Caffeine: The Silent Killer of Success

I've given up coffee two months ago. I had severe withdrawal symptoms for a month. In my experience abstinence from coffee also helps to abstain from PMO.

 

i used to drink 3 cups of black coffee each day and stopped exactly for the reasons stated above cold turkey. While i was drinking coffe i always felt nervous, agitated, my puls was way to high and i was sweating a lot.
I had actually quite strong withdrawal symptoms, headache, i was tired - a bit like having a hangover. But they passed after one day.
I feel so much better now

 

Like Monvoyage, I too quit my coffee fix around 18 months ago for the reasons in the original post. It was an easy decision to make when the evidence I read matched my own experiences of anxiety attacks in Starbucks. I believe that quitting coffee was great training for quitting PMO.

 

Thanks for the post Adjoint. I've been wondering about the negative effects of caffeine lately and contemplating cutting back but wasn't sure if there was much point. After reading your post i'll now give it a try.

 

I've been drinking tons of coffee for a few years now. The thing that makes it harder to stop is the affects once you lay off of it for a few days. Dizziness, headaches, and it gets worse if you start back up. If you're gonna quit, do it slowly. I'm making it a point to start to lay off of it myself. You can get energy by working out and drinking water. That in itself is the best way to get it.

 

Wow there appears to be some incredible benefits from giving up drinking coffee. And yet I love it. I'm having a real issue in giving up smoking, and yet maybe it's the coffee I need to abstain from first before I attempt to go cold turkey on the smoking. Food for thought..

 

Totally, and the more you drink, the harder these symptoms get. Me, I'm going to go slow with it and have a cup a day. You can't really give this up cold turkey. I mean, you can, it'll just be a lot harder.

 

cold turkey is the best way to do it. you feel miserable for one or maybe two days, but then you're done with the fucking addiction and your free!
Really, i mean do you stop fapping by only fapping once a day? No. You just stop.

By consciously drinking less, you're making it more valuable to your subconsciousnes, thus making it even harder to really quit for good! And at some point you will have to go cold turkey if you want to stop, so why not do it right away and get past this crap?

 

Having been a tea drinker all my life, probably from the earliest of ages, maybe 5-6 years old, I'm anxious to see how giving up caffiene up will affect me. I'll give this ago if only for a month, but must admit Tea drinking is all part of being British and it'll bother me like heck when someone kindly asks "Would you like a cuppa." Challenge accepted. No more tea for a month starting from this Sunday evening.

 

Cold turkey vs. slow way: I guess it depends on circumstances and personality. The main thing is the goal - to be free.

 

Well, if the goal is to become free and to not just decrease the consumption, i see some difficulties in the slow way: that is postponing the actual getting free. But yea, just try it and if it works for you thats perfect!

It's just my experience with addictions that a going cold turkey makes things a lot easier. Also by means of staying clean. If you did it the slow way and slowly reduced to zero, there is in my experience a higher danger of slowly slipping back in again. It's been easy for me to make decision to not do it any more, and to just not do it anymore. There are no discussions going on in your head, it just is that way. Which means that relapsing also needs an as strong decission as it took to stop.

I totally get it. Saying no to "Would you like a cuppa?" is probably even worse than saying "tardis? what is this?". But that's just a matter of priorities. But yea, i get it. It's certainly not easy if it's such a big part of your culture.

 

"It's just my experience with addictions that a going cold turkey makes things a lot easier."

Actually, for me it also works like this and I even think that IF POSSIBLE this way is better. But for instance in my case the withdrawal symptoms from coffee were so long and so bad that if I had ordinary job I could not afford it (unless I took long holidays).

Do you, guys, also think that green tea is bad? I drink it moderately and irregularly. I think it could become a problem but it seems to me that it is not.

 

Eh, I could see that. I mean it'll be difficult, but you're right on different personalities. Me, I don't think I could just do it cold turkey. I tend to get dizzy anyway, that would just drive me crazy. lol I should retract my previous statement, I don't think there really is a "Best way" in doing this, just like any addiction it needs to be taken care of personally.

 

I stopped drinking coffee a few times and then started again because after a while it seemed to me that my life with it was (no good but) better after all. Then I have read withdrawal experiences of SOME people and they resemble mine: first week extreme symptoms, then bad days and then ... not very good days. And in these not very good days some are worse. And drinking just one cup of coffee turns them quickly into wonderful! So, why not taking up the habit again? ... Some people claim that their organism was restored only after a year! So, this time I shall stick with abstinence.

Moreover, I believe (at least for me) the abstinence from coffee helps also for abstinence from PMO: http://www.nofap.org/forum/showthread.php?20688-Do-we-need-to-quit-coffee

Good luck, Nageroma!

 

I drink lots of coffee. It doesn't disrupt my sleep in anyway. There are plenty of studies about coffee and it's not as clear cut as this post suggests. I simply drink an extra 3 cups of water for every cup of coffee to ensure I am 100% hydrated properly.

 

My whole life I've had this low-grade struggle to keep the caffeine use under control. Ever since I was a kid and my mother brought me coffee in bed instead of going through the trial of screaming at me for 20 minutes every school morning.
I know there is life without the drug, I gave it up entirely while pregnant and nursing, but I've never been able to dip below one coffee per day and still maintain a desk job. Human beings were never meant to sit in office chairs. Cubicle farms are an abomination.

 

While I'm not trying to give it up totally, I'm trying to cut back to a reasonable level. I have a bad habit of stopping for a Monster energy drink on the way to work. My first step is to cut those out. I know they are very bad to drink on a regular basis like that. You can give it up completely but be prepared for a possible headache for a while afterward. I did a few years ago give it up for a while and I actually never had any withdrawal symptoms other than just really wanting soda or coffee at times. I guess it depends on each persons physiology and how much of a caffeine drinker you were.