# How to quit caffeine.



## Ophelia Jones (Oct 22, 2021)

So, I drink anywhere from 4-6 cups of coffee a day mostly with skim milk. I'm pretty sure thats not healthy because I can only sleep for 5-6 hours at night. 
I've tried drinking decaf and tea but it feels like my brain craves the caffeine specifically, so i get grumpy in the evening if I don't load up on coffee in the morning. It feels terrible because it's like a physical addiction and makes me feel like a junkie. 

Has anyone else tried quitting caffeine? If so what was your strategy?


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## Kendall Motor Oil (Oct 22, 2021)

You ween off it and/or replace it. The addiction goes away after about a week if you go cold turkey.


> I've tried drinking decaf and tea but it feels like my brain craves the caffeine specifically


I don't think there is a painless way to avoid that.

energy drinks -> yerba mate -> tea ->green tea ->decaf tea


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## Cloaca Rimjob (Oct 22, 2021)

Make a conscious effort to not buy it when you go to the shops. If it's not in your house, you wont use it.

That's what I do with lots of stuff, alcohol, caffeine, junk food, dead hookers etc


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## Gravityqueen4life (Nov 4, 2021)

tried drinking tea but it just didint feel right.


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## Lady Reines (Nov 4, 2021)

You know, there was a time where I actually managed to quit it all. But then I was back on my bullshit full force.  Coffee, tea, energy drinks, caffeine pills. In the off chance that I over did it in kickboxing or kettlebell exercises, even my pain relievers had caffeine in them. 

Kicking caffeine is very much so a life style change and not just a diet change. Honestly, switching to tea is not pleasant but if you condition yourself into liking it, you might find yourself enjoying it unironically. 


Neigh said:


> energy drinks -> yerba mate -> tea ->green tea ->decaf tea


This is honestly a pretty reasonable path. 

Do you by any chance, use coffee as sort of a makeshift anti-depressant and mood stabilizer? If that is the case, you will notice that you will be going through a catty period. But honestly, there will come a time where you normalize a bit. Caffeine is one of the most used and abused stimulants out there. If you can cut back to even a cup of coffee a day, that would be much better for you. Honestly, if you need to be productive and caffeine is your productivity-life hack, a caffeine holiday and gradual return to a sensible amount will actually work in your benefit. 

Good luck. It can and probably will be a miserable experience. Also, avoid "coffee culture" people. They'll just tell you that coffee is "better than meth" and will just further normalize drinking an entire pot in a day. 

Shit, are you dehydrated all the time too? Honestly, getting into the habit of just drinking copious amounts of water and changing your socks daily are just little things that sort of nudge you to "being your better self". If you have some fancy Ninja-mega dick coffee maker, might be worth unplugging it and downgrading to something way shitter too, to discourage programming a machine to brew a pot each morning, etc etc. So much of it is in your routine and habits. Climb out of the rut, rather than doubling down and enforcing it into a trench.


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## Ophelia Jones (Nov 4, 2021)

Lady Reines said:


> Do you by any chance, use coffee as sort of a makeshift anti-depressant and mood stabilizer?


Nah, at least i don't think so. I've never been severely depressed or anything. I just get super low energy and sluggish. Thinking about it, it's probably because my brain is dependent on it. Yeah dehydration is a big problem too. Recently though, I've replaced 2-3 morning coffees with a protein smoothie with a teaspoon of coffee powder in it and after that I only drink 2 cups of tea (One in the afternoon and one in the evening). Soon, I wanna replace the one in the evening with mint tea (which apparently has less caffeine).


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## Lady Reines (Nov 4, 2021)

Ophelia Jones said:


> Nah, at least i don't think so. I've never been severely depressed or anything. I just get super low energy and sluggish. Thinking about it, it's probably because my brain is dependent on it. Yeah dehydration is a big problem too. Recently though, I've replaced 2-3 morning coffees with a protein smoothie with a teaspoon of coffee powder in it and after that I only drink 2 cups of tea (One in the afternoon and one in the evening). Soon, I wanna replace the one in the evening with mint tea (which apparently has less caffeine).


That is good at least. For some people, coffee addiction starts as an ersatz anti-depressant and the boosted energy level is just a bonus. So at least its not an emotional dependence ontop of a pseudo-physical one. 

