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Author Topic: Caffeine Addiction  (Read 2180 times)

Jimmy

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Caffeine Addiction
« on: November 29, 2012, 06:05:08 am »

I keep wondering to myself if I should try quitting again.

Several months ago I was at my worst. Each morning would start with an instant coffee followed by a liquid "vitamin" supplement containing a small amount of caffeine but high doses of taurine (2g, twice that found in Red Bull). This would last me until about ten to eleven o'clock. Then I would go for my morning tea at work, to the nearby cafe where I was known for my order. Four shots of coffee in a glass, neat. After lunch, this was repeated.

Honestly, this was probably one of the best periods for my happiness and productivity. My job requires a high level of mental alertness and I'm constantly juggling multiple tasks. However, the results of such high amounts of coffee eventually caught up with me and I developed chronic gastric reflux. Knowing the cause, I quit all but my morning instant, replacing my break and lunch with green tea.

This lasted about two months. Eventually the begging from my co-workers over my chronic bad mood got to me and I started drinking espresso again. Instant improvement in productivity and happiness again, though I limited myself to a current maximum of one instant each morning, and a double espresso at morning tea. No reflux, day is spent working without biting people's heads off or making careless mistakes.

However I have a new problem. Energy drinks are becoming a brand new bad habit. I regularly avoid soft drinks if possible for the various health risks they come with, but the instant rush of energy these provide are extremely habit-forming. A corner store on the way to work offers a wide variety and a particular brand marketed as containing a double serve with twice the recommended daily volume replaced my morning coffee break. Consuming this allows me to work at maximum output all day without break, aside from a needed bathroom run about half an hour after arriving at work.

As it currently stands I'm consuming one instant coffee each morning and a double energy drink before work. The health issues aside from daily doses of the sugar in the energy drink sending me into a pre-diabetic insulin deficiency, I wonder if I should try cutting back again on the caffeine or just shift the content back to the healthier espresso alternative.

Anyone else with similar experiences?
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Mushroo

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #1 on: November 29, 2012, 06:40:19 am »

cold turkey is my advice.
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ansontan2000

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #2 on: November 29, 2012, 07:14:51 am »

Quick question first: What is your opinion on water? Can you drink it fine and often? For me, a cold glass of water is enough to wake me up every morning, and drinking a liter or so every 4 hours can keep me awake.
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Jimmy

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #3 on: November 29, 2012, 07:35:39 am »

Water: Before and during work, not an option. I don't have time to spend running to get rid of a litre of fluid an hour after I drink it. Espresso was my main drink specifically because it's a high caffeine, low fluid volume. After work, I'll usually drink a glass or two of water before and after dinner. Bathroom breaks are a luxury I can seldom afford at work.
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ChairmanPoo

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #4 on: November 29, 2012, 08:12:18 am »

Have you considered antiacids? Also avoid fatty food and booze (esp. At night) and try to sleep at  a 45° angle

(That is, to try to address the reflux. Caffeine is a factor, but there are others, maybe you can address those instead
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Thief^

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #5 on: November 29, 2012, 11:32:12 am »

Your bad mood was due to coming down from your morning coffee. Go cold turkey on caffeine and you should (after the headaches go) be just as happy without any caffeine at all.
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Mushroo

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #6 on: November 29, 2012, 12:11:14 pm »

Nobody has ever died from caffeine withdrawal, unlike some other drugs.

People quit heroin, cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, etc. every day. You can quit caffeine if you put your mind to it. :)
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Leatra

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #7 on: November 29, 2012, 05:45:03 pm »

Man, am I the only one who thinks about the movie Idiocracy when seeing a thread about caffeine addiction? I think the movie is right, people will forget that water is actually something drinkable as energy drinks will replace water :P

Coffee doesn't make you more alert. It just eases the effects of caffeine withdrawal. So, that kick you get from drinking coffee, it's a part of your addiction. You get a caffeine withdrawal and when you wake up you feel like you must get a morning coffee. Think about this next time you want to get a coffee.

Also, NEVER drink anything else than water if you get REALLY thirsty.
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gimlet

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #8 on: November 29, 2012, 06:50:42 pm »

I gotta think that if you're trying that hard to avoid fluids you're probably kind of dehydrated.  I try to have a big glass of water where I am and sip constantly, probably 6-8 pints a day at least, and I feel pretty good.  Every few days I drink a LITTLE mate or green tea (the mate directions were 50g/16oz water holy COW was that way too potent, I reused the grounds 4 more times and still had lots of flavor, and a huge caffeine buzz all day and well into the night :p).

