Topic: Another step: Beating Caffeine Addiction

[SlateRDays]

Of all the things I've had the pleasure of testing the waters of, Caffeine happens to be a strong vice grip for me. I didn't get into weed, beer stirred up my acid reflux, and cigarettes I enjoyed for pleasure but had to give up when asthma came into the picture. For these things when it was time to stop. I could...stop. Then Starbucks came into the picture. My first taste was pleasurable, and I craved it a bit more. I found it to be a good compliment with my love for chocolate. As a few more years past I remember vowing to my doctor I was stop with drinking caffeine because it was affecting my nervous system and heart.

I stopped for maybe a month. Then the craving came back. It always started with a small piece of chocolate. One day...two days...etc. Then it became troublesome when I blew quite a bit on it. Then slowly coffee crept back in. The effects are very noticeable. Motor problems, racing mind, and then the depressive crash afterwards. It really didn't hit me till this year when I started to eliminate more subtle addictions with ease and then I hit the brick wall. "Hmm...I seem to can't stop drinking coffee...Now I know something is wrong."

The effects I get: Energy, a strange feeling of...status, the pleasure of the taste
Negative effects: Facial twitching, inability to control my arms and other various muscle contractions, elevated heart rate, then the usual effects of a crash( depression and end thoughts)

What cause the trouble with quitting? It's my reward for doing the best I can. It's a time to get the pleasure of something sweet since I started changing alot of my diet over the years. It's a sense of deserving. I quite drinking soda quite a long time ago, don't eat regular sweets often if at all, I exercise more, meditate and pretty much cut out a lot. So somewhere it says "ATLEAST keep this one thing!!" I've even tried to excuse this by upping my water to flush the coffee so it doesn't linger, but realistically things just don't work like that. And where I'm at now in this is finding some kind of way to just stop. To say no to this thing that craves these stimulants. Because if I keep going on like this my heart can get disturbed, I can run a high risk of diabetes, and my nervous system may try to unlock something latent that can affect me in the long run.

Anyone else here have this problem? I did notice an older post about this, but I did decide to make a newer one.

[DriftingCrow]

I love coffee and drink it maybe 5 days a week, but I don't get any negative effects like that. If I drink too much, my heart races a little but that's about it. I don't drink any sort of fancy coffees like Starbucks has, just plain ole coffee, black for me.

However, if you drink it because it's a sweet reward I have a great caffeine-free drink for you:

2 bags of Celestial Seasoning's Bengal Spice Tea (it's a caffeine-free version of Chai tea)
Handful of Ice Cubes
Sugar, honey, or agave, etc. to taste
1 cup of milk of choice

Brew the two bags in a cup of boiling water for 5 minutes. Place ice cubes in a tall glass.
After the tea is brewed, remove the bags and stir in your sweetener.
Slowly pour the hot tea over the ice cubes, just a wee bit at a time.
Add the milk.

Tea is a great substitute for coffee. It can still be made sweat sweet, and in a variety of ways so you'll never get bored.

[Devlyn]

I love coffee and drink it maybe 5 days a week, but I don't get any negative effects like that. If I drink too much, my heart races a little but that's about it.

However, if you drink it because it's a sweet reward I have a great caffeine-free drink for you:

2 bags of Celestial Seasoning's Bengal Spice Tea (it's a caffeine-free version of Chai tea)
Handful of Ice Cubes
Sugar, honey, or agave, etc. to taste
1 cup of milk of choice

Brew the two bags in a cup of boiling water for 5 minutes. Place ice cubes in a tall glass.
After the tea is brewed, remove the bags and stir in your sweetener.
Slowly pour the hot tea over the ice cubes, just a wee bit at a time.
Add the milk.

Tea is a great substitute for coffee. It can still be made sweat, and in a variety of ways so you'll never get bored.

Ewww, Henry!

[DriftingCrow]

Ew that is disgusting! 