Sounds like you're doing much better, honestly. I didn't realize this thread was already some weeks old.

Goes without saying, certain teas as a sleep aid and good, reasonable amount of sleep can really do wonders. Caffeine was once such a huge part of my life, that I'd happily forgo sleep to get ahold of some more.


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## Tom Nook's Gloryhole (Nov 4, 2021)

Put the coffee cup down you dumb fucking nigger.


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## Badungus Kabungus (Nov 4, 2021)

Here's how.

First week when you drink your morning coffee, pour out a tenth of it and replace it with whiskey. 
Second week pour out a third and replace it with whiskey. 
Third week half. 
Fourth week three quarters.
After that go 100% whiskey.


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## MrTroll (Nov 4, 2021)

Coffee addiction can be solved with alcohol and vice versa. However, the only way to kick both of them is death.


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## What the shit (Nov 4, 2021)

I drink coffee once in a blue moon. Water is key gentlemen.


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## Irrational Exuberance (Nov 4, 2021)

Lady Reines said:


> Do you by any chance, use coffee as sort of a makeshift anti-depressant and mood stabilizer?


Clinical depressant here and anxiety sufferer here - I'll most emphatically state that I do, because walking around under a constant mental fog _sucks._ For as long as I can remember, I've never experienced "shakes" or excessive irritability, but that's most likely just due to altered neurochemistry.


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## Take a Breather (Nov 5, 2021)

If you're sluggish in the morning then try increasing fats and reducing sugars in your diet. The goal is to stabilize energy levels and reduce sugar crashes/highs. If you manage to maintain a constant energy level then you eliminate the dependency on coffee and will be able to quit more easily. Try whole milk or cream instead of skim milk while you ween off of coffee.


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## Badungus Kabungus (Nov 5, 2021)

Or could do on keto, which should keep energy levels high without caffeine, or at least let you switch to tea easier.


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## Anonymus Fluhre (Nov 10, 2021)

Why would you want to stop drinking caffeine? It's the life's blood of the working class and insomniacs.


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## ⋖ cørdion ⋗ (Nov 11, 2021)

Anonymus Fluhre said:


> Why would you want to stop drinking caffeine? It's the life's blood of the working class and insomniacs.


Kind of funny how people push coffee addiction both for dating and for work-related smalltalk. Say you enjoy smoothies and water and you're stamped a psycho.


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## Vingle (Nov 12, 2021)

If you drink caffeine regularly over time, the brain build tolerance for it. Neurons or some shit, and then you need more caffeine to get the same kick.

I would recommend cold turkey when you got a week off, because you will feel like shit.


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## Pandy Fackler (Nov 12, 2021)

Why would you quit caffeine


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## Leotardo DaVinci (Nov 16, 2021)

I use coffee merely as a kickstarter. Essentially just 1 cup immediately after waking and then 1 cup before the gym. 

It's moreso a habit than an addiction. I've had days where I haven't had a cup and didn't realise until the next morning with that caffeine withdrawal effect of mad headaches. 

I'd say caffeine isn't that bad if you're not consuming more than 200mg a day (~2-3 solid strength coffees). Above that and you're depriving yourself of the ability to max out on caffeine when you really need to.


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## Badungus Kabungus (Nov 17, 2021)

3-6 cups of coffee a day is actually not terrible for you.









						Consumption of coffee and tea and risk of developing stroke, dementia, and poststroke dementia: A cohort study in the UK Biobank
					

In a cohort study, Yuan Zhang and colleagues investigate the associations between coffee and tea consumption and risk of stroke and dementia among participants older than 50 years of age in the UK Biobank.




					journals.plos.org


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## lurk_moar (Nov 17, 2021)

Hospital lab tech with shift rotations and 3/4th time college student here.

My job as a lab tech working both nights and days has really gotten me addicted to caffeine. To boot, I have a very high caffeine tolerance genetically thanks to being half Scandi. Basically FML.

Those caffeine withdrawal headaches that do not respond to pain relievers, depression, suicidal thoughts, lethargy, and brain fog ain't no picnic. When I go through these symptoms, I try to drink enough caffeine to get rid of these symptoms and nothing more or nothing less. Keeping busy helps with energy levels. I try to drink the coffee only in the morning and then suffer through the day. I will try to cut my caffeine intake down every couple of days.

