How one become a caffeine addict?
seriously! like how do you become addicted to coffee, I drink it regularly but I can't say I am caffeine addict or something. how one become a caffeine addict?
seriously! like how do you become addicted to coffee, I drink it regularly but I can't say I am caffeine addict or something. how one become a caffeine addict?
If you drink it regularly it's already got you
I smoke cigarettes every day, but that doesn't mean I'm addicted! i say this while fully addicted to caffeine
"I can quit any time I want. I just don't want to."
I smoked for a year, then one day I smoked and it made me feel like shit. No nice dizzy buzz, just felt like garbage. Didnāt smoke the rest of the day. Tried again the next day, felt like shit. I just stopped after that. I feel so lucky, I didnāt get any other cravings or withdrawals. My brain just suddenly associated smoking with that terrible feeling.
I tried more times over the years (this was over a decade ago) and the same feeling each time. The only time it feels good anymore is if Iām absolutely SMASHED.
Coffee did the same thing to me. My body feels AWFUL if I drink much caffeine anymore. This one I am NOT thankful for. I love black coldbrew and I miss it so very much. Iāve tried some decaf but it just felt like drinking NA beer. I hope one day I can drink coffee again.
You say you drink it regularly, have you ever tried to stop? If you suddenly experience headaches and shakes after, I've bad news for you.
The thing is, caffeine addiction is so heavily normalized and encouraged by our capitalist society that most people do not realize they're addicted. They consume caffeinated products with enough regularity that they never crave it, and you're only ever encouraged to stop if you develop a health issue.
I went from drinking 6-8 cups every day to zero when COVID popped off and suffered zero headaches. My body chemistry is weird.
Takes a few months. Most notable symptom of withdrawal is usually headaches, lasts a day or two. It's not a severe addiction, it's a fairly mild one as they go.
I got jacked up within 2-weeks of hitting energy drinks and espresso. The headaches were blinding for a day or three. Guess I was really hitting it hard.
Caffeine has a metabolic half life of 6-12 hours. This means that after a 24 hour period, there could be 1/4 of the original caffeine amount you drank in your system. If you drink the same amount of caffeine again at that point, now after a 24 hour period you āll have up to 1/4 of that 1.25 amount in your system. If you consume caffeine daily, this can lead to an accumulation of caffeine that your body adjusts to always being there, becoming the new baseline normal. This would feel fine until you stop, at which point the caffeine your body expects to be there is gone, and it needs to take time readjusting to that absence. That leads to withdrawal symptoms.
This is the best explanation for caffeine withdrawals that I've read. Thanks for the enlightenment!
Drink a few cups a day for a year and then cut back to no caffeine.
If you get a headache you were addicted.
Thatās drug dependence.
Isn't that the same thing?
No
Depends on context. If you're discussing it in a medical context, the terms are separate. Dependence refers specifically to the severity of the effects of stopping the drug, both physical and psychological. Addiction is more about the behavior of a person when exposed to the substances and is not as strictly defined of a term in a medical sense. But generally, dependence is a component addiction. So not all dependence results from addiction, but most definitions of addiction include some kind of dependence.
So, not the same thing, but also, outside of medical context, most people don't differentiate the terms and use the word addiction to refer to the dependence component of addiction.
The context of fifth grade health class.
When the best part of waking up is folgerās in your cup thatās addiction
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That cat in the hat and that was that
B U S T A R H Y M E S
Joke's on you, I have headaches either way!
By drinking high doses over a long period of time. When I'm in withdrawal I get depressed and foggy with terrible headaches.
The good news is that it only takes a week or so to be completely free of withdrawal symptoms.
Caffeine is physically addictive but a coffee/tea habit isn't unhealthy. So you get physically addicted by drinking it everyday (will get the headache if you don't have it) but it's unlikely to cause addiction in the sense of harming your ability to live your life, or having negative health effects.
I have relatives who would get headaches if they didn't get it. People's bodies respond differently.
How old are you? The side-effects or withdrawal symptoms didn't really become noticeable for me until my mid-30s...I went from feeling fine whether I had caffeine or not, to getting a headache in the afternoon if I missed my morning coffee, to waking up with a headache already that wouldn't go away until I upped my dose.
People conflate "Addicted" and "Dependant". I'm not addicted to caffeine, but I will feel off by late morning if I haven't had some.
