I spent a few years completely avoiding caffeine and the last few years consuming a lot of caffeine (via coffee). For me, in terms of alertness or productivity, there is a difference only in the "transition" period when the body is readjusting to the (lack of) caffeine. Otherwise the only difference is that by being used to caffeine, I can enjoy making and drinking good coffee (one of the simple pleasures of life).

This is what it is for me. I've quit coffee and caffeine multiple times, sometimes for a year usually just for a month or two. Just to see if I enjoy life more without it. But I just simply love the routine of coffee in the morning. Also I've found nothing that compares to the flavor of black coffee. I only drink coffee in the morning, but several cups (french press). One of the simple pleasures in life for me as well.

What you have actually found is that coffee radically changes the way your brain works. It is easy to misappropriate this to the taste.

for reference: I regularly took 200mg or more a day through diet coke. Quit a little over a year ago with 20mg caffeine pills for about a week or two. Had headaches the entire two weeks. I had a total tolerance to caffeine at this point. I could drink an entire can right before bed and sleep absolutely fine.

I think my productivity increased, but really it was just removing the "brain fog" of feeling like I had to ingest more caffeine that boosted my productivity.

Things that changed for me:

* no more "I forgot to drink caffeine/didn't have access, now I have withdrawl".

* my hangovers after drinking alcohol are more tolerable or gone.

* no more compulsive soda drinking when bored

Things that didn't change for me:

* sleep

* energy

* overall mood

* weight

* caffeine still has no (or imperceptible) impact on me when I drink small amounts from tea. Most months I go with 0mg.

I think many people ascribe quitting coffee, soda, or caffeine to many of the things that didn't impact me, but those same people also note other life changes they did at the same time and I suspect that had a greater impact for them.

That said, I replaced my caffine habit with seltzer/sparkling water (which helps trick me into thinking it is a soda). I now drink large amounts of seltzer instead.

Every time I see a diet coke? Anxiety spikes, I have to strongly resist the urge to drink it. Caffeine addiction was pretty terrible for me.

> * no more compulsive soda drinking when bored

I found switching to sparkling water (we bought a Soda Stream) helped me here. Now I get a real soda maybe once every week or two as a "treat" (basically the now rare occasion we order takeout) and can resist them when in an office (rarely these days) with a vending machine.

> did you find that you were as or even more mentally productive after you had transitioned off of it?

Being perfectly honest, this is _very_ hard to judge. I would say it's about the same, but it somehow feels a bit more... honest, shall I say? The feedback loop for being extremely tired and course correcting is much shorter. As opposed to just varying your caffeine dose for a week or so, and then realising you're super tired, now you will find out about it within a day or so. One big upside for me has been that if I now have a cup of coffee, it actually works like it was meant to, and I'm far more energetic for a short while. This can be used strategically for rare, but important events. In the past, this would have required large amounts of caffeine over an already high baseline.

I felt less productive but it’s very hard to disentangle from other issues.

Went to decaf coffee for a while and felt more productive. But recently stopped that, had no withdrawal and feel extremely productive so....who knows.

Caffeine just made me act like a coke-head. Remember, cocaine's effects are very similar to caffeine.

I also used to get bad insomnia from caffeine.

That's why I switched to decaf in the morning.

As far as a productivity shift... That's hard to quantify. It's easy to get under the influence of a dopamine boost and fool yourself into thinking you're more productive; when you're really making more mistakes and driving your colleagues nuts.

I definitely did. I was almost embarrassed by how alert I felt during the day after I quit, because I felt like I'd wasted so many years feeling drowsy and brain foggy.

If it had mostly been down to the caffeine I bet I'd wasted literally years of scratching my head and staring blankly at the screen.