I mean how hard is it to take 2 minutes to take a whizz?  (Unless you're female in which case - bummer).  You're supposed to get up from the desk a couple times an hour anyway, I always forget to do that and that's one way to force it every hour or so.  Whizz/refill water = perfect cycle :D

I cut back from serious coffee a few years ago and really don't want to go back (except for the delicious flavor of well made coffee - I still make a pint once a week or so).  There was a great coffee place RIGHT by the entrance of the office - grab a big one on the way in, hey midmorning slump, pop out for another.  Big soda at lunch, bit droopy afterwards digesting, remedy: another big coffee.  Gotta stay an extra hour, oh oh better fortify with another - yeah, don't get into that cycle...

Try moving around more if you're at a desk job, even a fast circuit of the floor would get the blood moving a little.  I was lucky the job was such that I could pop out for 15 minutes and take a brisk walk around the block, out in the nice sunshine, either thinking about the current problem while not right in front of it, or putting it out of mind and letting the subconcious work on it for a bit - either way I felt 1000% better when getting back.  I'd even get off the train 1 stop early so I could get a little walk on the way in - the office was *right* by a station so otherwise I'd arrive a little too relaxed to face the horrors of the day :p
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Jimmy

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #9 on: November 30, 2012, 04:53:03 am »

Like I said before, bathroom breaks aren't an option.

I work as a pharmacist. My job is in a retail pharmacy inside a large shopping centre. I stand all day, no chair. Our policy is for five minute or less turnover for script in to script out. Business is good, and this means a constant flow of scripts to process and check. I have a few technicians who work under me doing the procedural side of dispensing while I deal with therapeutics and drug counseling. When they have a break I fill their position dispensing too. If we clear the queue of scripts and there's no customers needing service, a rare event, I can leave the store for a bathroom break. Otherwise, if I leave no scripts can be finalized and handed out. A round trip to the bathroom takes a minimum of six minutes travel time alone.

I get paid well to do my job and I'm happy with the sacrifices I make in terms of personal comforts. Hydration is addressed when at home through the exclusion of fluids other than water. I don't drink soft drinks or juices, cordials or milk based drinks. I might occasionally enjoy a glass of wine after work, but that's it aside from water.

Because my job involves checking both simple and complex issues (simple things like correct payment processing codes, complex such as drug interactions or over the counter diagnoses), I have to perform at a high degree of alertness and perform all tasks with 100% accuracy every time. Mistakes could be trivial, such as an overcharged customer, to serious, such as a miscalculated pediatric medication dose.

I've done basic research into the overall adverse effects of regular caffeine intake and found little in the way of scientific evidence of harm. Caffeine for Cognition from the Cochrane Collaboration, while only a protocol, lists several studies on the subject relevant to this topic. In summary, there's no evidence for significant harm from caffeine derived from coffee. Energy drinks, however, would no doubt contain the standard risks associated with regular soft drink consumption.

Man, am I the only one who thinks about the movie Idiocracy when seeing a thread about caffeine addiction? I think the movie is right, people will forget that water is actually something drinkable as energy drinks will replace water :P

Coffee doesn't make you more alert. It just eases the effects of caffeine withdrawal. So, that kick you get from drinking coffee, it's a part of your addiction. You get a caffeine withdrawal and when you wake up you feel like you must get a morning coffee. Think about this next time you want to get a coffee.

Also, NEVER drink anything else than water if you get REALLY thirsty.
Actually, according to studies performed on shift workers, caffeine improves alertness and reduces error rates and injuries.
Caffeine for preventing injuries and errors in shift workers - Cochrane Review
Caffeine Helps Prevent Nighttime Accidents on the Job - NY Times article reporting on above

Have you considered antiacids? Also avoid fatty food and booze (esp. At night) and try to sleep at  a 45° angle

(That is, to try to address the reflux. Caffeine is a factor, but there are others, maybe you can address those instead
Regular ranitidine stopped the reflux caused by my previous coffee binge, but I don't subscribe to treating a lifestyle disease with medication when the cure is to alter your lifestyle to remove the cause.

