the added bonus to this, was throwing some ice in it, to cool it down to a palatable temperature. 15 minutes later, and 24 oz of espresso less, in my glass.. order another one. This one made it about half an hour on my table. Then I got up to drive home. Had to stop at a friend's house halfway between the coffee shop and my home, and explain that I was so wasted on caffeine that I couldn't drive. I fell asleep, almost immediatly when my head hit the pillow on the couch. I woke up, about 5 hours later, SO WIRED I COULDN'T FREAKING BELIEVE it, and was then awake for the next 52 hours continuously.
I try to keep my caffeine intake down to a bottle of Mt. Dew or so a day now.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
My younger brother used to visit me in college - he wasn't 21 yet and not in college himself. One time when he came up to visit, he ended up getting really shitfaced cause he thought he was gonna 'show us college boys how to drink.' His buddy ended up driving him home the next day, as he had one of those still-puking-the-next-evening hangovers. He had left his cigarettes in my dorm room and didn't have the stomach to venture out to buy more during his recovery. The next night, he thought about buying a pack, but felt it was as good a time as any to quit smoking.
:)
This is probably 9 yrs ago and he still doesn't smoke.
Might not be what you had in mind for getting 'sick', but it might be another more near-term method.
QUIT COLD TURKEY. I AM NOT KIDDING.
For years I had migraines which I eventually attributed to caffeine withdrawl. Sure, I could stave them off by taking more, but that would burn me out during the workday, and I would get a migraine every other night anyway.
So last July 4th weekend I decided I wasn't going to take this shit, that I had a life to live. I stopped all caffeine intake Wednesday night, and went through a painful Thursday. Friday was a continuous migraine. Saturday and Sunday were better, the funny thing is I actually got a final relapse migraine Monday night.
But Tuesday I felt great. And I have continued feeling great for 6 months. No more headaches, not a single migraine in these last 6 months.
The best thing about no caffeine is I don't feel burned out anymore, I have energy to work all day. You don't know how much energy you can have without caffeine because you're caught in the cycle.
As for consumption, yes I still consume a little caffeine here and there. Chocolate and the occasional caffinated soda are fine, even decaf coffee. You just have to keep it reasonable to avoid the cycle.
If you want out, all it takes is a little willpower. I would suggest LOTS of water and asprin as well the first week.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
If your main source of caffeine is soda, then you really haven't dealt with serious caffeine withdrawal unless you were drinking a few litres a day. I was up to almost a gram a day at my worst last year... just for reference, soda is generally 35-45 mg per serving (55 for mt. dew). So that's maybe 20 servings of soda, assuming a good mix of mt. dew and coke products.
I of course used much more potent forms of caffeine... coffee, tea in large quantities, and of course candies, gums, mints (TONS of penguin mints... I bought them by the case every month or so), and I even showered with caffeinated soap from thinkgeek...
I've been addicted to Caffiene since I was a kid. Last March I got a very bad case of the Flu, so for a week, I was miserable. I spent all my time in bed or on the couch, and drank nothing but orange juice and water. Sometime during the week I developed a severe headache, but attributed it to my fever. At the end of the week, I was feeling fine. I also realized that I'd gone 6 or 7 days with no form of caffiene being introduced to my system. All of the withdrawal symptoms from not having the caffiene were swamped in with the flu, so I never noticed them, other than the headache.
So my advice to you is this: Next time you end up sick, take the opportunity to drink nothing but water and fruit juices. After you get well, continue drinking nothing but water and fruit juices. Bingo! No more caffiene.
Russ Kick refrences this book.
I can't find the book online, but this is pretty much what it covers. Let's just say the "Cancer Gambit" doesn't pay.
I started drinking coffee when I was 12. Twenty years ago I was a Jr. engineer writing embedded firmware. I used to head to the coffee machine 3-4 times per day. Some mornings I would look at the code I wrote the afternoon before and see obvious mistakes. I was really buzzed. I started getting headaches on weekends because I never drank coffee at home. After slowly increasing my daily dosage over time, the weekend withdrawls got worse. I decided to give it up completely (a very hard thing to do considering all the foods which contain caffeine). I went cold turkey and had cold/flu symptoms for a few days. After withdrawl, I felt weak, empty, and strange. I had become so used to the caffeine buzz that I felt strange when I was sober.
A few weeks went by and I began to fall off the wagon. I could justify just one cup to myself. After all, everybody else does it and it's no big deal. This must be similar to alcoholisim. To make a long story short, I went "cold turkey" 3 times and each time, the withdrawl symtoms were worse. The last time I had cold sweats, vomiting, shakes, the whole works. That last time was awful enough to convince me to never do it again. I haven't had a cup of (caffeinated) coffee for 20 years. I never drink soft drinks. The thing I miss the most is iced tea.
