What always brings me back to coffee is that I find myself in a generally mild depressive state when I'm not drinking it. Coffee makes me feel happy.
I like my coffee black and full of flavor. Working in the oilfield, I discovered Community Coffee's New Orleans blend of coffee with chicory. Chicory was used as a coffee substitute back in the day though it has no caffeine. It does have flavor. You can buy that from Community Coffee company and give it a taste.
If you live in the US and want to try something domestic that you may be able to grow yourself then go to your garden supply and buy a yaupon holly. Don't get the dwarf yaupon unless you want to landscape. Get the standard yaupon bush/tree.
It is the only plant native to North America that produces caffeine. It is dead simple to dry the leaves and make a caffeinated tea. It is also evergreen so you can have fresh tea leaves year round though after this year's hard freeze, the trees I have are setting new leaves since the old ones were frozen and dead.
There also vendors selling yaupon tea leaves online if you wanted to try before you buy.
I sometimes trade my cuppa Joe for a cuppa Joe-Bob (the natural name for a coffee substitute that grows in the southern US along the Gulf Coast.)
They also have controlled release mechanisms and are available in therapeutic doses.
It is not the same thing as buying however much you want of a significantly stronger stimulant and taking and instant hit.
And to anyone not prescribed those medications that are obtaining them for recreational usage, you make an already difficult life of ADHDers much worse, as some are denied an effective, life-changing treatment because of this.
Because it's certainly far easier to get in pure form on the black market compared to other amphetamines.
However, tea leaves are safe for consumption, so you could eat them instead (for example as a salad).
Another possibility is that coffee enforces some level of ritual and regularity into my mornings. Since I have a physical dependency on it, I'll go out of my way each morning to get caffeine and usually induce some tangential benefit, whether that be by brewing some coffee (benefit - I usually make breakfast while waiting on it to brew), by going to a coffee shop (benefit - I go for a walk), or by taking preworkout (benefit - I get a workout in).
So I guess if I was able to be super consistent about some alternative positive morning ritual (like a physical warm up) maybe it would fix the problem of feeling more depressed when not drinking it.
I've considered experimenting more with matcha and yerba mate.
The happy medium for me, and YMMV, but I find now that half-caf is quite satisfying and less sleep-disruptive.
Following the irreparable failure of my poorly designed and manufactured drip coffee machine, I tried the French press and kettle I'd bought for a camping trip years back and, after that trip fell through, never found occasion to use. The coffee was much better, with a creamy taste and mouthfeel that I'd never experienced before in the beverage, so I didn't bother replacing the drip machine. About a month later, I had my first gallstone.
Since then, I've been using a paper filter - the same cheap recycled ones I used in the drip machine - along with the mesh and plate filters that come with the press. It cost me the creaminess that came with the oils which a paper filter removes, but that first gallstone has also so far been my last, so it's a trade I'm happy to make. Kidney stones are much worse, as I have also had the misfortune to learn, but that doesn't make gallstones pleasant.
That said, even with the paper filter, the coffee's still quite a bit better. Between that, my newfound mistrust of drip machine engineering, and the pleasant physicality that assembling, using, and cleaning the press provides in my morning routine, I expect to stick with it indefinitely.
(You can see the difference between filtered and unfiltered coffee. Unfiltered, it has a deep golden sheen caused by light reflecting from tiny droplets of oil emulsified throughout the liquid. Quite lovely to look at, and very pleasant to drink - until one or another of your organs packs up under the load. Given how easy it would seem for oils already so dispersed to enter the bloodstream, I suppose I'm lucky it was just my gallbladder complaining, and not my heart...)
My gf drinks french press but it's too weak for me.
This is super subjective, but I think what "sold" me on the Aeropress was how no-fuss the teardown is compared to anything else I've tried or researched. Everything gets compressed into a dry little puck and it only takes a moment to "pop" into the compost bin. It's nice not to have to worry about the extra work anymore.
And beware that some bags of coffee beans have residual amounts of pesticides/fungicides etcetera which is possibly a cause of your problem. I sometimes get a mild allergic reaction to a coffee supplier, so I have to change suppliers until I find one I am not allergic to. I am pretty sure it is pesticides or another treatment... I am a fairly scientific person who loathes unscientific hypochondriacs: I have reasons to believe it is something in the beans and prior experiences suggest a treatment product.
Quitting was no issue. I had some light headaches for a day or two but otherwise just went cold turkey overnight. However the relief from just disallowing myself to drink coffee has been incredibly liberating. For me it's been equivalent to sugar or dairy: I really enjoy consuming these things and get no bad effects from them, but quitting is beneficial from the sheer time savings I get.
