Unpopular Opinion
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I think the difference is there is no evidence that it's a harmful addiction, growing evidence that stimulants like caffeine and Adderall protect the brain, and no growing tolerance, one big cup of coffee for me on weekdays & weekends for years, but even a small one will prevent withdrawals.
So yes, physically addictive but not unhealthy.
I wanted to add an anecdote:
I have on occasion had a migraine so bad that I couldn't eat for days, vomiting, so the caffeine withdrawal headache just got wrapped up in the overall migraine.
A couple of times this happened, I figured I'd leverage it to quit caffeine. What was the result of these caffeine free months, or one time a year? More frequent migraines and about 3lb of extra weight. I found no upside to quitting, personally. The steady once a day caffeine helps prevent the migraines and keeps a little weight off, I like it.
I'm a coffee person because I enjoy coffee. I love the taste, I love making it, steaming milk, taking my time with espresso, and trying different brewing methods.
It's not about the caffeine. That's just a useful side effect.
At the same time, you're probably not drinking 3+ cups a day. There's a reason you have a spit cup when cupping coffee.
The struggle of loving coffee and being a very caffeine sensitive insomniac is real.
A ‘spit cup’?!?! WTF are you talking about. It’s not chewing tobacco.
real coffee aficionados don't lower themselves to actually taste it - quel horreur!
I cut down to one cup a day, and so now I treat that one cup like a fine wine; I do all the fancy prep, have good beans, and take my sweet ass tiiiiimmmme drinking it. I savour the hell out of it haha
I love coffee and recently had to go to one cup when I wake up and then no other caffeine for the day as part of working through a sleep disorder.
It's been really, really beneficial for my mental health. I am sleeping better, interrupting less, and generally have more appropriate appetite for food (I have issues with late night eating that are essentially gone).
I didn't want to do this but it's been pretty good.
I still enjoy a decaf Americano every so often in the afternoon.
88+ downvotes.
Coffee isn’t the only thing some of you guys are addicted to. (copium)
The people who try to compare caffeine to a drug are both trying to make a mute point and have likely never done any real drugs that are truly addictive.
Yeah under the strict technical definition a drug is something you ingest that affects your body on some level. Yes caffeine is technically a drug under this definition as its a stimulant which represses the chemical signals in your brain responsible for tiredness.
Billions of people drink multiple cups a day, and some feel like they would really like some coffee in the morning. If you want to define that minor desire for coffee as an 'addict craving' well I guess nobody is stopping you from seeing it that way. So there, if you want to play the technicality game and do some mental gymnastics with your world view then I guess all frequent coffee drinkers are technially addicts to the most commonly used drug in the world.
Buuuut, heres where reality comes in. On the grand scale of all drugs that exist in the world today and their level of addictiveness/potential to destroy your life caffine is so so so far off the left side of the scale it may as not be there.
When we have a serious big boy conversation about drugs and their potential harms with people who actually know what they are talking about and lived that life, nobody is going to bring up caffeine.
I've worked in rehabs. Ive seen first hand what true addiction and harmful drugs can do to people. I've had friends whos lives/minds were destroyed by real hard opioids and narcotics. I've helped homeless strangers try to build up their lives from scratch. A vast majority of them had issues with alcohol and opioids, you want to know the demographic of affine addicts we treated? None.
You want to consider caffeine as a drug and point out how 'lots of people are technically an addict lol' fine fair enough. Just keep in mind that real truly hard drugs exist which caffeine can't hold a candle too, that severe addiction is real and infinitely more hellish than coffee cravings in the morning. And maybe by trying to compare the two and think of them on the same level is an unnuanced overly simplified opinion
What? As a neuroscientist: caffeine is not "technically a drug" it is a drug. And yes, people are absolutely addicted to it. That "craving" you're talking about is withdrawal and it's real. Doesn't matter if "billions*" drink it every day. It's no mental gymnastics to say that there are millions if not billions of coffee addicts. Addict is not a defined term in the psych/neuro field so I would argue that that many people who would go through withdrawal without it are all addicted.
Wtf does it matter what other drugs are out there? Not everything is a competition. Current dependence on caffeine in our society is absolutely a problem as a result of too much stress and work pressure on everyone. Caffeine is not a cure to that.
Tl;dr: Yes caffeine is objectively a drug and yes very many people are addicted to it.
*Citation needed
I mean y'all are both right, no? Caffeine is a drug but its addictive nature is nothing compared to other drugs.
The secondary point, as mentioned, is "who said anything about comparative addictiveness?" Is heroin not bad because it isn't as addictive as meth*? How is that relevant to the point that coffee can be addictive? Saying "claiming coffee is addictive just shows you've never been on hard narcotics" is at the level of an ad hominem, as if their point is invalidated by their sobriety.
*I have no idea the relative addictiveness of either (or really any drugs)
I am a "coffee person", as opposed to a "tea person". Sure, I'm addicted. But so are the people that have a six pack of Coke every day, or a couple of Monster energy drinks (surprise!, all the energy is from caffeine!)
Maybe, but it really isn't like other substances. It's much. Much easier to quit. I don't know if you have ever smoked nicotine or tried to quit that. But it was the hardest thing I believe I've ever done in my life. Id rather roll around in broken glass for 4-5 months. 2 years later and I still get cravings. I do not feel the same way after quiting caffeine. I was a little tired. Maybe a little irritable for a couple days. But it was nothing like the physical, all body encompassing cravings for nicotine.
Pfft, coffee. That's why Marduk gave us meth amphetamine.
Wait, that was Marduk? Morgan Håkansson? Damn, I knew he was a good guitarist and blasphemer, but I didn't know he was also a chemist.
