| ▲ | reactordev 16 hours ago |
| It’s 100% the addiction. It’s ok, me too. At home I’m a 4-6 cup a day drinker. On the go 2-3 Starbucks. I have a serious problem. |
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| ▲ | mrmincent 16 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| That was me too. Turns out I was just self-medicating for adhd. I still skip the meds on the weekend so I can enjoy larger quantities of coffee. |
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| ▲ | Muromec 16 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm not gonna lie, double espresso with ritalin before work is pretty good too. It's the T+2 date which is uncool. | | |
| ▲ | reactordev 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That’s the ritalin. Find a healthier alternative like an energy bar with that double espresso. I find if I stack too much at once, I crash. One cup in the morning when I wake up. One before work right before the meetings. One in the afternoon to keep me fueled until dinner where I let myself gorge on protein and sugars until I crash. | | |
| ▲ | quaverquaver 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | suggest many many cups of 1/3 caffeinated and 2/3 decaf. There are some observed health benefits to even decaf coffee... and its got potassium besides. I drink around 10 of these. lower longer peak. Joy! |
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| ▲ | nurettin 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Ritalin is a highly addictive substance that wrecks you, your life and the life of everyone around. Unfortunate that we have one in family. | | |
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| ▲ | brailsafe 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Same. During the week on meds I find that drinking more than half a litre just provokes unpleasant sweating and makes me feel frantic, some amount of brain fog and occasionally a mild headache, especially if I haven't been chugging water, which I guess is probably what most normal people get from coffee |
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| ▲ | amelius 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Starbucks By the way, why does Starbucks make such bad cappuccinos? The milk is foamy instead of creamy. There is no heart shape or any shape really. And the entire beverage is too hot. |
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| ▲ | enlyth 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| People act like addiction is a word with an inherent negative connotation, but that's not the case, you can totally be addicted to healthy behaviours |
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| ▲ | rubatuga 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | You're confused about the definition of addiction... breathing is an addiction too by your logic | | |
| ▲ | luqtas 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | don't be silly. next stop is to reduce pooping. but yeah, exercising can be an addiction? as sex. now doing these daily is fine. it turns into addiction when you can't stop or interfere negatively with your routine | | |
| ▲ | petercooper 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Seems to fall into the difference between "addiction" when used as a common, everyday word, and the alternative medical meaning. | | |
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| ▲ | markus_zhang 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I don't want to get too deep into caffeine addiction so I drink mostly decaffeinated coffee. Am I just cheating myself? |
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| ▲ | reactordev 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, there’s benefits from drinking coffee whether it’s caffeinated or not. | | |
| ▲ | markus_zhang 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ah, it’s good to know that. Unfortunately my stomach feels a bit weird after too much coffee. Wish I could drink more. |
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| ▲ | boothby 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Well, that's a bit of an unfair projection; I'm fairly fastidious about keeping my consumption around 2-3 cups a day before 11am and taking occasional tolerance breaks without consequence. But if you feel like your coffee intake is a problem that you have trouble controlling, maybe cut back. |
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| ▲ | standardUser 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Addiction to any given substance is highly variable from person to person, and there's a lot of data to back that up. I recall a friend describing their struggle to quit caffeine, which I mocked at first, until I realized it sounded exactly like my brutal struggle to quit nicotine. Yet, plenty of people quit cigarettes effortlessly. Nicotine is one of the most variable, but caffeine, alcohol and cocaine vary widely too. I imagine we'd find this is the case for most substances if we had the data. In a sane world, we'd give every kid their addiction predisposition profile when they turn 13. |
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| ▲ | reactordev 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | The hardest part of quitting anything is changing the behavioral habits that came with it. For smoking, I bet you have the urge after a meal to smoke. Maybe you’re triggered when you drive long distances to “calm the nerves”. The issue is those triggers, those behaviors, need to be unlearned before you can attempt to quit. That’s why it’s easy for people who haven’t developed those behavioral habits and hard a hell for those who have. Former smoker myself so I totally get it. I can give that up, but caffeine - coffee? I’ll die with a cup on the counter half full. | | |
| ▲ | standardUser 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | The literature on this is clear cut. People absorb, metabolize and experience drugs differently, which has a big impact on how addiction takes hold. It's obviously not the only factor! But it's a big one and somewhat quantifiable. Personally, I wasn't a "trigger" smoker, I was an "every chance I got smoker". I assume my nicotine metabolism is higher than average, which is linked to frequency of consumption and hence propensity for addiction. I also assume I have fast caffeine metabolism since I consume it at all hours with no consequence, but unlike nicotine that's linked to a lower propensity for addiction, which matches my experience. |
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| ▲ | lanfeust6 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Not necessarily. I only have one cup in the morning, that's it, but I enjoy it just the same so long as the beans are good and it's done right. |
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| ▲ | superkuh 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Caffeine is not chemically addictive. It can lead to depedency but that is not addiction. Motivation and wanting are not altered but unpleasant withdrawl effects can occur. |
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| ▲ | UniverseHacker 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There is no real importance to the concept of “chemically addictive” and it has largely gone out of favor in psychology. Even physical behaviors like gambling and sex that obviously cannot directly, chemically act on reward system pathways, can still be just as life destroying addictive and challenging to quit as any drug. The dsm now classifies gambling disorder as an addiction. | | |
| ▲ | dist-epoch 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Caffeine, unlike some drugs and alcohol, doesn't cause severe withdrawal symptoms. Because of that, experts don't label regular caffeine use as an addiction. https://www.webmd.com/diet/caffeine-myths-and-facts | | |