For example, I am going back on the night shift tomorrow. During these past couple of days, I only try to consume caffeine later in the day to keep myself awake.  When trying to transition back to day shift, I might just have a little bit of coffee (read three cups to get through lectures) after waking up and just letting my jet-lagged ass sleep as much as possible. When back on dayshift, I will increase my caffeine consumption then tapper it off again.

TL;DR: Shift rotations suck which is why I am a caffeine addict.


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## Ophelia Jones (Nov 18, 2021)

lurk_moar said:


> Hospital lab tech with shift rotations and 3/4th time college student here.
> 
> My job as a lab tech working both nights and days has really gotten me addicted to caffeine. To boot, I have a very high caffeine tolerance genetically thanks to being half Scandi. Basically FML.
> 
> ...


Treating caffeine withdrawl with caffeine? Wow thats crazy. Take care of yourself bro.


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## Stoneheart (Nov 18, 2021)

lurk_moar said:


> TL;DR: Shift rotations suck which is why I am a caffeine addict.


well just drink and go hang over to university- its udeless anyway and you can learn while th PCR is humming.



Ophelia Jones said:


> Treating caffeine withdrawl with caffeine? Wow thats crazy. Take care of yourself bro.


nahh thats called college...  vodka redbull is so trendy because it takes away the withdrawl brainfog...


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## Chongqing (Nov 18, 2021)

Eating fruit helped me, it was a good replacement.


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## Win98SE (Nov 18, 2021)

Cold showers. It doesn't have to be cold the whole time, just make sure to squeeze in a good 30 seconds to a minute at the end. You'll be 100% awake.

You can also try drinking shitloads of water. You should be drinking water throughout the day anyway. Get a large container so you don't have to plan out refills.

Good luck!


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## Flea Man Marbles (Nov 18, 2021)

Quit? I'm just getting started motherfucker!


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## Leonard Persin (Nov 18, 2021)

When I start drinking too much coffee I will go down to 1 cup and then move to tea. I recommend just any old green tea with honey and some turmeric.


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## BobbyBriggs69420 (May 20, 2022)

Bumping ur old thread. I always thought I _never really felt_ caffeine and I didn't have any problems I thought, I did have some sleep problems but I didn't think related to caffeine cause I always quit by 6pm.

I read something or other about high caffeine intake and also about how even a daily cup of coffee/100mg can quickly build dependency, I estimated what mine was, 600-1100mg/day with cheap fountain energy drinks, pills and iced tea. I also started playing with online drug half-life plotters and *realized I'm never without around a full cup of coffee-worth pumping through me at any time including sleep. *That was a big realization for me, overshadowing the 600-1100mg number in my mind a lot.

One saturday I woke up and tried cold turkey, it sucked I had no energy I couldn't go to gym, couldn't ride my bike which are things I really like to do daily and was in a grumpy shitty mood all day so I went back to everything.

I couldn't handle doing that again, this is literally the busiest year of my life with all sorts of shit going on and I really can't lose even a day. Tapering seems to be working for me,  a little later after that cold turkey sat I cut out the 200mg pill in the morning and didn't really notice much, still having 60-90floz of the fountain energy drink est 600-900mg

A little later I cut out the energy drinks, and started tapering with iced tea + adding pills back in, morning and lunch. I started at 350mg/day pills + regular iced tea, crushed up some of the caffeine pills and made 25 and 50mg doses that I loaded into capsules of some old worthless supp, then loaded the capsules into my weekly sorters with my weekly supps. Dropping by 25-50mg a day and also replacing a tea bag a day with a decaf one. Today I've been totally decaf tea for a week and my capsule dose today was just 25mg and I've not felt a bit of shittiness the past couple weeks.

I'm feeling mostly calmer. I was on 50mg for a week up to yesterday because of especially big amounts of work and personal business going on that I didn't want to risk another bad day in the middle of so I paused tapering. I still consider 50mg to be a "stimulating dose" for me so today's kinda my first real day of getting into close to what it feels like to be caffeine free.

I'm not quitting totally though, now that I know a bit about how much caff is in what know about dependency and withdrawal and know about the half-lives I'm hoping that after a few weeks/month off I can enjoy a typical 100mg intake once a week or so and feel pretty good from it.


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## CharcoalChkn (May 21, 2022)

Easiest way for me to stop drinking 4 cups a day was stop going into the office and work from home instead.