Marduk the Sun God who dwells within me. Marduk, slayer of Tiamat, son of Ea
I quit caffeine in 2001.
I was addicted.
My family noticed that I read very angry and difficult to be around in Saturday mornings. I got really bad headaches.
You know you have a good post here when people are immediately hostile to you. And people who are replying specifically to tell you that they don’t care about your opinion, who clearly haven’t had their morning coffee.
As someone who just gets sweaty when they drink coffee, I don’t begrudge people who get a kick out of it. But there are too many people who make their caffeine addiction a part of their personality.
Specially egregious on the programmer sphere.
tell that to the Salt Lake City office 😭
I often make jokes about it, but in reality, if I drink more than a cup of it in a day I start physically vibrating.
People don't mean they literally cannot function without having coffee first thing in the morning. It's just a clishé they say. Drinking coffee in the morning and after lunch is a habit rather than addiction. I don't drink coffee because I need the energy boost it gives me because it doesn't. I drink coffee because I like drinking coffee. It's a moment of relaxation. At worst it's a habitual addiction rather than a physical one. Also it's not even particularly bad for you. Some might even say it's healthy. Within reason ofcourse.
Cliché, possibly 🙃
I used to drink two cups of coffee a day, and I did get addicted in that I had headaches when I stopped doing it. (I ran out of beans, and I didn’t bother to buy more. I didn’t know what was causing my headaches until I drank more coffee.)
That being said, it’s not really that bad of an addiction. Like anything there is a point where it gets bad for you. If it makes you behave in a way that’s hostile or mean to other people, that’s definitely an issue. If it gives you withdrawals, it might be worth it to change your habits. You can happily drink it every day if that works for your mind/body. If you’re like me, you’ll develop some dependence on it, but it’s not that big of a deal. It didn’t take long for me to start having it less often without the headaches.
TL;DR: You can be honest with yourself and moderate how much you enjoy caffeine. There’s no reason to get judgmental about other people.
Before COVID I used to drink 3 coffees throughout the day. When I got sick coffee (and alcohol) would make all symptoms worse. It took me about 10 weeks to recover and during this time I really took a break from coffee and alcohol.
Now I can go about my day with one cup of coffee which I spelt sip throughout the day, sometimes I don't even finish it.
Just three? Pfft, lightweights.
Man, folks really seem the feel the need to make posts as tactless as possible. It's kinda hard to evaluate a post and respond to it when the poster seems to be going out of their way to present their opinion aggressively.
It's possible to present things that are unpopular (or that the poster thinks is unpopular) without being rage bait. It the reason for it being unpopular is just the way it's presented, it kinda defeats the purpose, imo.
That being said, as unpopular as this opinion likely is, you ain't wrong lol.
Having dealt with caffeine addiction and the process of developing bad reactions to it and then having to quit entirely for years before I could even have small amounts, the high volume drinkers really are dealing with a high tolerance and addiction rather than an actual need.
Luckily, caffeine is a relatively easy addiction to deal with. You'll have a week or so of unpleasant days, but it'll even out and you can come back to it with a lower tolerance maybe a week or two after that. Barring weird shit, anyway.
Also, holy fuck do I miss the ability to counter fatigue with caffeine. I can only handle fairly small amounts, infrequently. Even decaf has some caffeine, but a full cup of regular coffee has me all kinds of fucked up. I can barely tolerate non decaf tea ffs. So brewing a strong mug of regular coffee when I'm wiped but can't stop isn't on the menu, dammit.
May I ask what your symptopms are? As an avid coffe drinker myself I'd like to avoid that as much as possible - I try to limit my caffeine intake but coffe just tastes great to me for some reason and I don't even know if it's the caffeine or just the experience that gives me the puah I need to keep going at whatever it is I have.
Damn near a seizure. Visual flashes, muscle spasms, drooling. I genuinely thought I'd had a stroke the first time it happened. Took about six months of tests before the neurologist started asking about dietary possibilities.
During the process, he had me stop caffeine and a slew of other things, and it turned out my body wasn't breaking it down right any more. It's apparently not as rare as it should be, but it's pretty fucking rare lol.
That sounds terrible. I'm sorry it happened to you. Is there any chance of the condition reversing?
Possibly, and the effect definitely decreases over time (so far, anyway). Could wish it would decrease enough that unexpected caffeine content didn't set it off as hard, like espresso powder in brownies lol.
And it is dose dependent, along with being fairly easy to detect the first signs of it. Means it's only the hidden doses that get me now. I don't mind decaf at all since the market for it has reached some decent brands and even regionals like blue mountain can be had.
While I suppose it could be good to reset the caffeine addiction (it takes 3 weeks), three cups of black coffee is generally healthy. In fact, the mayo clinic (and many other sources/studies show that drinking coffee daily may help with preventing Parkinson's disease, type 2 diabetes, liver disease, including liver cancer, heart attack, and stroke. Plus it's an antioxidant and helps you shit regularly.
There are some risks as well, but less of them and they're more like possible issues that you may want to stop drinking coffee for if you have any of the symptoms.
So if you're a "coffee addict", at least your addiction is making you live longer and healthier.
And the massive coffee industry pumps out these studies every year. Don’t forget how energy drinks like Red Bull with lower caffeine density will kill you.. don’t you dare quit or switch.
You're one of those anti vaxxer conspiracy theorists, aren't you? Your kids all scarred up with the measles yet? Big pharma just wants you to buy their shot of snake oil!
You’re a coffee drinker, it’s ok to be offended. That’s the withdrawal. Try to find credible, verifiable, reproducible evidence to justify how many times we hear about the “health benefits” of coffee. Go ahead, I’ll wait.