Anyway, the point is coffee isn't necessary for energy anymore than rice is necessary for a meal. It's all cultural. I spent a long time waking up at 4 am, going through a full day of work, exercise, socializing, etc and having no problems staying awake or going to sleep. Western culture places a high cultural emphasis on coffee (like other things) so we think it's important, just like some hispanic and asian cultures tend to place a high emphasis on rice and so people from those cultures think it's critical.
It's all just habits and it's almost always possible to break habits or learn different ones. If you feel like coffee has a net negative impact on your life, try quitting. It's not necessary at all, and you might enjoy life without it
When I quit cold turkey I have a headache so bad I can't do anything at all for 3 days or so, and on day 2 I am bedridden with flu like symptoms(ive tried quitting multiple times).
My reaction to stopping is so severe, but I notice no issues while regularly consuming coffee other than I need it 1 or so hours max after I wake or I will have a headache all day.
I also feel low energy for weeks after stopping coffee.
It turned out that my heart rate had progressively slowed down over a couple months, dropping as low as 21 beats per minute. I was acclimated to it at rest, but my heart wouldn't beat faster regardless of activity level. I had to get a pacemaker that instantly jumped my rate up to 110 bpm. My blood pressure also shot up to something like 160/110. I had the worst "caffeine" headache I can remember from that. It was a long few days until everything balanced out.
I cherish my morning ritual pour-over or aero-press.
21 bpm was measured while I was bundled up like a burrito in a microwave for a cardiac MRI. The machine has to synchronize to your pulse to only collect data between beats. Since my rate was so low, each scan pass took about 4x longer than usual, while having to hold my breath. That was a very long hour of my life.
For a while it was a bit of a Dr. House episode, between the root cause being unknown, and the pacemaker having a reliability issue that needed debugging. I estimate about a dozen cardiologists poked and prodded me. They even had a "conference" with something like 30 people, and it being a teaching hospital, they also did a case study.
I'm doing a lot better now, thanks to smart doctors and the marvels of modern medical technology.
Speaking of Excedrin, I chatted with a doctor online once, and he said he knew of people who were addicted to Excedrin and it was dangerous (presumably because of the acetaminophen, which can kill you if overdone) and people should throw it away. I can see his point since that medicine combines an addictive drug (caffeine) with a dangerous one. Probably a fringe opinion, but thought that was interesting.
The only downside is that I have to be slightly prepared if I am not going to be able to easily consume my regular doses of caffeine. And if I want to cut/stop, it takes about a week or so to do so comfortably.
As for the glorification, I think it's really a glorification of workaholics, and 'needing coffee to get through yet another pile of TPS Reports' is more a badge of honor than anything else.
An addiction can work well in some environment but completely destroy you if your environment changes.
Also, I'm not convinced that caffeine addiction is completely overcome in the week or so it takes for the physical withdrawal. Even for myself when I decide to go through long periods of decaffeination, I find that my energy and motivation is significantly deteriorated from when I regularly caffeinate. Sometimes I wonder if my regular use as a college student permanently altered my brain chemistry. On the flip side, maybe this use set me up for the early career success that I might not otherwise have achieved.
Again, the problem is availability, and we've decided in this country (and most countries) that caffeine should be widely available. So it's not a significant problem, and is easy if slightly time-consuming if you need to update your context.
It's probably worth tying this discussion into applications to e.g. the war on drugs, but the language there tends to be so hyped up that it's too hard to have a good discussion about it.
Which makes you wonder how much drug use would be merely 'dependence' if we had free and easy access. I suspect it is a drug-by-drug case, depending on length of trip, relative incapacitation, physical dependencies (/withdrawal), rate of tolerance increase, etc.
Coffee is just too delicious, especially a well-made cappuccino. I think coffee as a guilty pleasure is not that bad to be honest. There are worse things to be addicted to.
The best way to enjoy a good cup of coffee, for me, is staying at a nice sea view condo.
And then early in the morning sit outside on the balcony, slowly sipping, enjoying the taste of coffee in my mouth, listening to the waves crashing on the beach, feeling the sun on my skin all while looking at the sea.
For me, there's no better way to start a day.
One day (I was about 20 at the time) I wondered "am I addicted"? So as an experiment I quite cold turkey. I didn't drink any coffee or tea for a week. I didn't get any headaches, and I didn't feel any kind of withdrawal syndrome. Yes on the first day I really felt like some coffee in the morning, but after not drinking it my body just accepted it. And I went on with my day.
After about a week of literally no changes, I concluded that I cannot be addicted. I went back to drinking coffee at the same rate and never stopped. It doesn't provide me much benefit (like concentration or energy) due to my very high tolerance. But I just really like coffee so I'm going to carry on drinking it.
I wonder if I am a weird exception, or if there are many others like me. We really like coffee but we are not actually addicted to it.
I suppose the same could be said about alcohol. Some people react very differently towards it and get easily addicted, while others don't even though they drink a lot and just do it for enjoyments sake.
