Has anyone quit coffee?

[CoderGuy]

Nah, just that coffee has started to affect me negatively together with snus. I feel weird and end up jittery and tired at the same time a couple of hours after my cup (usually in the evening or late in the day) as the effects wear off, and can get problem sleeping even after just a cup in the morning. It's strange since I didn't get that effect with cigarettes, but I have heard there are lots of others experiencing this problem combining snus and coffee. When I didn't snus or smoke, coffee had no effect on me except for lots of positive ones.

A guy (jimderson410) over at Gosmokeless wrote this about effects of nicotine:

"If I'm tired, it wakes me up. If I'm awake, it makes me a little tired. Since I've been using nicotine for so long, it doesn't have a noticeable on me except with caffeine. I can't do the caffeine and nicotine like yall can. I like my coffee and my dip/snus but not together haha. Makes me feel awful."

The same thing happens to me, and I can't understand why. Hm... It sucks that I have to give it up, but what the... I'll threat myself with it occasionally, as it probably is meant to be used!

Ah OK, makes sense. Good luck.

[CzechCzar]

For anyone trying to quit, I will say this: drink a TON of water, it helps greatly with the caffeine headaches.

[heders]

Heders, if you want to find tea more interesting you could try going here:

http://www.teachat.com/

I read some folk on there quit coffee with tea or cut down coffee with tea.

Thanks a lot bro! I'll look in to that!

Ah OK, makes sense. Good luck.

Thanks man!

For anyone trying to quit, I will say this: drink a TON of water, it helps greatly with the caffeine headaches.

I have recently started drinking lots of more water during the day, combined with lots of tea (like 2-3 cups in the evening of herbal tea). Thanks for the tip!


I've only had a cup of green tea today. Don't know if it's really necessary to break that habit. Green tea contains such a small amount of caffeine, and doesn't affect me at all except for easing the withdrawal a bit. I am going to quit the coffee though! I might have a cup here and there, but it will only be on special occasions. I've found many great articles about what an addiction to caffeine really does, and it seems like it's worse than one may think; at least a higher consumption. You get less sleep because you're wired on caffeine, and need to drink more coffee to be able to recover from the lost sleep, and thus a very destructive cycle is born. To top that off, you also get a much higher concentration of cortisol (stress-hormon) and adrenaline in your blood, and get much more sensitive to stress. This was in fact the case for me, because in the last years I haven't really been tired in the evenings. I am awake until I know I 'need' to sleep, but not because I want too. Then the day after I'm a total wreck after 5 hours of sleep and thus drink more coffee, and it repeats...

I also read that a higher dose of caffeine (a dose many ingest daily) can mimic symptoms of insanity:

29. Coffee makes you crazy! “If a person were injected with 500 milligrams of caffeine, within about an hour he or she would exhibit symptoms of severe mental illness, among them, hallucinations, paranoia, panic, mania, and depression. But the same amount of caffeine administered over the course of a day only produces the milder forms of insanity, for which we take tranquilizers and antidepressants.”

Also coffee depletes GABA:

22. Caffeine depletes GABA, the calming brain chemcial that makes you feel in control and centered, not overwhelmed. “Caffeine disrupts the normal metabolism of GABA. Here’s this wonderful brain biochemical that increases the ‘filter mechanism’ of the brain, helps you to step back and see clearly even under stress, and caffeine screws it up.”

...and affects your stress hormones:

11. Caffeine powerfully affects stress hormones. “It takes three weeks or more after withdrawal from caffeine before stress hormones return to normal.” Cherniske recommends that you eliminate caffeine for a minimum of 60 days in order to see how you really feel without caffeine. (I can personally attest to this. I have so much more energy today — but it did take several weeks off caffeine for me to feel it.)

http://www.cheeseslave.com/30-reasons-to-quit-coffee/

Everyone is wired differently though, but all of these has been felt by me, and thus are very strong reasons for me to give it up.