Now I only have 1 each weekend day while I'm out for a walk and chores.


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## Registration (May 26, 2022)

Not coffee drinker chad here: just drink water lads.


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## Slimy Time (May 26, 2022)

Replace it as a habit with something positive. I used to drink 6 coffees a day, then I decided to replace it with a good habit, so I put on a batman costume every night and go out onto the mean streets and kill crack whores and hookers. Gives me the same rush that coffee does.


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## Just Another Kiwi (May 26, 2022)

And here I was feeling paranoid for having 2-3 servings of coffee each day.  I have coffee because I do enjoy the taste of it.  It's almost like a morning treat for me.  I could get off of it, but I don't because all I really drink otherwise is water and milk, everything else I avoid because it has sugar or caffeine anyways.

I used to drink more, like twice as much, but I cut back by having just a little less each day over the span of a few weeks.


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## The Joker (May 28, 2022)

Shoot, I have to start my morning (I wake up at 3 for work) with a cup of coffee, an occasional monster rehab, a couple bottles of coke zero, and maybe some tea. My job is pretty demanding and it keeps me going and I'm working to slowly wean myself off the monster.

Bang (the energy drink) was a terrible addiction of mine for a time and getting off that was such a bitch.


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## Malt (May 29, 2022)

I can drink something like 300mg of tea/coffee in the morning and so long as I don't consume any in the afternoon/evenings I can sleep fine, but if I have a single 16/24oz can of monster or similar energy drink, even at the crack of dawn only, I have trouble sleeping at night.  I just stay away from energy drinks unless there's a real dire need to stay awake.  Must be the taurine or something.  My general rule is I drink as much caffeine as I want in the first six hours of the day, but nothing after that.  Otherwise I'll have trouble sleeping.

I've quit a lot of addictive things, and I find it's usually been effective to set a limited time frame per day in which you're 'allowed' to do the thing, and then keep tapering back until you're not using it at all.  The way I quit cigarettes was to only allow myself to smoke one after doing 30 mins of moderately intense cardio exercise.  After a while I didn't want cigarettes because they made the exercise harder.  Exercise in general is a great replacement for most addictions, although it can become a kind of addiction of its own sort.


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## Brahma (Jun 27, 2022)

I've tried, but I get blinding light sensitive migraines whenever I do so I rarely make it more than a day.

I've been thinking of switching to caffeine pills or powder and break at least the emotional connection to hot coffee which I really enjoy and find comforting. I drink it black now mainly but even so it's such a part of my routine that I think that's half the addiction more than the caffeine kick itself.

Probably drink 10-15 espressos or equivalent longer cups of filter through the day


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## emoman gaming (Jun 30, 2022)

Coffee withdrawal lasts like 4 days max, and it's not unbearable. Just quit it cold turkey.


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## Gravityqueen4life (Jul 6, 2022)

god damn, i had Monster energy drink yesterday for the first time in months and the caffeine rush was real. i spent almost 2 hours walking around during the day but still had enough energy to have trouble sleeping.  

i need to stay away from the stuff but some of those flavors taste so good.


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## Virgo (Jul 6, 2022)

Undiagnosed ADHD in adults is usually framed by high stimulant usage via caffeine (and nicotine) because it helps to focus and calm your brain (ironically lol, normal people feel energized). Worth investigating if you have other signs and your life is heavily affected by them.


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## augment (Jul 6, 2022)

Caffeine helps with liver disease prevention as well as alzheimer's, to me the risks do not outweight the benefits.


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## InuRightsActivist (Jul 8, 2022)

Haven't had caffiene in ages, if anything eating fruit has helped me control my sweet tooth. Maybe it's a lack of experience, but I genuinely don't know how people get addicted to that stuff. Maybe have larger, amino acid-rich meals at the start of the day?


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## Baraadmirer (Jul 10, 2022)

Can't vote in the poll because there's no 0 option.

Back in the day when I would wake up at ungodly hours to work at a café I would have black tea to keep me going. That was a few years back. A few months ago I was working 10-hour days that required me to be up at 4 in the morning, but I just toughed it out with water. Sometimes I'll have something sugary, like Ribena, but caffeinated tea or drinks are an infinitesimally small part of my diet at this moment.

I am not a flexible guy, so light stretches can wake me up very quickly.


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