This sounds like something an addict would say to cope with the fact that they have a dependency-based addiction to something.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/addiction-vs-dependence
No clue. While I don't drink coffee, I did drink caffeinated sodas for a large part of my life. One day I just decided to stop drinking soda. I felt no sort of addiction or withdrawal symptom.
with a hypodermic needle into the vein of your penis
I'd like to know more
Was that not part of your education Dr.?
I specialized in an adjacent field of study, actually.
Tell me taint so
might be worth it to consider that addiction is only a colloquial word for substance use disorders, which have strict diagnostic criteria
Friend of mine used to drink quadruple espressos at Starbucks every day, then go back to work. I was talking to him last week and told him about remembering the time he called me from the Starbucks and his name was called with the quadruple order. He laughed and said he actually bumped it up to quintuple at one point.
Then he sold his house and moved to another state, living out in the woods. Asked him how he managed without a Starbucks nearby. He said he now does Keurig espresso shots every morning. But it was getting expensive, since he had to press 10 pods in one sitting!
Moral of the story: he's perfectly functional and productive. Go nuts!
Jesus what an inefficient way of doing it. Just buy a grinder and beans
There's plenty of health costs to being addicted to caffeine. This devil may care attitude is dangerous.
Get out while you still can. It's too late for me.
Drink 5 cups of coffee every day for 6 months. Then quit all at once. That misery you're experiencing? That's called withdrawal. If you simply decrease your intake to 2 cups a day, you'll feel less awake and alert. That's how you know dependency has set in. If you can't take those symptoms and go back to 5 cups a day, congrats you're addicted just like normal people.
Also your English sucks, but that's unrelated.
I don't like the taste of coffee, so I drink energy drinks. Energy drinks often have much more caffeine than a cup of coffee. for example, I drink Alani brand, they have a whopping 200(!) mg of caffeine per can.
When I drank one every day of the week at work, I then wouldn't drink any on the weekend because it didn't matter if I had energy. By Sunday I would have a day long caffeine headache and it was awful, but I refused to drink an energy drink JUST to stave off the headache because it made me feel like a junkie lol.
Instead, I now drink one every other day of the week, and I don't have headaches. That is how I chemically (not psychologically) became addicted to caffeine.
OP didn't make this distinction, but you might find it interesting that the physical component is called "dependency". The word "Addiction" refers to the psychological/behavioral side.
I did not know that! That's clearer wording, I'll use it in the future
200mg, but how big is the can? Coffee (brewed, but especially espresso) has a much higher amount of caffeine per ounce of liquid in almost all cases. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/caffeine/art-20049372
It's about the size of a red bull, smaller than a Monster.
Edit: 12 fl oz, just checked a can
With energy drinks you get the fun double whammy addiction of both caffeine and sugar!
That's actually why I drink Alani, it has no sugar, but tastes amazing. There's this whole new wave of energy drinks that don't use sugar, such as Alani, Ghost, and Bang. I'm not sure what they use for sweeteners instead, maybe something also bad, but it's an energy drink, I'm not gonna pretend I'm a saint to my body
A black venti coffee from Starbucks has almost 450mg of caffeine. 200mg probably isn't "whopping (!)"-worthy.
I have a co-worker that drinks a pot of coffee at work each day by himself. That's about 1,200mg of caffeine, and he has a cup in the morning before he gets to work, so he's probably having about 1,500mg/day. Admittedly that's on the high side.
800mg of caffeine from black coffee per day is actually shown to be good for you. Reduced risk of alzheimer's, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, and Parkinson's. Reduces inflammation. Lowered rates of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Starbucks notoriously has higher than average caffeine content.
Ok
For some people, there is no addiction. I would swap between coffee and tea for my morning drink, but it was never an energy boost, just a warm drink for the winter months. Aside from that caffeine has no effect. I stopped drinking both cold turkey in an attempt to cut back on my sugar consumption and had no withdrawals.
It's definitely got a genetic factor, but tea and a 12 oz cup of coffee aren't excessive amounts of caffeine. The side-effects should be (hopefully) mild and mostly unnoticeable, except perhaps a day or two after quitting
You don't get 'addicted' to caffeine. If you consume it daily your body will adjust to the new baselines and discontinuing will have symptoms (headache for a day, tired, etc...), but it is not a clinical addiction.
Edit: caffeine does not have a "Substance Use Disorder", merely a "Withdrawal Syndrome" (DSM-V pg. 482)
I think your definition of addiction here is very narrow and most people would think that if there are withdrawal symptoms like you describe then that would qualify as an addiction.
I guess "clinical addiction" might mean an addiction which requires clinical intervention but I could imagine a hoarder who is "addicted" to collecting junk who requires a psychiatrist to break their pattern of compulsive behaviour.