My advice to you is to stop cold turkey. It will be ugly and you will remember the ugliness. It may help you to stay off the stuff.
Good Luck.
As for colitis, doctors aren't sure what aspect of cigarette smoke controls it, but straight nicotine doesn't seem to have the same effect as smoking one or two cigarettes per day. Having had colitis, I can tell you that many people suffering from it would be willing to try anything -- even taking up a 2 cigs per day "habit." I eventually had to have my colon removed, so I don't have an excuse for smoking anymore.
Heheh... Yup. Something in cigarettes is an excellent laxative. It's probably the body detecting the hydrogen cyanide, realizing that shutdown is probably imminent, and deciding to get some of the shutdown tasks (like releasing the sphincter) done before it has to do the really time-consuming jobs like rigor mortis.
Each puff of a cigarette must be kind of like jerking a computer around by starting a shutdown and cancelling it...
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
It's fucking COFFEE and SODA. Yeah, yeah, yeah your body gets addicted to the norepinephrine stimulus, blah blah blah--you know what? It's fucking coffee.
Grow the fuck up, take a fucking painkiller, and quit bitching. Let's see you kick an alcohol or smack addiction, buddy. Holy fucking christ, I have never seen a bigger bunch of pretentious, poor-me fucking white collar idiots who need some sort of crutch 'cuz its chic to have vices.
You know what? You're an asshole for even comparing this fucking "addiction" to a real one. Documented, or not, it's probably the simplest fucking drug to get off--so just tough it the fuck out.
Tea is actually a really good way to wean yourself from caffeine if cold turkey isn't working for you. Tea comes in MANY varieties, and has different amounts of caffeine for each (do a little research). You can find some that are nearly as high in caffeine per cup as coffee, and others as low as 1mg per cup.
Find some types that you really *enjoy* the flavor of, and then order them from highest caffeine to lowest. Figure out a schedule and work your way down accordingly.
Not only did this work for me, but there are a lot of other benefits to drinking tea or green tea.
I quit caffeine about 5 years ago. I have recently started again but in much smaller doses. When I quit I was drinking two 2-liters a day. Most miserable two weeks I ever had. But I just quit. Took vitamin C, and B to try to help. Worked to some degree. But a steady dose of aspirin did the trick.
I quit caffiene cold turkey and I used to drink a two liter or 2 a day.
What helped me quit was sheer desperation, realizing that I had to if I wanted to continue programming, I HAD to quit. I had tendenitus and the worst it ever got was that it hurt to walk because of the vibrations in my hands. At a health food store, I was told that I should quit caffiene and I was like, "Yah, like that's going to happen".
Later I realized that I could type an hour before the pain started to get bad. After lunch, even with an hour rest, I could only type 15 minutes before pain. So what happened at lunch? A huge soda... I quit cold turkey right after.
After years, I will drink caffiene occasionally, but if I drink too much I can start to feel a little pain. That joint stuff Glucosamine Chondroitin seems to help in those situations, but to this day I have to be careful. It's still better than some people who've had to get operations to avoid carpal tunnel.
If your hands hurt, I highly recommend you cut caffiene cold turkey, use Glucosamine Chondroitin and read How to treat carpul tunnel naturally.
Paul
Cut the sugar first.
Your symptoms indicate that your also addicted to sugar. (Especially that 'pain in the ass' part - know that myself)
From what I understand you get you fix by drinking 'saturated sugar solutions' (Mountain Dew (eeeugh!) etc.) with added caffeine.
I'd suggest you deal with that sugar first. When you can go for a week without sugar, caffein will be the easy part, I'd guess.
And don't drink the crappy coffee. Buy the fair trade stuff that passes the extra money straight to the bean farmers in south america. Three pluses: You get better coffee (the quality differences are substancial), the coffee farmers don't have to live in de-facto slavery and you pay a little more for your fix, so you'll probably cut down on it in the long run anyway.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The best way I found to get over any addiction is gradual way.
...
Step 1: Record when and how much you drink/smoke/etc. over a months time.
Step 2: Analysis the data. And make a schedule of when you do most commonly do your addiction.
Step 3: Follow the schedule religiously for a couple of weeks so you get use to it.
Step 4: Once you use to this schedule and it feel comfortable. Then your spread the time between each drink say 1/2 hour or 15 minutes. (Or what ever you can bare)
Step 5: Follow this new schedule until it feel comfortable.
Step 6: Give an extra week of the schedule
Step 7: Repeat Step 4, 5, and 6 until you are drinking once a day
Step 8: Now work on lowering the dosage of caffeine on that cup (Like drinking a 3/4 of a cup or making the coffee a little weaker)
Step 9: Use the lower dosage until you feel comfortable with it.
Step 10: Repeat step 8 and 9 until you not drinking at all.