If I were to quit snus, I would probably start up coffee again, as it didn't really have a noticeable effect then, but if feel happy quitting one of my addictions right now. And I feel a great amount of difference already, even though I'm still in withdrawal. I can do strong snus without it really affecting me. When I had three coffees before and lots of strong snus my sleep would be totally messed up (night waking's during the night, crazy dreams etc), and I would feel very strange, dizzy and cloud brained during the day.

[muddyfunkstar]

Good luck Heders, hope you feel some benefit.

Me, I've tried quitting all sorts of stuff over the years - caffeine, nicotine, meat, etc - all because I felt as though I should, or that it would make me happier/feel better/healthier. I always subscribed to the "all or nothing" approach, and as such all these quit attempts were short-lived and doomed to failure. Nowadays I subscribe to the "a little of what you fancy does you good" approach. Much happier place to be.

[precious007]

Heders, if you want to find tea more interesting you could try going here:

http://www.teachat.com/

I read some folk on there quit coffee with tea or cut down coffee with tea.

nice find

got to look into that tea forum

[CzechCzar]

That was my experience with coffee - anytime I was hooked I would get extreme cases of paranoia. For example, when I was a kid I had a cerebral hemorrhage. When I drank coffee, any time I had the slightest headache, I'd fly into a panic, thinking it was another bleed. Caffeine interfering with the sleep cycle was another problem. Coffee messes up sleep; drink more coffee; repeat...

I still have a latte on a semiregular basis though, cuz that stuff is too tasty to abandon entirely.

Thanks a lot bro! I'll look in to that!


Thanks man!


I have recently started drinking lots of more water during the day, combined with lots of tea (like 2-3 cups in the evening of herbal tea). Thanks for the tip!


I've only had a cup of green tea today. Don't know if it's really necessary to break that habit. Green tea contains such a small amount of caffeine, and doesn't affect me at all except for easing the withdrawal a bit. I am going to quit the coffee though! I might have a cup here and there, but it will only be on special occasions. I've found many great articles about what an addiction to caffeine really does, and it seems like it's worse than one may think; at least a higher consumption. You get less sleep because you're wired on caffeine, and need to drink more coffee to be able to recover from the lost sleep, and thus a very destructive cycle is born. To top that off, you also get a much higher concentration of cortisol (stress-hormon) and adrenaline in your blood, and get much more sensitive to stress. This was in fact the case for me, because in the last years I haven't really been tired in the evenings. I am awake until I know I 'need' to sleep, but not because I want too. Then the day after I'm a total wreck after 5 hours of sleep and thus drink more coffee, and it repeats...

I also read that a higher dose of caffeine (a dose many ingest daily) can mimic symptoms of insanity:

29. Coffee makes you crazy! “If a person were injected with 500 milligrams of caffeine, within about an hour he or she would exhibit symptoms of severe mental illness, among them, hallucinations, paranoia, panic, mania, and depression. But the same amount of caffeine administered over the course of a day only produces the milder forms of insanity, for which we take tranquilizers and antidepressants.”

Also coffee depletes GABA:

22. Caffeine depletes GABA, the calming brain chemcial that makes you feel in control and centered, not overwhelmed. “Caffeine disrupts the normal metabolism of GABA. Here’s this wonderful brain biochemical that increases the ‘filter mechanism’ of the brain, helps you to step back and see clearly even under stress, and caffeine screws it up.”

...and affects your stress hormones:

11. Caffeine powerfully affects stress hormones. “It takes three weeks or more after withdrawal from caffeine before stress hormones return to normal.” Cherniske recommends that you eliminate caffeine for a minimum of 60 days in order to see how you really feel without caffeine. (I can personally attest to this. I have so much more energy today — but it did take several weeks off caffeine for me to feel it.)

http://www.cheeseslave.com/30-reasons-to-quit-coffee/

Everyone is wired differently though, but all of these has been felt by me, and thus are very strong reasons for me to give it up.

