> "People don’t understand that caffeine is an actual drug," says Bivens. When I'm asked by doctors/nurses what medications I'm on, I'll say things things like

> "People don’t understand that caffeine is an actual drug," says Bivens. When I'm asked by doctors/nurses what medications I'm on, I'll say things things like "caffeine 200mg/day" and generally get met with blank stares like "do you expect me to care about this". It really is a societal blindspot. I'm sure I'm more aware of it due to my pattern of quitting caffeine cold turkey and enduring the two or three weeks of withdrawal (lethargy, nausea, constipation, depressive thoughts). Gradually ramping down just doesn't seem to work for me (enough of the symptoms to still be debilitating, over an even longer time). It most certainly is a drug. It seems most people want to shy away from that fact because "drugs are bad".