3 ms·
A great timeless article. I've been off of all forms of caffeine for about 40 years. I was thoroughly addicted to it, and in my 20's, I was drinking about six
by anonymousiam 11mo ago
A great timeless article.
I've been off of all forms of caffeine for about 40 years. I was thoroughly addicted to it, and in my 20's, I was drinking about six cups of coffee per day. It took me three tries to kick the habit, and the final time I quit (all cold turkey), I felt like a heroin addict (I assume). I had cold sweats, shakes, headache, and vomiting. I missed two days of work while recovering.
I'll never forget how awful I felt, and it's a constant reminder for me to never go back to caffeine. I make coffee for my wife every morning, and the smell is enticing, but I can easily resist. My wife is a zombie when she wakes up, and she really needs the coffee. She doesn't seem to have an issue with it, and usually has only one cup per day. Now when I wake up, I'm alert and ready to go.
Caffeine is difficult to avoid, and it's such a commonly used drug that most people do not give it a second thought.
Another interesting side effect I noticed while doing coffee was the poor quality of the code I had written on the previous day. I was doing embedded assembly (6809) at the time, and each morning, I would pick up where I left off and notice a ton of mistakes. It looked like I was high while I wrote the code. Under "normal" circumstances, my code is often error free, and requires minimal debug.
- Aperocky 11mo agoBut you never had to quit - studies don't indicate that moderate caffeine consumption had negative health effect, even had unproven heart benefits (as a runner, it certainly doesn't make me slower). And I don't think this is the result of "Big Coffee" skewing the scientific consensus.
- anonymousiam 11mo agoI quit (each time) because I didn't like the withdrawal symptoms I was having on the weekends, when I didn't get enough. I went back to it (each time) because everyone else was doing it, and it seemed so easily justifiable.
- Aperocky 11mo agoWell that's an easy fix, just brew them on weekends too. Life is not just work and also deserve to be caffeinated.
- anonymousiam 11mo agoTo each his (or her) own. I'm not an anti-caffeine zealot. If I was, I wouldn't have been married to my wife for over 30 years. I like the way I feel when I'm not on drugs, but I don't disparage those who do them.