No, the word 'addicted' is overused and simplified. People are 'addicted' to chocolate, and sweets. To their loved one's kisses. That is not what it means, particularly to those that are, in fact, addicted. In everyday quaint usage it is cute. Meant to deflect accusations (internal or otherwise) of poor impulse control.
Real addiction alters body chemistry. The body doesn't simply 'acclimate'. It functionally depends on the addictive substance. Claiming a headache due to withdrawal = addiction is like saying shivering taking out the garbage in shorts during winter = warmth addiction. Not even close to going into shock and your heart stopping due to alcohol withdrawal.
Actual addiction alters mental thinking and results in negative lifestyle effects. When is the last time you sold your body for a shot of espresso? Does drinking coffee everyday cause you to avoid friends/coworkers or result in depression? Would you forget to feed your kids if the kitchen was out of teabags?
;tldr Addiction is clearly defined and caffeine is not one of the substances known to cause it. Hence why tea and coffee are served at most [Addicts] Anonymous meetings. "Like it a lot" is not the same as "addicted to".
This is prefrontal cortex. It's dysregulation of neurotransmitters, largely impacted by just how strong the dopamine hit is. Gambling, for example, uses the exact same mechanism as crack to form the neurotransmitter imbalances that lead to people willing to sell their souls for one more hit, and the physical withdrawal is pretty much irrelevant to that impact.
Caffeine is the same thing. It's less addictive, but it very obviously is addictive by every definition.
I still disagree but can understand your perspective.
That's simply not true.
Ignoring that the habit formation is the most effective mechanism towards long term dependence and why rehab/treatment from people who genuinely want to stop often "doesn't take", caffeine also causes physical dependence, with meaningful withdrawal symptoms.
No, it is not physical dependence. It is acclimation. A habit is not addiction.
Someone drinking coffee daily for years could stop cold turkey for a day, drink some water and take 2 doses of aspiring throughout that day and actually reduce their coffee consumption once resuming without realizing it due to increased efficacy returning to baseline. The person would go through that day normally despite the predicable headache from blood vessel dilation.
A cigarette smoker going cold turkey for a day does NOT have that experience. After the first hour or so every minute of the day would be thinking about needing a cig, and depending on the severity of their addiction could experience serious life-threatening withdrawal symptoms.
[Addicts] Anonymous meetings serve coffee and tea because it is not addictive. It never ceases to amaze me how insistent people are to defend this mistaken idea that caffeine is addictive and yet we'll let teens drink it without restriction, and serve it to actual addicts.
Here's an idea, if you genuinely believe caffeine is addictive start lobbying to set age limits to consumption, or protesting in front of Starbucks.
You very clearly have no knowledge of what the research on addiction says, because this is all complete and utter bullshit.
If physical dependence was the primary issue with addiction, weaning would work. Shockingly, it doesn't.
Cravings aren't physical withdrawal. They're caused by your brain expecting a different balance of neurotransmitters than it receives. Your body also adapts in other ways to drugs to prevent them from killing you as you increase your dosage, but the entire reason you increase your dosage is because the prefrontal cortex is "designed" to decrease the stimulation of the same behavior as the habit is learned, and the goal of hard drugs (again, along with other thrill seeking behavior, and gambling) is to chase that high stimulation. That loop is why you constantly need more, and it's the habit formation of that loop that defines addiction.
This is all very basic, well understood stuff. The actual low level details are hard to pin down, but the fact that addiction is habit formation caused by neurotransmitter fuckery isn't something that's debated by anyone relevant.
So well understood caffeine isn't in the list of compounds forming addictions. You're the ignorant one trying to equate a habit with addiction. I look forward to seeing you protesting in front of Starbucks and getting laughed at.
No, it's the negative impact on lifestyle that defines addiction actually, but you can get addicted before even having formed a habit. Smoke a couple cigarettes the first day and you'll have withdrawal the next. A couple hard drugs literally get you hooked first try.
Seriously, stop polluting this community with your ignorance.
Just want to chime in with a few things
First and most importantly - drop the attitude, please, everyone. We can have a civil conversation about this topic and disagree in a healthy way. You'll never convince someone of anything by calling them "ignorant".
Now, to the debate:
Whose list? Can you share your reference here? Is it the DSM?
I would argue that caffeine does have a negative impact on ones lifestyle. While it is substantially lighter than other substances, the inability to function normally without your morning cup of coffee is a bigger deal, in my mind, than most people realize.
