Caffeine Addiction

[il Padrino Ute]

Truthfully, caffeine use is pretty rare for me. Sometimes before workouts, but that's about it.

It's one of my three major food groups. The other two are salami and benefiber.

[UtahDan]

Here is one anecdotal piece of evidence: one of the best things I ever did was kick my caffeine habit. I won't call it an addiction because I think that cheapens the genuine article. I still drink caffeinated drinks from time to time, but I used to start with a diet Coke when I woke up and basically drank it all day. If I didn't have one by noon at the latest I would have a headache that literally prevented me from working. I felt so angry and unable to think, almost at all. I hated feeling that way. So I went old turkey for about two weeks. The first three days sucked. I mean sucked. And then I was fine.

Like I say, I might have one a day now but it doesn't effect me at all. Now I drink the caffeine free diets and water mostly.

I am the furthest thing from a hardliner on this issue.

[TripletDaddy]

Here is one anecdotal piece of evidence: one of the best things I ever did was kick my caffeine habit. I won't call it an addiction because I think that cheapens the genuine article. I still drink caffeinated drinks from time to time, but I used to start with a diet Coke when I woke up and basically drank it all day. If I didn't have one by noon at the latest I would have a headache that literally prevented me from working. I felt so angry and unable to think, almost at all. I hated feeling that way. So I went old turkey for about two weeks. The first three days sucked. I mean sucked. And then I was fine.

Like I say, I might have one a day now but it doesn't effect me at all. Now I drink the caffeine free diets and water mostly.

I am the furthest thing from a hardliner on this issue.

I dont drink it so I don't have any stories to share about quitting. I did enjoy Dew and Dr Pepper back in the day, though.

I find that the unleaded versions are pretty close to the originals, so those fit me well on the rare occasion that I am craving a can of soda. We just rarely drink any carbonation in my house, at all.

Since the caffeine free versions are almost impossible to buy in SoCal, I turn to my first love...creme soda. That stuff is delish.

Most of my friends that have dropped the caffeine from their regimen report the same thing you do....headaches for a bit, then no problems thereafter.

[RobinFinderson]

My theory is that everyone else must have a low grade headache all the time, except they just get used to it and think it is normal. Caffeine gets rid of this baseline headache. This explains why Mormons are so angry and irritable.

[ERCougar]

Here's a study in the current issue of Am Journal of Cardiology linking coffee with decreased mortality from heart disease:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19026304?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Here's an article about the one I was talking about earlier (in the Archives of Int Medicine):

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14151-guzzling-coffee-may-cut-heart-disease.html

This is my problem with these kinds of articles in the Ensign. They're not going to show the other side of things, so we don't really get a balanced treatment of the issue.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I am not doctor but a couple of years ago I did a fairly thorough review of the medical literature on studies related to caffeine (read the abstracts and conclusions of all of the articles I could find). For every one study reporting a negative effect, it seemed that there were were 10-20 showing either no effect or a positive effect. And none of the negative effects seemed too severe or high-risk.

[Surfah]

Any time I hear about the effects of caffeine I always think of the spider web experiment.

As for me, there was a time like UD when I drank Diet Coke like crazy. When I didn't have one I'd get raging headaches too. Gidget was addicted to the hard stuff, regular coca-cola, so we both encouraged each other to stop.

[woot]

My total caffeine consumption plummeted when I switched from Diet Coke to coffee. These days I have 16-20 oz of coffee 4 or 5 days a week and that's it. I used to drink several diet cokes every day, making for quite a bit more total caffeine, and a much greater expense (probably about 2 bucks per day vs $6-15 per month depending on whether I get the good stuff).

It turns out that coffee tastes a lot better, and doesn't have any of the artificial stuff that diet sodas have (not that there's any evidence that artificial stuff has a detrimental effect but it couldn't hurt to get rid of it). Now I never have any desire to drink soda.

[RobinFinderson]

A great idea for a million-dollar diet book:
identify most key calorie intake cycles that people find themselves in, and propose gimmicks for getting out of the ruts. For example, the caffeine/beer cycle (I have found myself in this one from time to time). It starts with coffee in the morning, work, work, lunch, work, feeling sleepy, coffee in the afternoon, work, work, grab a cup to stay alert on the commute, drive home, eat dinner, crap I drank too much coffee!, drink beer, watch t.v., feeling sleepy?, nope, drink beer, watch tv, fall asleep on couch, wake up, shit what time is it?, 2:00am!, stumble into bed, sleep, sleep, 6:00am alarm!, repeat.

A few more patterns like that would probably cover 95% of the world's binge routines.

[All-American]

My theory is that everyone else must have a low grade headache all the time, except they just get used to it and think it is normal. Caffeine gets rid of this baseline headache. This explains why Mormons are so angry and irritable.

You telling me that members of a religion which prohibits sex outside of marriage and suffocates sex within marriage are angry and irritable because they don't get enough caffeine? You've been gone too long, Robin.

[Gidget]

It's one of my three major food groups. The other two are salami and benefiber.

