Quitting Caffeine Progress
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A few weeks ago, I realized that caffeine was affecting my mood dramatically. I have been off of caffeine for about 3 weeks now and I thought I was due to share an update in my progress.
I almost relapsed. My girlfriend recently forgot that I had quit caffeine and accidentally bought me my favorite coffee drink. I didn’t want to make her feel bad, so I was going to drink it. After one sip though, I couldn’t take anymore. It tasted absolutely repulsive. I noticed the a year ago with Dr. Pepper after my first attempt to quit caffeine. It suddenly tasted gross when I wasn’t addicted to the caffeine. You can find the same characteristic with any drug. After a few tastes though, the feeling comes back and you want more. Luckily I didn’t relapse.
I can think much clearer. I used to either have too many thoughts to where I couldn’t concentrate on anything, or I’d be worn down from the caffeine crash. I also sleep much better. I sleep so deep that I don’t seem to need as much sleep now. It used to be that I would wake up extra groggy in the morning. Now I can wake up after 6 or 7 hours and be ready to go.
Things get rough when you’re out at a coffee shop with others. I feel I should be holding a fancy coffee cup and talking with my friends. It is always at the coffee house, where the stereotype of the caffeine consuming techie is played out the most. I think many of my friends feel more comfortable consuming all the sugar and the caffeine they want because it fits their culture. It’s like they feel coffee makes them who they are. Of course, I am the alien. They can’t imagine why I would possibly want to quit caffeine. Unless they quit like I have and see how good it feels and realize how gross caffeinated drinks really taste, I guess they will never get it.
4 Comments
Marcellus Easley
January 18th, 2008
at 7:45am
Yeah I agree. Coffee isn’t addicting. Its the caffeine. At one point, I use to ALWAYS need a coffee at least three or four times a day. It got to the point where I purchased Vivarin caffeine pills, for the times when I was in too much of a rush to get coffee. The only bad thing is the crash afterwards. It causes a sense of anxiety and paranoia. The only upside to caffeine when I go to sleep is that I have A LOT of dreams! Other than that, forget coffee.
Evan Hobbs
June 12th, 2008
at 1:22am
How’s that going? I’ve been trying to quit for a while but I’m a student and I always get sucked back in by some new deadline that I need to make… Now I’m getting serious about it in the next week…
MusickMan
October 28th, 2008
at 10:02am
I just quit yesterday and OUCH. I woke up this morning thinking that I had the flu. I recommend that anybody wanting to quit should do their online research so they know what is in store.
Coomloniker
February 18th, 2009
at 7:01pm
Interesting. Back before I was a caffeine addict, I used to think green sodas like Mountain Dew and Vault tasted horrible. I actually found them hard to swallow.
Now I like the taste, but I’m trying to get off caffeine again.
I also felt some nausea and had a bad headache on Monday morning–I had most recently drank a caffeinated beverage on Saturday. But after drinking some water the headache went away.
So if anyone reads this and has a similar experience, remember to drink a lot of water. I feel like I get dehydrated more often since kicking the caffeine addiction, and dehydration can give you a headache pretty quick.