Poll of the Day > Is coffee hard to quit?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I have quit alcohol, numerous times and its not that easy. Especially the longer you drink, but the longest I quit that was a year and a half. This has been on my own, with no help.

Well, with coffee, my medication doctor wants me to quit. I find the idea so hard though, plus I drink 3 pots a day.

I have always dealt with severe anxiety, and coffee might not be so good with a number of medications I take, including Lithium. Even with my numerous medications I deal with severe depression and anxiety, I know that I am treatment intolerant as well, but wondering if stopping coffee would make any difference.

I guess all I can drink is water, don't get me wrong I love water and drink a lot of it as well, but it would just be nothing but... water, all day, everyday.

I'm worried how much less energy I'm going to have if all I drink is water.

A lot less at first. But once your body becomes used to water you will have more. Water is fucking amazing.

3 POTS of coffee a day? Good lord how many cups is that?

You're going to have headaches for a while to get off caffeine but yeah just drink lots of water.

3 pots a day? How many mL/fluid ounces is that? Jeeze that's a lot.

skullbone posted...

3 POTS of coffee a day? Good lord how many cups is that?

You're going to have headaches for a while to get off caffeine but yeah just drink lots of water.

Now that I think about it, that must be 36 cups. Idk why I do it, everything is excessive with me. lol.

Actual answers

Switch to decaf, then you never notice the difference.

Failing that....

Do not have a morning cup. Wait 2 hours after you are at work for your first cup. It lasts longer that way.

After your first cup, switch to water, some like hot water, some like cold water, try both and see what works best for you.

If you feel the need for more hot brown, use decaf for that second, third, fourth cup.

The trick here is that caffeine really just makes your body not realize it is tired. It doesn't actually wake you up. So wake yourself up with other stuff (breakfast preferably, but a workout works too). Then, once your awake, and are starting to run down again 2 hours later, get a little caffeine to get through the day. You really only need 1 cup to do this. So for the other 35 cups that you are drinking out of habit, use decaf. Then ween yourself off that too using water. Keep a 2 litre bottle of water at your desk (office worker) or keep water with you all the time, so you can sip whenever you want just like you would have with coffee.

Also, if you drink your coffee with cream or sugar. Just remove those and switch to black. The taste will slow you down so you crave it less.

Also, Danger! Do not accidentally take up another source of caffeine like Soda. You will be drawn to other sources. So don't fall for it.

@RJP_X

Have you tried quitting sugar at all?

I assure you that sugar is way more harmful than coffee or alcohol. It's causes inflammation within your brain and blood, and it wrecks your gut health by hurting your microbiome, which stunts your production of serotonin massively.

If you have reddit, subscribe to r/sugarfree to have an idea as to what sugar really does to you.

Although I am not sugarfree right now, I have been so in the past. Upon going sugar free and pursuing a keto diet(or rather just an egg only diet), my belly fat shrunk down causing me to downsize my pants size, and my bacne cleared up almost completely, and my skin looked waaaaayyyy better than it did before.

Go sugarfree and try to exercise as much as you can.

But keep in mind, I'm not a doctor or anything. I'm just using my experience along with the testimony of others who have gone sugarfree to try and help you.

Whenever I quit caffeine I get really back headaches for days

only thing that relieves it is to take a nap

Your kidneys are so sad omg

Coffee is harder to quit for me than alcohol because caffeine is in so many forms!
It's one of the few things I say I have quit but will still ingest sometimes and not think about it. If the lady wants a dr pepper and I'm thirsty, I'm gonna have a sip.
As others have said, it doesn't give you energy as much as it switches off your tired sensors.

when it comes to any addiction, you have to stop and quit completely to get over it. That's why I haven't technically quit caffeine. It still has its hold on me.

It's not a coincidence that you went a while without alcohol and went back into it. Your brain will fuel the addiction by saying you can quit or stop anytime.
If you quit, starting back up means you never quit in the first place, but just put it on pause.
I usually hear it's about the two year mark where you really start feeling you can handle it but you gotta ride with it. I haven't drank alcohol in almost ten years and I still think "maybe I can handle a beer" but I know deep down inside i can't.

How you deal with quitting a chemical varies from person to person obviously.

3 pots of coffee a day though? I think most people who aren't in the medical profession would also be surprised if your health didn't take a hit from doing that.