[SlateRDays]

LOL

And I'm definitely working on substitutes. I'm interested in trying your suggestion. I will say when it comes to tea I don't like the taste, but the scent is wonderful. Jasmine tea was the first I chose when I tried to switch. Very bitter but nice and calming on the inside and pleasant scent on the outside. I was always wary of adding anything to tea in fear of it losing it's natural properties

[KabitTarah]

I've been thinking of cutting way back on coffee... but I can't bring myself to do it. The very definition of addiction - I feel it's the only true pleasure I have right now (well... in terms of food -- Susan's and the chat room are my primary mood enhancers).

[Miss_Bungle1991]

I never liked coffee. I would put so much milk and sugar in to to kill the bitter taste that it was pointless to drink it. As far as soda pop is concerned, I was drinking a lot (for me) at one point. I was never one of those types that drank it everyday but when I was ordering a lot of delivery food from pizza places I would buy one and then two 2 liters at once since I thought "well, it IS being delivered so why not?" Then I would drink them down in a day or two. I was beginning to gain more weight as a result of this so I stopped right there. It was actually pretty easy. Now, I might have a single 20 oz bottle or can of soda pop rarely or like when I bought my first 2 liter recently. It had been at least six months since I did that. I have no desire to go back to the previous patterns and I won't. But treating yourself sometime is nice.

[KabitTarah]

I never liked coffee. I would put so much milk and sugar in to to kill the bitter taste that it was pointless to drink it. As far as soda pop is concerned, I was drinking a lot (for me) at one point. I was never one of those types that drank it everyday but when I was ordering a lot of delivery food from pizza places I would buy one and then two 2 liters at once since I thought "well, it IS being delivered so why not?" Then I would drink them down in a day or two. I was beginning to gain more weight as a result of this so I stopped right there. It was actually pretty easy. Now, I might have a single 20 oz bottle or can of soda pop rarely or like when I bought my first 2 liter recently. It had been at least six months since I did that. I have no desire to go back to the previous patterns and I won't. But treating yourself sometime is nice.

That sounds like me. I was drinking about 3 L of diet coke a day. No... diet doesn't mean it helps with weight... as we found out 5-7 years ago in the news, fake sugars are almost as bad as regular sugars -- the sweet response just makes you want more food (or some such food science).

I cut fake sugars (other than Altoids Smalls) completely 5-7 years ago and have barely even had a sugared soda since then (and usually something GOOD like Ginger Beer... with dark rum).

Coffee and tea are my caffeinated downfall. I drink both black (though iced coffee must have a bit of milk).

[Miss_Bungle1991]

That sounds like me. I was drinking about 3 L of diet coke a day. No... diet doesn't mean it helps with weight... as we found out 5-7 years ago in the news, fake sugars are almost as bad as regular sugars -- the sweet response just makes you want more food (or some such food science).

I cut fake sugars (other than Altoids Smalls) completely 5-7 years ago and have barely even had a sugared soda since then (and usually something GOOD like Ginger Beer... with dark rum).

Coffee and tea are my caffeinated downfall. I drink both black (though iced coffee must have a bit of milk).

I never, ever drank anything that is diet and I stay away from sugar free and light stuff as well. The additives and chemicals that are used to replace the sugar are MUCH worse for you and I knew that from day one. I used to read up on this stuff in Jr High and High School (along with many other subjects. It beat doing my homework. ). So, I knew way before all of that <not allowed> came out in the media a long time later that this stuff was poison. I would try to explain that to people but no one believed me even when I would direct them to sources of this information. They would rather believe the television before any sort of actual facts. It's pretty sad.

[SlateRDays]

I definitely can't make a regular cup of coffee to save my life. I just default to the two sugars two cream ( wish they had the liquid kind) and would grit that down at the hospital.

Artificial sweeters of any kind are the enemy of my stomach. It's a very "sweet" taste that you can distinguish and then it gives you the rumbles. And I really avoided them when I discovered there are actually laxative properties to it. Nope no no.

It's amazing after you've stopped something and try to go back to it and it puts you off. That's what happened when I drank any soda. If push comes to shove a Canada Dry or Sprite is all I can handle. Everything else is fire engine hot.

