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Comment by robocat | Hacker News Reader

> I’ve quit cold turkey after having some anxiety problems and headaches

Use no-doz pills to quit without side effects: reduce/taper/titrate the dose down from one pill per morning to, part-pills, to none over a few weeks.

I quit every few years, and just stopping is very unpleasant. Using caffeine-only No-doz pills as above is cheap and easy. I’ve also done it by using instant coffee and reducing the size of the spoonful of coffee, although it’s mentally harder to break the habit that way. Edit: I guess heavy coffee drinkers might need to start at two pills (check dosage info on package: I've always been fine starting at one). They taste nasty bitter, but OK if quickly washed down with water.

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I didn’t know about those pills but they do contain caffeine as you say, so it was no good for me even if temporal. Some people switch to decaf coffee only to find out that it has some caffeine and still affects them. I can’t vouch for that personally but seems a common occurrence.

But it’s a good alternative for those who see it as an impossible task, and also yourself. In my case I had to take NSAIDs - which I very rarely take - for a couple days just to get by (since the vasoconstriction “feature” of coffee wasn’t present anymore, headache ensues) but then I was ok, just tired for some weeks.

Congrats on quitting!

That's a good idea. People have this weird fear of caffeine pills, but many of them are just 100mg of caffeine. That's a cup of coffee. Don't abuse them, and for what you are talking about (easing off caffeine) they are are a great way to easily taper your dose, which can be hard with liquids.

Fear of accidentally high doses of caffeine is founded, especially if you don't fully trust the measurement or quality (e.g. for those sourced from a certain knock-off-prone online retailer).

Excedrin is acetaminophen, aspirin, and caffeine so it helps with the headache and allows you to taper off the caffeine. I trust the accuracy of GSK’s dosage infinitely more than I trust some gas station caffeine pills for college kids.

I think worrying about measurement or quality is being over-cautious. Caffeine is not difficult to source high purity since it is added to drinks etc, and is extracted AFAIK, so risks of quality issues are low. Measurement risks are low because 100mg is a sizeable percentage of the pill volume, so it would be very difficult to reach a bad dose (let alone a lethal dose of 100 pills). 100mg is what you might get from a large or strong cup of coffee. If worried, buy a known brand from a pharmacy for maybe the price of two coffees.

are you serious? tapering liquid coffee is much easier than breaking 100mg pills into smaller sizes.

source: i've quit coffee numerous times, just drink less each day, it's super easy.

Rather than drink less quantity (I don't wanna drink a quarter cup of coffee!), the easiest way I've found is to gradually titrate the coffee with decaf. That way you're not disrupting the ritual while you break the chemical addiction. The same method (gradually turning down the dose, while still indulging the ritual) has seen excellent results for nicotine addiction by using a vape.

Tapering makes a huge difference, and in my own experience, you can taper down pretty quickly. I went from ~5 cups per day down to 1 in 3 days and didn’t really notice it. Caffeine withdrawal from 1 cup a day isn’t that bad.

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