Seems nobody has had a similar experience to mine here, but thanks for the comments all. I might try a washout period a few months from now when I go on vacation when my wife has our second child. We'll see what happens after I return to work once my two weeks are up.
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Leatra

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #10 on: November 30, 2012, 08:31:36 am »

Man, am I the only one who thinks about the movie Idiocracy when seeing a thread about caffeine addiction? I think the movie is right, people will forget that water is actually something drinkable as energy drinks will replace water :P

Coffee doesn't make you more alert. It just eases the effects of caffeine withdrawal. So, that kick you get from drinking coffee, it's a part of your addiction. You get a caffeine withdrawal and when you wake up you feel like you must get a morning coffee. Think about this next time you want to get a coffee.

Also, NEVER drink anything else than water if you get REALLY thirsty.
Actually, according to studies performed on shift workers, caffeine improves alertness and reduces error rates and injuries.
Caffeine for preventing injuries and errors in shift workers - Cochrane Review
Caffeine Helps Prevent Nighttime Accidents on the Job - NY Times article reporting on above

There are studies showing the opposite too. I'm too lazy to Google right now but I'm sure you can find some if you search for "coffee alertness"
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Jimmy

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #11 on: November 30, 2012, 03:39:20 pm »

There are studies showing the opposite too. I'm too lazy to Google right now but I'm sure you can find some if you search for "coffee alertness"

Google Result 1
Google Result 2
Google Result 3
Google Result 4
Google Result 5

All of these reference a single source article.
Peter J Rogers, Christa Hohoff, Susan V Heatherley, Emma L Mullings, Peter J Maxfield, Richard P Evershed, Jürgen Deckert and David J Nutt. Association of the Anxiogenic and Alerting Effects of Caffeine with ADORA2A and ADORA1 Polymorphisms and Habitual Level of Caffeine Consumption. Neuropsychopharmacology, 2010.

Here's a followup article attempting to prove the above results are valid using a low N test group.
Andrew P Smith, Gary Christopher and David Sutherland. Acute effects of caffeine on attention: a comparison of non-consumers and withdrawn consumers. J Psychopharmacol. 2012.
Results: No effect from short-term caffeine withdrawal on performance measures, and that ingestion of caffeine was associated with faster simple reaction time, fewer long responses, greater detection of targets in the cognitive vigilance task, and faster encoding of new information.

This same question, whether caffeine consumption merely reverses the effects of caffeine withdrawal, was previously tested and proven false.
Paul Hewlett and Andrew Smith. Effects of repeated doses of caffeine on performance and alertness: new data and secondary analyses. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental, 2007.

The first article gained plenty of attention by the media for proposing to debunk a popular belief, but I have doubts of the validity given it flies in the face of previously established research on caffeine and alertness.
Ardith Zwyghuizen-Doorenbos, Timothy A. Roehrs, Lauren Lipschutz, Victoria Timms and Thomas Roth. Effects of caffeine on alertness. Psychopharmacology, 1990.
David Penetar, Una McCann, David Thorne, Gary Kamimori, Cynthia Galinski, Helen Sing, Maria Thomas and Gregory Belenky. Caffeine reversal of sleep deprivation effects on alertness and mood. Psychopharmacology, 1993.
John J. Foxe, Kristen P. Morie, Peter J. Laud, Matthew J. Rowson, Eveline A. de Bruin and Simon P. Kelly. Assessing the effects of caffeine and theanine on the maintenance of vigilance during a sustained attention task. Neuropharmacology, 2012.

So overall I'm not convinced by Rogers et. al. and their claim that caffeine doesn't improve your performance. Plenty of other people have proved it does under a variety of scenarios.
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Leatra

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #12 on: November 30, 2012, 05:23:46 pm »

Keep on drinkin' then.
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Redd

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #13 on: December 10, 2012, 06:10:16 am »

caffeine is the shit.
while it's a more expensive way to get amped than drinking coffee, i'm sure that as a pharmacist you have access to the cheapest generic pills. even as a regular coffee drinker, when i started taking pills the initial CNS 'come up' felt very similar to amphetamines.
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Reelya

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Re: Caffeine Addiction
« Reply #14 on: December 10, 2012, 06:18:52 am »

Jimmy: are you sure you're eating enough breakfast? If you're running out of energy all through the day, caffeine+sugar was merely masking the symptoms of not eating a proper breakfast. Eat an assload of low-GI toasted bread, fruit and nuts for breakfast.

Complex carbohydrates + fiber gives high amounts of energy, in a slow release form, rather than a fast-release form. Try eating piles of toast made with the really dark bread. You want to find stuff with a low G.I. and high fiber content.

BTW If you're not used to that sort of "whole food", it can take a while for your guts to get used to it, so maybe wean into it.
« Last Edit: December 10, 2012, 06:22:08 am by Reelya »
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