A year without caffeine (2013)

Part 2 (231 points, 124 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5017486

I also cycle off caffeine or taper the doses every few months when I am travelling.

My stomach is solid.

Does anyone know if the acidity is from coffee or caffeine itself?

I've been off of all forms of caffeine for about 40 years. I was thoroughly addicted to it, and in my 20's, I was drinking about six cups of coffee per day. It took me three tries to kick the habit, and the final time I quit (all cold turkey), I felt like a heroin addict (I assume). I had cold sweats, shakes, headache, and vomiting. I missed two days of work while recovering.

I'll never forget how awful I felt, and it's a constant reminder for me to never go back to caffeine. I make coffee for my wife every morning, and the smell is enticing, but I can easily resist. My wife is a zombie when she wakes up, and she really needs the coffee. She doesn't seem to have an issue with it, and usually has only one cup per day. Now when I wake up, I'm alert and ready to go.

Caffeine is difficult to avoid, and it's such a commonly used drug that most people do not give it a second thought.

Another interesting side effect I noticed while doing coffee was the poor quality of the code I had written on the previous day. I was doing embedded assembly (6809) at the time, and each morning, I would pick up where I left off and notice a ton of mistakes. It looked like I was high while I wrote the code. Under "normal" circumstances, my code is often error free, and requires minimal debug.

(Along the same lines, actually, I also made my palpitations much worse this year by dramatically improving my physical fitness. Turns out that slow heart rate for me means more palpitations. Heart rates above ~70 means almost no palpitations. Something about overdrive, but I am not an expert.)

So at least I don't have to give up my caffeine ;-)

I try to keep it to once or twice a week at most, and around lunch time, as I still like coffee. But this way you don't build a dependence.

This year I quit cold turkey and holy crap, night sweats, panic attacks, flu like symptoms for several days.

I adopted the perspective of treating it like a drug, and to use it for its benefits when appropriate.

Just this week, I decided to quit cold turkey, and drink nothing but water, and it has been eye opening. I didn't realize how much I depended on the drinks to get me through the day. But going just-water is definitely the only way I could have done this. Something about knowing I have nothing to look forward to besides water helps me just drink water, instead of waiting until I can find some energy drinks, and getting dehydrated in the process.

Not everyone is going to have as unhealthy relationship with caffeine as me, but I'm hoping my kidneys and gut will thank me. I know 22 year olds seldom suffer from heart attacks, but I'm not going to be 22 forever, so might as well start now.

In my penultimate year I was struggling under a huge lecture and lab workload, working at the weekends, and partying too.

I developed stomach pain and went to the campus doctor, who sent me off to A&E (ER) with suspected appendicitis. My appendix was fine, but the doctors thought I might have a stomach ulcer. I discharged myself early to get back to the library, so never actually got a diagnosis!

I was drinking 3-4 cups of coffee and ~500mL knock-off Red Bull a day, eating a poor diet, and then drinking alcohol in the evenings. I went cold turkey and spent an entire weekend in bed with the worst headache imaginable.

I think I managed a few months before cracking and getting back on coffee. I quit cold turkey again a couple of times but in recent years I titrated off of it by gradually changing ratio of caffeinated to decaffeinated beans in my coffee at home. I drink 1 - 2 small cups a day now.

Might give quitting a go again.

In April I tapered down to one espresso a day, and then half an espresso, and then finally nothing. I'm still drinking a _lot_ of decaf, which is helpful (although check your decaf, some is still caffeinated enough to not be worth the name).

Immediate symptoms from going to half an espresso to zero espressos a day was massive dysphoria and melancholy. Around week 4 I started Wellbutrin, which made it very hard to figure out my moods reliably until it had settled down. Around week 12, I was off caffeine and feeling like myself again except minus the anxiety.

I miss it. I have had, since then, I think 4 real espressos. It gives me a reliable energy boost, and makes me happy, but then 6-7 hours later, the anxiety I lived with most of my life is back until I nap, take a benzodiazepine, or wait it out 12 hours or so.

All this to say: if you have GAD, and still drink coffee, try not drinking coffee for a month, and see where you end up. I would describe myself as no longer having GAD, although I am still titrating down the (fairly effective) SSRI I was on to manage it.

I went a good 10-15 years without a drop of soda and I’ve never had coffee. The only caffeine I got would have been a little from chocolate, which was never eaten for the caffeine. More recently I’ll have the occasional soda, typically only if I’m sick. I’ll have a Dr Pepper.

Drinking it every day makes me a bit jittery and anxious, and I feel that my employer doesn't deserve the increased productivity that it brings. Turns out that I get the same salary, even though I'm noticeably slower, less creative about my solutions, and less focused. In turn I'm steadier, more thorough. A good tradeoff, especially on a personal level, and I don't miss it at all, even though I was drinking 4-5 coffees as day in my "prime".

There's numerous benefits that keep appearing in medical lit, including protection vs atrial defibrillation, stomach cancer etc.

For me I stopped briefly during bad bout of gastritis with all the withdrawal symptoms listed but have resumed since. No known bad effects so far. Yes my tummy is not in ideal condition but that's due to other vices like alcohol.

Ymmv

I had a rough bout of insomnia 10 years or so ago, and one of the things I did as a result was to cut caffeine completely. I thought it would be super hard to do. Maybe it was? I don't remember, it's been so long. I have no idea why I'd ever deliberately consume material amounts caffeine again.

I think it's probably a garbage drug. Whether it's strictly true or not that it has no beneficial effects once you're acclimated to it, telling myself that made quitting really easy, so I recommend just accepting the idea. There are better addictions to nurture.

I still don't know how coffee tastes.

However, I picked it up later because I always want to drink something with taste, and the mix of coffee, some milk and sometimes a bit of sugar does provide satisfaction without feeling the guity of gaining weight.

https://wondermark.com/c/389/