Plenty of younger people (well I guess it's with juuls now) tell themselves they can quit whenever they want, and take break during a week of family vacation. No problem, so they keep on smoking.
5 years later when they try to quit they realize that maybe they weren't as bulletproof as they thought. I know for sure it happened to me.
Of course caffeine could be totally different addiction wise, and thankfully not nearly as deadly, but just some food for thought.
But I was actually thinking of trying it again for a longer period of time (~ 6 months) and seeing what happens.
Caffeine is a highly socially acceptable drug. Doesn't mean it's all that different from them.
I drink like 50 fluid ounces of strong black coffee a day and don't really have a problem on days I drink a lot less. One thing I do is avoid consuming significant amounts of caffeine after noon. That way it's a normal thing for my body to have cleared most of the caffeine.
Do you drink the 3 cups throughout the day?
As I got older it became clear that this was probably both unhealthy and unsustainable so I switched to drinking black tea (with milk) all day instead. I make a giant batch every few days. I feel much better now and the headaches are not nearly as bad in the morning, I just feel slightly tired if I don't drink tea. I may have undiagnosed ADHD or something because I basically can't concentrate without a stimulant (this was true even before I started drinking coffee), but once I take it I find it much easier to focus. I also drink matcha sometimes, but don't like the taste as much. There's something about the bitter taste of strong tea or coffee plus milk to smooth it out that is irresistible to my brain.
If Driven To Distraction, How To ADHD, and r/ADHD resonate deeply, then it's worth getting evaluated.
Statistically speaking untreated ADHD shaves 13 years off expected life span due to high rates of comorbid health problems, fatal accidents, drug/alcohol/gambling addiction, and higher suicide rates from the depression that goes with severely fucking your life up.
The main thing that keeps me from getting treatment is that I don't want to become dependent on a controlled substance. I tend to move around and travel a lot and depending on medication makes me feel very uneasy. I'm also worried about side effects or worse withdrawal problems compared to caffeine. I already know very well how caffeine affects me and I know I can quit and be ok other than the lack of focus. From what I've read, the dependence that can be formed with ADHD drugs can be much more serious.
As an example, I'd used an Aeropress for years with a rather fine grind (finer that typical drip, but not as fine as espresso) and short brew time. (For Aeropress aficionados, I was using the regular method, not inverted.) The coffee was always smooth and never bitter.
Then I got a Clever Dripper (highly recommended!) which typically uses a much longer brew time. I started with the same fine grind and it was coming out bitter. So I increased the grind size to more of a typical drip grind (and slightly on the coarse side of that), and it fixed that problem.
The Clever Dripper also uses much less coffee (again because of the longer brew time), and it pretty much replaced the Aeropress for me.
I mean, it’s normal to have separate yixing teapots depending on the age of your sheng right? ;)
One tip for those trying to reduce or stop their coffee in-take: you don't have to go cold turkey.
Just gradually reduce. I'm always surprised at the amount of people who put themselves through misery trying to abruptly stop. You could even go as gradual as reducing your coffee intake by 25% a day. After a few days it'll be a gentle let down.
LOL! anyways that just kind of made me think, like its not that bad for me, helps me get stuff done, and I love making and drinking it. No reason to stop now!
Would be curious if anyone has ever been able to regain their tolerance. I really loved coffee.
Recently, within the last 10 months or so, I've gone back to drinking it without much effect. The only significant difference in my case was that I started a regular and fairly intense exercise regimen after my exgf dumped me. The way she did it was horrible, it was stressful, and made me lose a bunch of weight (for me, ~10 pounds) in less than a week, but the end result was that I recognized the benefits and decided to work to lose more and keep it off. I wasn't hugely over my ideal weight (25-30 over) but losing most of it helped with a bunch of different things, including this.
I don't know if this changed my ability to metabolize caffeine somewhat faster (I think it did; or minimized the effects), but before this I could feel my heart starting to act a bit funny within minutes of drinking anything with caffeine to the extent I'd wind up with a full blown panic attack. Now, I can drink it without noticing much other than the jitters (normal for me). Doesn't affect my heart rate unless I drink too much.
That said, I very slowly ramped up my caffeine intake over a few weeks starting with regular black teas. Maybe try switching up your exercise routine and slowly reintroduce it? The first couple cups I had over a week definitely upset my stomach slightly but it got better. Though, I noticed even decaf would do that as well. Doesn't now for whatever reason.
Did you normally drink it by itself or with something to eat?
I always drink it with food. Glad you were able to reintroduce it!
It all vanished after I stopped drinking coffee. The first day was brutal, the second a bit better. A week later, I was fine. Now I drink green tea all day and feel quite good from a stomach perspective.
And, I truly hope green tea is not transported on the same ships as coffee!