I’m an addict and am lucky enough to have ditched smoking (many years ago) and alcohol (about 2.5 years ago) it was a battle and I still have to put a fair amount effort into the resisting alcohol…
I don’t think many people take this seriously but I have developed a very unhealthy relationship with caffeine. I drink so much coffee and it gives me crashes during the day where I actually need to sleep from it
Coffee is never going to ruin my life the same way as alcohol could, however I feel like I’ve been here before and I may need to quit it completely.
Have any of you had this experience? Are there moderation successes? Or do I have to look at this as another all or nothing?? Has anyone managed to just have tea, and quit coffee?? Or is it everything caffeinated?
I don’t want to have to cut it out completely, bit it feels like my consumption is out of control.
Honestly aside from heavy alcoholic consumption and smoking heavy, I’ve always been a heavy caffeine user since I was about 12 years old. It personally has never bugged me and I may consume a lot of it, but I don’t get the side effects or withdrawals people talk about from caffeine. I have even gotten caffeine high before but to me it’s just feeling more awake and alert. I personally always have enjoyed caffeine and never found it an issue in my life like drinking and smoking. I’m aware of the side effects to health but the way I look at it is I need at least something . I’ve gone weeks and months without caffeine and I’ve been perfectly fine to be honest…so I’d say if you find it’s a viscous cycle in your life do what’s best for you.
Also if you wanna drink something that’s not caffeinated herbal tea is the best. When I got stomach lining damage from alcohol consumption at age 21 about I used to just drink tea , but tea can get you just as wired as coffee if you drink enough.
Caffeine has become a problem for me. After I got sober, I also quit Caffeine; that lasted about 6 months, after I started working again, I started with the morning coffee and it’s progressed from there.
It’s not ruining my life per se, but it does control me.
If I don’t have it I am sluggish and tired - impacts my work performance and household chores.
If I go too long without it, I get headaches and it affects my mood. I become aggitated and short tempered.
I sometimes go out of my way to get Caffeine. Sometimes I put my needs before my families so that I don’t go into withdrawals.
Like I said, it’s not life ruining and probably wont be, but it definitely is not how I want to live. Quitting cold turkey is difficult because the headache is almost unbearable and cane last days to weeks. To make matters worse, some headache medicine has large amounts of caffeine . Tapering is just as difficult because… addiction.
I’d like to quit, and if you’d like to quit, maybe we can quit together?
I’ve never actually tried to quit it yet, so have yet to experience the headache.
How shall we go about this then, if we’re trying it? Accountability to each other? Can we set rules, or is it straight up cold turkey (gulp).
I guess I was hoping to hear a load of success stories about moderation, but shouldn’t be surprised because moderation never worked with anything else I was addicted to
Caffeine and I have had an on again off again relationship lol When i stopped using drugs, my coffee intake increased dramatically. I have always loved coffee so i didnt think much of it until i noticed it not doing what it normally does for me (energizes me and keeps me alert). My tolerance for caffeine got wayyy too high and thats when i decided to cut back. I started drinking tea, but then realized that some teas can have the same amount of caffeine (if not more) than coffee. So i just decided to cut back dramatically. I will have a cup of coffee in the morning, my preworkout late morning (which has caffeine), and then thats it. I try not to drink coffee after lunch. And i notice by doing this, that caffeine does what it should and i dont have any bad side effects from it. I have thought about quitting it for good, but maybe down the road.
There are people who tried the tapering and the cold turkey. I have been in the cold turkey team and had different experiences which I report there. Started again drinking when I had major problems in sleeping at night (yeah, that is basically my problem, I cannot sleep anymore when completely off ).
Apparently some people also quit as I see them checking in with it.
My heart is caffeine sensitive so I had to give it up a long time ago. So maybe this advice is helpful, maybe not…
Try slowly tapering off . Mix a little decaf coffee with regular at first, slowly build to 50/50, eventually you might go total decaf. I still enjoy two cups of coffee every day, even iced coffee for dessert sometimes, but it’s decaf!
I stopped drinking iced coffee about a month ago. I’d make my own and would sometimes have 16 ounces a day. I often thought about it throughout the day. I used to get it every day at Dunkin Donuts, but it was very costly. I would suggest weaning off the coffee very slowly. If you stop drinking it all together, you’ll go through withdraw, possible headaches.
I would like to have a start date - partly because I have some stuff I gotta get through in the coming months, and partly because I JUST bought a fresh bag of coffee… pitiful I know. But perhaps we shoot for a date in September to quit? I wouldn’t mind tapering too, I feel confident peeling back a bit, just coffee for a bit, no energy drinks - then go from there?
. Tapering is just as difficult because… addiction.
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