Step 11: Profit (From saved money from drinking water except for caffeine. (Optional)
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I just got out of college, and was rather addicted myself (I would usually opt for the 2 liter bottles of pepsi or dew instead of 20 oz, but would drink them in a day anyway). I decided for my health that it would be best to cut caffeine from my diet. I started out by only cutting soda, as that was the majority of my intake, I would replace it by drinking huge amounts of water (be ready to go use the restroom every 30 minutes at first). I'm pretty sure that the water helped me get around the worst of the headaches. I am now to the point where I'll have a pop at lunch, and if I'm ever wanting something to drink, I'll usually go for tea or juice, just make sure you have alternatives to pop, and it's a good start.
My Sig Beat up your Honor Roll Sig
Okay, the correct answer is "go cold turkey", because switching to tea will still give you some of the withdrawal symptoms -- coffee is really, really nasty stuff, even decaf. But anyhow, tea will provide a good substitute, a good habit-filler, and is apparently not addictive (although anything will become a habit if you do it enough).
You'll ingest a fraction of the caffeine, you'll get less of the other nasty stuff that's in coffee (caffeine isn't the only 'upper' in coffee), and you'll get some positive benefits -- antioxidants, tooth decay slowing, bad breath reduction, and so on.
-Billy
I was tired and had a headache for a few days, but it didn't matter because I was just lying on the beach all the time :) By the time the holiday was over, I didn't have any craving for caffeine, and I've been on the decaf ever since.
The symptoms you described are due to your body not being able anymore to deal with the drug. They are the forerunners of more serious problems. The solution is not to increase the consumption, not to stay at same levels, not even to just decrease it, but to quit altogether. I am not a doctor, so take my advice with a grain of salt.
:-) To rehash, the key ingredients were: calm, peace of mind (no guilt, no agitation due to "ohmygod i'm an addict and i'm f***ed"), persistence, reiterating the decision as many times as necessary. Oh, and time. Lots of time and patience.
I used to drink a lot of coffee some years ago, up to ten cups a day maybe. My hands started to shake, and quite often i would get almost drunk because of caffeine (it's strange but real: past a certain threshold, caffeine makes you "drugged" pretty much like alcohol).
My method of getting rid of the nasty habit was a silent yet firm resolution to gradually push it out of the system. I just started to think (well, actually "feel" not think in the intellectual/logical sense) calmly, even-mindedly but persistently that i must stop it.
I didn't feel guilty or anything when drinking an occasional cup, i just rehashed my resolution. As an aid, or temporary "crutch" of sorts, because i actually like the taste of coffee i started to replace "real" coffee with decaf. Temporarily, i used to drink cola or stuff like that if i really craved for caffeine; after a while, i started to avoid even those things and drink non-caffeinated cola (all major brands offer non-caffeinated versions, at least in USA). The problem with cola is that the sugar can ruin your teeth (yes, i used to drink a lot!) and overall it's not one of the healthiest things to ingest. The "diet" versions (sugar replaced by artificial sweeteners) are even worse. Again, i am not a doctor, these are just my uneducated guesses.
The gradual changes that i described are not something that i planned. The only thing that mattered was the calm yet stubborn resolution. All else emerged from that without me intending it in an organized fashion - they were just things that became obvious by themselves, as time passed by.
I guess i was only more stubborn than the habit.
It took me a year, maybe two, to make it disappear. I can't tell when was the precise date when the habit died, because there was no such date. Rather, it withered out like a plant lacking water.
Nowadays there is no craving at all. I still like the taste of coffee, but i drink the occasional decaf instead. Actually, i developed quite an addiction for... decaf vanilla white mocha! Translation for those unaware of this typical article in american coffee shops: this is something you could pretty much safely feed to a little child (except that you don't want a child getting addicted to the taste of coffee-based drinks at a young age), because it's decaf coffee, cocoa, milk, vanilla, sugar and whipped cream... mmmm... tasty... But that's a harmless addiction, i'd reckon, at least for an underweight like me.
I can even safely drink now "normal" coffee, if i'm extremely tired and bored, i have no energy to summon up my strength by sheer will power, but i have a difficult and important task to deal with which is worth the damage. I also accept a coffee when it's offered to me, and i do that only as a social thing, if i feel that a flat out refusal would not be appropriate for the situation. But i do that perhaps once a year, or maybe not even that often. Anyway there is no tendency of the addiction to get back, it's like it vanished altogether.
And actually, i don't even get the normal jolt from caffeine anymore; if i drink the occasional caffeinated cola, there is only a small perceivable effect on my state of mind, and if i drink a big strong coffee i actually feel uncomfortable and edgy (there must be some pretty strong self-suggestion that i injected into my brain while quitting if even the perception of the physical effects changed).
My personal opinion is that caffeine doesn't a