This, Il Pad, is hilarious.

I love Coke Classic, if I could I would drink 3 cans a day. Not bottles, cans. Coke is SO much better from the can. But when I stop I do get the tell tale headache. I am back on the wagon now, but when I get stressed, a can of Coke goes a long way for me.

I liked the article, I particularly liked how they were staying away from the fundamentalist view on the WOW. It's nice to know I shouldn't have to feel bad for enjoying a Coke when I feel like it, accept in Sacrament meeting of course.

[Solon]

Nice analysis and good questions, Pelagius.

It seems to me that there are some epistemological pitfalls in using science to validate doctrine like the Word of Wisdom. While I'm the first to acknowledge that living a Word-of-Wisdom lifestyle will probably make you pretty healthy in the long run, there are always exceptions, caveats, and hair-splicing.

I have several Jewish friends. A few are pretty much agnostic but still eat (mostly) kosher since they've been raised that way. My friends don't go looking for good scientific reasons to avoid shellfish, pork, and cheeseburgers. For the devout, it stems from faith and tradition. I think that approach would work for LDS as well.

[il Padrino Ute]

This, Il Pad, is hilarious.

I love Coke Classic, if I could I would drink 3 cans a day. Not bottles, cans. Coke is SO much better from the can. But when I stop I do get the tell tale headache. I am back on the wagon now, but when I get stressed, a can of Coke goes a long way for me.

I liked the article, I particularly liked how they were staying away from the fundamentalist view on the WOW. It's nice to know I shouldn't have to feel bad for enjoying a Coke when I feel like it, accept in Sacrament meeting of course.

I hope Surfah realizes what a catch you are. I'm a Coke Classic guy, but my wife drinks Pepsi. Blech!

[Fiyero]

I used to guzzle caffeine but went cold turkey four months ago, and my daily headaches and mildly sore throat and gland areas are no more. I used to take 6-8 excedrin or ibuprofin daily to counter the chronic aching, but now there is no need.

This is the second time I've given up caffeine; the first had the exact same removal of side effects. I started up again during law school and kept it up during long workdays especially when driving long distances. I have no doubt that the joy of caffeine comes laced with obnoxious side effects. Why must every rose have its thorns and weeds?

[tooblue]

I live in the land of Tim Horton’s -- a coffee and doughnut shop that also sales sandwiches and soup. In Canada Tim Horton’s franchises rival McDonalds in popularity and moneymaking value. Some economists suggest that Tim Horton’s is the more profitable franchise of the two just based upon on coffee sales alone. Right now the two franchises are duking it out. Tim Horton’s is running it’s annual Roll-up-the-rim-to-win promotion and to combat it McDonald’s has been offering a free small coffee to anyone that walks off the street -- no other purchase necessary. If I were to judge I’d say Tim Horton’s is winning the battle handily.

I can only rely on my anecdotal observations but from my perspective the addiction to coffee, especially Tim Horton’s coffee, is astounding. Consider that a few blocks from my house, on the main road through our little city about the size of Provo on Saturday and Sunday mornings the police force must send an officer to direct and divert traffic around the line-up of cars trying to get through the Tim Horton’s drive through. Also, there are no less than two Tim Horton’s franchises on my college / university campus. Students and faculty will wait in lines that run the entire length of a hallway for 15 minutes or more --no exaggeration-- for a Timmie’s coffee. Why did I say "no exaggeration"? Because I have to account for the long line-ups when I give students a break during a three-hour class.

I have two colleagues who I work closely with and consider good friends. At this time of year we interact daily as we co-teach two different courses each week. I have observed their coffee drinking habits for years. I’ve been sent on coffee runs and ordered their large double, doubles for them as I have ordered the occasional hot chocolate. We sat down once and analyzed how much they spend a week on just coffee. The topic came up at a time when they felt compelled to razz me about paying tithing and fast-offerings. A large coffee at Timmie’s -- and it can only come from Timmies -- is $ 1.38. On average each of my colleagues drinks 4 large Tim Horton’s double, doubles a day, five days a week. They also admitted to making a Timmie’s run at least once on Saturday and once on Sunday.

4 x 1.38 x 5 + 1.38 + 1.38 = 30.36 per week on coffee alone!

After doing the math one of my colleagues vowed to curtail his habit -- he even brought a coffee maker into the office. His resolve lasted a week.

I don’t have any judgments to make about its health benefits except to say that as a sufferer of irritable bowel and other stomach ailments I avoid caffeinated drinks of all kinds fairly religiously (no pun intended) because of their potential diuretic side effects. Of course I must also avoid many other foods as well.

What I do know is there is great wisdom in teachings about moderation in all things. As well, I think it is extremely wise to simply avoid many potentially addictive substances all together. As a teenager I witnessed an uncle struggle with alcoholism first-hand, it eventually killed him. I’m grateful for the Word of Wisdom and the fact that I have access to such thoughtfully worded council in a book I consider scripture that has helped me learn temperance in my own life and enables me to teach it to my children.