I'd use coffee or chocolate in the far future as a reward (not both at the same time) once I can get control over the urges. It's the will power at this point

[xponentialshift]

I don't thing I had a chemical addiction to caffeine, more of an emotional addiction to Starbucks but I was drinking 8-20 espresso shots (in lattes) per day.
I haven't had any caffeine (except a few sips the second week of august) since the end of July 2013.
The method I used to stop was I spent three months cutting back on the sugar in my lattes. One less pump of hazelnut every 2 weeks or so until it was just soy milk and espresso. Once I got to that point I just stopped drinking them. It may have helped that I spent 2 weeks in the mountains away from electricity and cell phones and was too lazy to make my own coffee by hand.
I really think it was the sugar in Starbucks that I was addicted to... Not the caffeine.
Oh, I also ate a ton of fruit like raspberries as a reward for cutting back the sugar in my coffee.

If you do get sugar in your coffee you can try this method and maybe it'll make the transition to no caffeine a little easier.

[Hikari]

I have found the only thing that works for me is to taper off on things like this. I do what I like to call Food Control rather than a true diet, in that I write down the calories of what I eat, and also have a few rules about the sorts of things I can buy. Among them is a limit of one sweet carbonated beverage a day, and many times I don't even have that anymore. I also really only drink tea when I am not at work, and it isn't so easy to brew tea on the road, and the tea at truck stops sucks. Coffee is a starbucks only affair for me, and that gets economically limited.

Here is the thing though, at one point I was consuming like 5+ caffeinated beverages a day and I slowly whittled that down to an average of about 1 a day. I don't think I would have had to willpower to just cold turkey on it at all.

[JennyTG]

Coffee was difficult however little I did have, I did break free from it eventually though.  I've been addicted to junky potato chips for a long time and need to cut them out now.

~Jenny~

[Vicente]

I Can relate but cannot stop coffee because otherwise I get migraines. I used to not drink it and had it almost daily so I had to take analgesics for it. Coffee is a more natural approach and just limit to a full cup a day.

In your case, it could be coffee addiction OR sugar addiction. Also, it could be that it's neither and it's just the "rewardy" feeling your brain gets for getting it. I suggest finding out which it is first.

Try black tea with sugar instead of coffee. If you feel nice, maybe it's caffeine.
Try black tea without sugar (maybe a natural sweetener like stevia if it's available). If you feel bad, maybe it's the sugar.

Also suggest trying this with coffee too, and also trying decaffeinated options to see how you feel. I think the important part is to find out which one is so it's easier to think of a plan of action. Starbucks offer a coffee that is more of a full dessert from what I've seen, so testing this out with their coffee could be tricky since it's so much stuff on it.

Either way, once you know which one, cutting down gradually is the most important thing ever. Your body will react and going cold turkey doesn't usually works (it's only viable if there's a immediate danger, like me and a sudden, late life allergy to peanuts rip).

Hope you succeed!

[prudence]

From a strictly biological point of view, caffeine is an adenosine antagonist. When the caffeine molecules blockade adenosine, the excitories can run riot (dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine and norepinephrine). That feels good.

On regular intake our body will adjust itself by up regulating adenosine receptors and down regulating receptors for serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine and acetylcholine. That way it achieves homeostasis with the exogenous caffeine.

When you cease or reduce caffeine intake, the enzymes your liver pumps out metabolise the last remaining caffeine. And then all Hell breaks loose! The upregulated adenosine receptors welcome on board all the adenosine you can eat. And the excitories are all down regulated so, in the absence of caffeine to blockade the adenosine, you crash and burn. No energy, headaches, low mood, sleepiness, etc. You know the drill.

But the wonder of the human body will come to your rescue. Over the next 72 hours or so your body will down regulate the adenosine receptors and open up the excitories for business again and all will be well.

The moral of the story is: drinking coffee because it stops you feeling down is like wearing shoes that are too small because it feels so good when you take them off.