| ▲ | reactordev 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There’s so many layers to this. First, there’s history: Coka-cola (originally made from a Kola nut and cocaine) was told they couldn’t put cocaine in their “medicine” anymore so they just sold it as a “soft-drink” without the cocaine. Then there’s the beverage industry who pointed out there’s caffeine in tea leaves and other plant material and that it’s not a threat: (1) US vs 40 barrels and 20 kegs of Coka-cola. Ultimately reducing the amount of caffeine in soft-drinks. Round and round we go allowing companies to use chemicals to keep us buying their consumables. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Forty_Barrels... | |
| ▲ | UniverseHacker 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | While it is a contributing factor, physical dependence- withdrawal is not anymore considered necessary or sufficient for addiction. The author there is using an outdated pre-DSM5 definition of addiction which failed to recognize that there are two separate but related phenomena here. Things like gambling and sex addiction obviously cause no withdrawal symptoms from chemical dependence at all, but can be almost impossible to quit and serious enough to destroy someone’s life. Severity of withdrawal symptoms from caffeine also varies substantially from person to person. It’s probably not directly killing anyone, but for some people it can be brutally unpleasant and disabling for at least several days. |
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| ▲ | ses1984 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What’s the point of this distinction, what does it mean that it’s not chemically addictive? It causes withdrawals, dependence, it definitely acts on brain chemistry. | | |
| ▲ | superkuh 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | "Addiction and physical dependence are not the same thing" https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0... | | |
| ▲ | UniverseHacker 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | That lancet article very well refutes the point you are trying to make. The term “chemical addiction” is not really used anymore because it really just refers to mechanisms of chemical dependence, which are neither necessary or sufficient to cause addiction on their own. There has been a major shift in how addiction is understood in modern research, but you have it backwards- your perspective of chemical addiction or direct chemical mechanism being important is the old discredited concept, not the new one, which sees it as a psychological process that requires no direct chemical mechanism at all. | | |
| ▲ | memen 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | The chemical dependence is quite a factor in the psychological process you refer to. It nudges and reinforces this psychological behaviour. You can broaden the definition to include addiction without chemical dependence, but it does not mean you can omit the chemical dependence factor from the equation. This chemical dependence is often the number one reason people cannot physically stop their psychological process. Potential effects from quitting include simply dying, or with less strong chemical dependence, feeling anxiety or generally ill. | | |
| ▲ | reactordev 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This chemical dependence is learned behavior in some cases, chemically induced in others. I get what you’re saying. Dopamine withdrawal is real though and if you no longer get dopamine from an action or you physically prevent yourself from receiving that dopamine, it can be just as debilitating as cigarette withdrawal or kicking a (soft) drug habit. Then there’s the opioids… | | |
| ▲ | UniverseHacker 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Dopamine withdrawal is real though and if you no longer get dopamine from an action or you physically prevent yourself from receiving that dopamine Exactly, this is why the idea of addiction is more appropriately focused around the actual real world impacts rather than specific chemical mechanisms- the difficulty quitting and the negative impacts on your life. If it's strong enough to overpower your will and destroy your life, that is sufficient, it doesn't matter exactly how. When it comes down to it, something like an amphetamine drug or other stimulants that directly increase synaptic dopamine, vs a behavior like gambling addiction that exploits the brains instincts and wiring in other ways to still cause the increase in synaptic dopamine are not fundamentally, categorically different in a way that one or the other shouldn't be taken seriously and considered a "real addiction." Either can completely destroy some peoples life, and for other people can be easily controlled and used in moderation. |
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| ▲ | UniverseHacker 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes this is absolutely true, it is a factor in addiction- I initially mentioned this in my comment but deleted it because I felt I was making it too complicated. |
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| ▲ | tayo42 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | How do you explain the headaches and exhaustion durring withdrawal then? | | |
| ▲ | alexey-salmin 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That's just how life feels without caffeine, not a withdrawal effect. | |
| ▲ | superkuh 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That's called chemical dependence and it's the point I'm trying to make. Dependence is not addiction. Addiction means wanting is hijacked, not that stopping is aversive. Addiction and dependence have real medical meanings and in the context of this discussion and we shouldn't mix them up. See this very short and to the point lancet medical journal summary, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0... >Addiction (synonymous with substance use disorder), as defined by the DSM-5, entails compulsive use, craving, and impaired control over drug taking in addition to physical dependence. The vast majority of patients taking medications such as opioids and benzodiazepines are doing so as prescribed by clinicians, with only 1·5% of people taking benzodiazepine being addicted, for example. Physical dependence is much more common than addiction. Importantly, withdrawal effects occur irrespective of whether these drugs are taken as prescribed or misused. >Failure to distinguish between addiction and physical dependence can have real-life consequences. People who have difficulty stopping their medications because of withdrawal effects can be accused of addiction or misuse. Misdiagnosis of physical dependence as addiction can also lead to inappropriate management, including referral to 12-step addiction-based detoxification and rehabilitation centres, focusing on psychological aspects of harmful use rather than the physiology of withdrawal. >It should be made clear that dependence is not the same as addiction. The problems with prescribed drug dependence are not restricted to the small minority who are misusing or addicted to these drugs, but to the wider population who are physically dependent on and might not be able easily to stop their medications because of withdrawal effects. Antidepressants (superkuh note: and caffeine) should be categorised with other drugs that cause withdrawal syndromes as dependence-forming medications, while noting that they do not cause addiction. | |
| ▲ | dist-epoch 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Caffeine withdrawal takes 2 days. The explanation for the headaches is that coffee raises blood pressure short term, and the blood vessels in the brain prepare for the predicted caffeine ingestion, and if it doesn't come there will be a mismatch. | | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | What triggers the blood vessel constriction on the brain? Will avoiding e.g. certain places at certain hours also avoid the preemptive blood vessel constriction and associated headache? | | |
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