And to your later point I do not believe we should be giving kids caffeine. They don't need it and it starts an unhealthy relationship early. Of course, that's just my opinion as a caffeine-avoider
Pg 482 of the DSM-V
Caffeine has a withdrawal syndrome, but is not something associated with substance abuse disorder. People mistake withdrawal for addiction when it is only half the story.
No, it actually isn't. This perception that people are debilitated without a dose of caffeine is a cultural thing. A joke, or someone's musing that caught on and grew to a belief supported only by the near instant relief from grogginess caffeine provides. The same effect can be achieved taking a cold shower, being startled, or taking a brisk run to get the body to an alert state again.
I do this every 3 months: take a weekend off from caffeine to reset blood concentration (half life of ~6 hours so assuming consistent daily usage the amount builds in the blood and efficacy drops as the body adjusts). It IS something I plan for, making sure it is a weekend I'll be active and able to get a full nights rest. Hydrate well the night before, take 2 aspirin in the morning and 2 in the afternoon both days. Monday morning feels good as new.
That experience is NOTHING compared to attempting to quit smoking 1.5 packs a day (2 on weekends) for 10 years cold turkey. Half a day in and every thought is about smoking. "Where is the nearest cigarette?" "Buddy'll spot me a smoke if I ask. Did I leave a pack in the glove box?" Your mind justifying why you can just have a puff, it'll be fine! You get the shakes, and chills. Go without long enough and your lungs feel like they're on fire and that burning/itch only grows and spreads throughout your whole body. This lasted for 3 months. After which I felt fine but still thought the scent of smoke was delicious and still had that nagging 'It is safe to have a toke, you are all good now!' for another year. That would have cost my job because I literally told my boss to "fuck off" when he said 'I looked rough' in the throws of agony at my post. I had shared my intentions and had the staff's support so he just walked away smiling but that could easily have gone the other way absolutely.
People that think caffeine is an addiction don't know what real addiction is like.
You're clearly very passionate about this issue, but you're arguing semantics and you are, at least from my reading of the DSM-V, not even correct.
You are against describing caffeine usage as an "addiction" because you claim it is not listed in the DSM-V as such, and yet the DSM-V clearly states that it doesn't define "addiction" because it's such an overused term.
From page 485 of a version of the DSM-V I was able to find online.
Also you claim "caffeine isnāt in the list of compounds forming addictions" in the DSM-V, and putting aside the fact that the DSM doesn't use the term "addictions" as a diagnostic tool, the page you reference has caffeine right there near the top of the table with several serious diagnoses, although granted not substance abuse diagnoses. We shouldn't discount a substance because one row of that table is unchecked. If it shows up, it's there for a reason.
From page 482 of a version of the DSM-V I was able to find online.
Caffeine is associated, according to the above table from the DSM-V, with anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, substance intoxication, and substance withdrawal. You give an anecdote of how you handle the withdrawal symptoms even, yet somehow suggest that, despite having a special ceremony with dealing with a substance including taking medication, it is not a big deal just because it doesn't have the same symptoms as nicotine withdrawal. You also hand-wave the complex biochemical reactions that make caffeine work saying a cold shower is equivalent, when it's strictly not - a cold shower does not block any chemoreceptors unless your shower has some really wacky features mine doesn't - and you can't bring the DSM-V into a discussion unless you plan to talk clinically and consider the chemical pathways of the substance under scrutiny.
All that aside, you've correctly edited your original comment to state that you can't get a substance abuse disorder from caffeine, and you misspoke when you said "addicted".
So I don't see why you're still arguing with people here, nobody used the phrase "substance abuse", they used "addiction" which is a colloquial term for excessive use of something. There's no point to this discussion when, if you're using the DSM-V, you should be in complete agreement with everyone.
Just let it go. According to the DSM-V, it is completely fair to call caffeine addictive in general discussion, and caffeine has real and serious effects on a persons biochemistry that you can't just brush off because they aren't as bad as meth.
I'm not just arguing semantics.
Addiction is shorthand for 'Substance Use Disorder'. Having a headache if you stop drinking coffee is not why people attend [Addict] Anonymous meetings. Someone does not go to their doctor and says "I have a substance abuse disorder". The line of introduction a speaker uses at those meetings is not "hi, my name is Cepho and I have a substance abuse disorder".
I edited not to correct my usage of 'addict', but to correct others usage of the word specifically because it is overused and to correct the overusage the you yourself admit too and STILL ya'll insist 'no, I am addicted'.
