> I started drinking coffee during puberty. So, I guess my brain is not just chemically hooked on it but actually neurologically developed around it. While I d

> I started drinking coffee during puberty. So, I guess my brain is not just chemically hooked on it but actually neurologically developed around it. While I didn't pick up coffee until a little later, I started on caffeinated drinks (soda, tea) well before puberty. I've had this same thought—that I'm more than just habituated to it—but I haven't seen others making the same claim before. The last time I quit caffeine, I had standard withdrawal symptoms for a few days (as expected), then a week or two of catching up/rebalancing sleep, and then? I started routinely getting hit with what I can only describe as depressive episodes. It took a while to connect them with being off caffeine, but a little bit of (non-blind obviously) experimentation strongly suggested that they were due precisely to my brain-body chemistry being out of whack due to lack of caffeine. I resumed caffeine, of course. I never suffered from depression before nor since. Anyway, so, I don't ever completely quit caffeine anymore.