If I were to quit snus, I would probably start up coffee again, as it didn't really have a noticeable effect then, but if feel happy quitting one of my addictions right now. And I feel a great amount of difference already, even though I'm still in withdrawal. I can do strong snus without it really affecting me. When I had three coffees before and lots of strong snus my sleep would be totally messed up (night waking's during the night, crazy dreams etc), and I would feel very strange, dizzy and cloud brained during the day.

[Mr. Snuffleupagus]

I used to drink coffee and espresso drinks all day and night for at least 20 years. Just the way I was raised. A few years ago I started limiting my coffee to just in the mornings and eventually down to one strong cup a day. Then I switched the one cup of coffee for one cup of black tea and have been off coffee for a couple years now. Now I switch up between black, earl grey, and yerba mate teas. I've been liking the yerba mate the most recently.

Anyways, yep, I quit coffee and I hope you figure out what works best for you. Good Luck!

[heders]

Thanks for your responses! I've not yet quit coffee... damn, it's almost as hard as quitting nicotine, haha. However, I've started mixing my coffee with decaf. Today and yesterday it was 50/50 regular/decaf. That I can live with! We'll see if I will continue the journey to be completely caffeine free.

[Fazer]

I’m trying to cut down my nicotine and caffeine at the moment. Some days are harder than others with coffee. Reducing my snus intake is doable with snuff, but is that really reducing my nicotine? If you compare snuff to a stark loose, I guess it is! Because I’m addicted to both, if I cut down the nicotine too much, I compensate with more coffee, some days I can find the balance, others not.

[Snusify]

Indulge in everything (until it becomes compulsive)

[Mayhart]

Hm .. why would i even consider quitting coffee?... One of the best pleasures in the world along with some other obvious ones :þ ... Quitting coffee aint THAT hard though (compared to tobacco) At least on ne, there are days where i take 5/6 big mugs of coffee and others where i dont even have a single one (rare, but happens).

Nyway... Good Luck with your mission, seems ur having some trouble with it alright.

[Fazer]

Hm .. why would i even consider quitting coffee?... One of the best pleasures in the world along with some other obvious ones :þ ... Quitting coffee aint THAT hard though (compared to tobacco) At least on ne, there are days where i take 5/6 big mugs of coffee and others where i dont even have a single one (rare, but happens).

Nyway... Good Luck with your mission, seems ur having some trouble with it alright.

At my worst I was drinking from 10 > 15 a day….. When you’re drinking THAT much, trust me, it is THAT hard

[Mayhart]

At my worst I was drinking from 10 > 15 a day….. When you’re drinking THAT much, trust me, it is THAT hard

Bloody hell ... That's a lot =/ I can tell you that the most important thing i've done to help on my high coffee intake was basically removing the coffee machine from my office LOL .. Now everytime i want one i need to walk up and down the stairs, which is a bit discouraging .. Plus reducing both the intensity and dose of the coffee ofc ^^. At this point im just a regular+ user.

[Fazer]

Bloody hell ... That's a lot =/ I can tell you that the most important thing i've done to help on my high coffee intake was basically removing the coffee machine from my office LOL .. Now everytime i want one i need to walk up and down the stairs, which is a bit discouraging .. Plus reducing both the intensity and dose of the coffee ofc ^^. At this point im just a regular+ user.

It’s like any other addiction, I was addicted then, and still I’m addicted now. Having said that, I don’t drink so much coffee now. The doctor told me I was a walking heart attack, so I cut down. Walking up and down the stairs wouldn’t stop me from getting a coffee, if I needed a fix, I’d get one, because it’s a drug! It’s the same as somebody with a cocaine addiction, if you need to drive 50 miles to get your coke, you’ll do it. I hope by the end of the year i can be a regular user, i still can't get under 5 mugs a day, no matter how hard i try...

[heders]

Hmm... I had a realization just before, after starting to feel a bit jittery like usual, even though I've only had a cup of coffee in the morning today - and that was that I snus WAY too much. I've had almost exclusively strong/extra strong portions today without even thinking about it, and I use one almost each hour, without waiting one second between them. That's where the problem might be... I'll try cutting back my snus usage instead I think (and still remain on my low 1-2 cups of coffees a day consumption).