No, you are not. You like coffee and if you stop drinking it you'll have a headache for a day or two. Big woop. You won't be seeing a professional that refers to the DSM-V for it. Several of the pharmaceuticals those professionals would use to treat actual disorders create side-effects when use is discontinued. 'Most' are not addictive to the point patients commonly stop taking them willingly despite being forewarned of the side-effects of stopping (no, I'm not referring to a return of disorder' symptoms either). So having a withdrawal syndrome is not addiction. Figureidout
See, you're doing it all again. The severity of one does not discount the severity of another. And "addiction" is not DSM-V defined.
Rarely does anyone go to their doctor and say "I have melanoma" either, they simply tell the doctor they have a weird mole. Part of the conversation with a professional is using common phrases and nomenclature to start the dialog and work towards a proper diagnosis. I'm sure if you told a psychiatrist "I'm addicted to caffeine" they would almost certainly understand what you mean.
I'm afraid I can't really tell you what they say in those meetings. They are often highly religious processes and have debatable results, so I won't be taking my clinical terminology from them.
The DSM-V admits to it, as well as the negative connotations of the word. If anything, people with substance use disorders should be inclined to avoid that word in order to prevent the negative connotations. If anything, you are actually doing them a disservice by telling us we should be calling them "addicts" when the DSM-V explicitly states that it is not a proper definition and that it has a negative bias against it.
Not for the headache, no, but for the several other diagnoses that can arise from usage of caffeine. Stop trivializing the issue, please. Caffeine is in the DSM for a reason - it is a drug with chemical and psychological effects.
But that's your main sticking point, it seems. Your main issue appears to be that people shouldn't call caffeine consumption an "addiction" - it is entirely semantics. It's not a medical term, as we've said, so we may as well be arguing "gif" vs "jif" right now. It's just nomenclature, it does not change the underlying issue of caffeine usage.
You are also arguing that caffeine is no big deal, which just seems like an oddly obtuse and head-in-the-sand take. Just because caffeine does not cause you to sell your kidney for a fix does not mean it has zero deleterious effects. Usage results in real consequences for people, even if they are relatively minor in comparison to harder substances. Having a two day headache from a beverage should not be normalized, in my opinion.
Never said it wasn't. Addiction isn't one of them though.
I agree with that at least, but you again ignore the salient point: withdrawal syndrome is not addiction. SUD replaced Addiction disorders from previous versions for your aforementioned reasons, but, anyone diagnosed with an Addiction disorder in previous versions wasn't just suddenly cured. The definition was replaced with SUD, not considered gone and as such Caffeine addiction wasn't in previous versions either.
As for all the other conditions listed for caffeine in the DSM. It is for diagnostic purposes: Can't sleep? Are you anxious? Do these symptoms occur shortly after you drink coffee? Stop. Oh, and be sure to drink lots of water and pop a couple Paracetemol if you get a headache. Appointment over.
You are the one arguing semantic BS to avoid the salient points:
Okay, so why bring up the DSM if you don't care what it says? You seem to be missing my point.
Caffeine is addicting in the colloquial sense that you want it when you don't have it. It is not a cause of substance abuse disorder.
I never said I did and, in fact, I don't think it's okay. I'm an outlier in that fact and that's my concern and the reason I'm even in this thread.
By definition in the DSM, neither caffeine nor meth are addicting. So this is a nil point
Again, addiction means nothing here except a colloquialism. It is no longer a medical term. If you have a source for a strict definition in a scientific sense beyond the DSM I'd be happy to adjust our conversation accordingly
You cannot use an outdated version just because it fits your argument better. The nomenclature was changed, so adapt
By calling them "addicts" you are immediately not respecting them, per the negative connotation and the superior alternative term which we've discussed
And sidelining a conversation about a drug to argue semantics is better? Nobody in this thread will tell you caffeine is as bad as nicotine.
My interpretation here is that you suffer from substance abuse, in the past or currently, and you feel your experience is being trivialized. If that's the case then say that instead. Don't argue about definitions out of the DSM, just state cleanly and kindly that you feel that "habit" is a better term and let the conversation about the topic continue. Don't be so aggressive and self-righteous about it and people will be more inclined to listen and change.
And if you don't suffer from substance abuse then don't get outraged by pedantics on someone else's behalf...
Why would I advocate banning an addictive substance exactly?
I don't support hard drugs being criminalized.
So you support freely dispensing addictive substances to kids? Because there's nothing stopping kids from buying coffee from Starbucks.
Caffeine doesnt get substance use disorder in the DSM because people would riot if it did. It's too ingrained in our culture.